Conference Planning Part 1: Impactful Pre-Conference Strategies You Can Use Right Now

When conference season ends, strategy season begins! This is the first installment in a series of blogs to help you successfully generate more leads after an event through strategy. Analyzing what you should be doing before, during, and after a conference will directly translate to more leads, higher returns on investment (ROI), and more sales.

Anybody can start preparing for a medical conference 30 days before, but will the event generate tangible results like your job depends on it? The truth of the matter is that when marketing leaders fail to generate tangible results, they lose their jobs fast. That’s why Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) are frequently listed as having one of the highest turnover rates in the entire C-suite. 

If keeping your job requires delivering on results, you need to start planning 120 days before an event or conference for maximum results. WireBuzz is here to be your best friend for growth, ready to maximize ROI and results through planning before a conference starts. 

Interested in learning more? Download our Ultimate Conference Checklist for a comprehensive look into the steps and assets your team can take for a successful event ROI. Schedule your strategy session today to make an impact at your next medical or life science conference.

How Journey Pages Lead to Results

This window of opportunity before a big conference is ideal for results-focused marketers to create unique journey pages for each of their different persona groups. A journey page should act as the ultimate, single-page guide for your different defined personas. It's your one-stop central location designed specifically for one of your very specific persona groups to learn everything they need to know before scheduling a meeting with your sales team. Creating journey pages before conferences is essential because they serve as the ultimate digital destination for your attendees—a starting line where prospects can learn more, achieve clarity, and easily schedule a meeting with your rep. 

If you have more than one type of persona attending your event, you’ll need to create unique pages for each of them. Why? Because one-size-fits-all marketing isn't relevant enough to your prospects to convert them at a high enough rate to deliver a significant ROI. You can also look at it this way: the more personalized and relevant the journey page is, the higher their interest, attention span, and conversion rate. Your journey pages created during the pre-event phase will engage your audience in learning more about your solution. 

During the event itself, you should leverage different journey pages to target, influence, and engage with specific persona groups that were previously defined. It's like funneling prospects down the path that's designed to specifically solve their needs, pains, and frustrations. If you create them before your next event, your sales and marketing teams will be able to use these journey pages year-round serving as a useful strategy for your conference preparation toolbox.

The 80/20 Event Marketing Rule

Take into consideration other factors that could impact your strategy during the pre-event phase. Who will be attending? Who won't be? What is the ratio of the total audience size at the event to your ideal target customer size? Will there be any key opinion leaders (KOLs) attending? What type of news, developments, data, research posters, or clinical trials will be announced at the event? These questions are essential because they give you better insight into your actual audience size. While 20% of your target health care providers could be attending the event, a smart strategy team would also be focusing on the other 80% who might not be attending the event but are still hungry for content they missed out on.

Don’t Be a Fly on the Wall

If you're hosting a speech, a lecture, or a product theater, a smart strategist can help you turn those opportunities into content capturing moments. By recording the speech, dinner, lecture, data announcement, or new poster, you will be able to engage 100% of your prospects, not just the 20% that attend the event. Clearly, maximizing your marketing exposure and then your sales results isn't something you can throw together at the 11^th hour.

Missing this step in pre-event planning means losing ROI. If you aren't strategizing how to optimize your results from the event’s investment, you’ll fail to generate real results. And we want to help you win every time you invest marketing resources.

Make an Impact and Start Prepping Today

We know what it takes to truly get the most out of your event. Make your next event ROI positive by scheduling your WireBuzz Strategy Session today! Make sure to download our Conference Preparation Checklist for more.

Like what you’re learning? Be on the lookout for the next installment in our event lead generation series: how to optimize your strategy while attending the conference.