With patients increasingly more educated about products and therapies, Healthcare Professionals’ in-depth and up to date knowledge is more important than ever before.
For Healthcare Professionals (HCPs) already in practice, the traditional approach to acquiring this critical information beyond medical journals and Continuing Medical Education (CME) has been live dinner meetings.
HCPs have favored this approach to learning because it offers:
- The best learning experience between peers (The Socratic Method)
- An ability to engage directly with renowned Key Opinion Leader (KOLs)
However, the format has its limitations:
- Clinicians have limited time and availability
- There is an increasing number of “No-See” clinicians
- Younger clinicians’ prefer access via digital media
To put it briefly, while the traditional face to face engagement remains a must, digital is admittedly now crucial to boost HCP engagement.
The great news is that, instead of seeing one format cannibalizing the other, each of them can and must contribute to the other’s optimization!
A few tips on how to combine face to face and digital at your KOL dinner meetings:
Digital at the service of your KOL dinner meetings:
- Increase the visibility of your event by promoting it in advance through teaser videos from your KOL (“Looking forward to speaking at the next xxx symposium, see you there!)
- Satellite meetings: use available technology to interact on video between several locations
- Extend the reach by broadcasting your KOL dinner meetings. Your audience is asking for flexibility.
- Get the audience to engage with mobile apps such as SpotMe
Your KOL dinner meetings at the service of digital
The voice of KOLs is precious. Often, hearing the KOL speak offers the highest value to HCPs. Considering the lack of time KOLs (and you) often have, your dinner clearly is a unique opportunity which you need to use to its fullest!
- Create additional video content at digital KOL dinner meetings. There’s usually a high-quality AV team at your service to film what you ask. Don’t limit this to the main presentation, but also leverage it for:
- Interactions between your audience and the KOL, or between peers (that is content gold). Use this as digital content and share via portals, emails, content for MedReps etc.
- Interview your KOL before or after your live webcast. Prepare questions in advance even sent to her/him in advance if possible), prepare a background for the video, get the AV team to provide or select a suitable location within the venue, and press record.
- Integrate: Whether your audience is joining on-site or virtually, make sure you optimize your reporting by integrating with your CRM platform. Veeva, for instance, is there to assist your MedReps by identifying the most relevant ways to help their targeted HCPs. Interactions logged during an audience touch point are often of great value:“..at our last webcast, I noticed you were looking for further information on secondary effects for xxx… here is further information about it..”
The Outcome
You kill 2 birds with one stone!
While you provide the best possible face to face engagement for everybody who can make it to your dinner, you also create high-quality digital content and an equal volume of potential touch points between your MedReps and HCPs.
Do you need assistance with the digital side of things? Visit our website to learn more and get in touch with our Digital Engagement Team.
