The national congress for the specialty is ten days away. A company's post appears on LinkedIn: the logo, the name of the congress, “visit us at our booth” with the number, the dates, and a promise of promotions and giveaways. An orthopedic surgeon who sees it can't tell what they'll find at that booth, or whether it has anything to do with the surgeries they perform.
During those same weeks, an equipment company circulated another announcement, built on a different logic: a working lunch at the congress, with a specialist presenting a specific case using a particular piece of equipment, on a set day and at a set time. A single piece covered the product, who explains it, what procedure it's for, and when to be there. A physician who reads it can decide whether it's of interest before arriving at the congress.
Both pieces were well designed. Only the second one gave physicians a reason to come by.
What a good announcement says
A congress is a packed schedule. Physicians choose which symposium to attend and which booths to visit between sessions, and the piece that reaches them beforehand competes with all of that. To be chosen, it has to answer four things:
- Which product or system will be shown, by name, and whether people can touch it, try it, or see it on a model.
- Who explains it. A specialist with a name and a specialty carries more weight than “our team.” If it's a well-known colleague, they're the draw.
- What it's for, described through the clinical application or the procedure, not through the material's attributes.
- When. The day and time of the symposium, workshop, or demo. The booth number helps people find them; the time helps people plan.
Promotions and giveaways can be included, but they don't replace any of the four. What can be claimed about the product in each country is defined by the company's regulatory team; how the information is organized in the piece is a communication decision.
How far ahead, and on which channels
In this industry, pre-congress communication works better as a short sequence than as a single announcement. A schedule that works as a starting point, counted back from the congress date:
- Three or four weeks before: the announcement of what will be presented, especially if there's a symposium with limited seats or registration. A newsletter to the list of healthcare professionals, the company's LinkedIn, and a heads-up to distributors, who also have physicians to notify.
- Two weeks before: a piece dedicated to the specialist or the case being presented. It's the one that gets forwarded most among colleagues.
- The week of the congress: the reminder with the day, time, and place, and the message each sales rep forwards to their physicians on WhatsApp, written so it doesn't look like a mass mailing.
- On the day: what's happening at the booth, in stories and short posts.
The Sales team needs to have everything before the public does. They're the ones physicians will ask first, and the ones who can invite people by name.
Where each piece leads
Each of those pieces has a link, and that link is the most neglected decision. If they all lead to the home page or to a WhatsApp number, the physician who wanted to know more lands somewhere that knows nothing about the congress.
What's worth building on the website before the first piece goes out is a page for the company's presence at the congress: what's being presented, the specialist with their profile, the day and time of each activity, the booth number, and registration if needed. From there, a link to the product page of each product on display. The product page has to be published and complete by that date (what that involves for a new product is covered in Launching a medical device).
With that page, each channel has a destination that picks up where it leaves off: the newsletter leads to the activity, the specialist's piece leads to their profile and the symposium, and the sales rep's message leads to the full page. And if the printed material at the booth is going to have a QR code, that URL is defined now, because it can't be changed later (The QR code is already printed).
What gets decided in the same meeting
The announcement and what happens after the congress are planned together. Whether the symposium will be recorded, whether the specialist agrees to have their slides published, who takes note of the questions: all of that is agreed beforehand, with the program in hand.
The congress page built for the announcement isn't deleted the following Monday. It's the page that welcomes the physician who saw the product at the booth and looks it up that night, and the one that later becomes an archive, as described in The content that outlives the event.
Services covered in this article
