There are many channels that these healthcare companies grow by, and we’d like to elaborate on a very crucial one: 1:1 B2B Meetings at healthcare events. This is a small part of their entire marketing plan and is a very crucial and extremely effective channel.
While researching this piece, we looked at a lot of resources only to find that there wasn’t much information available online. Which increased our resolve to bring to you some insightful information about healthcare events.
Let’s look at the most common challenges faced in conducting 1:1 Meetings at Healthcare events.
1. Planning and scheduling
Challenge: Planning the meeting well in advance of the event so it’s easier to grab the target’s attention as well as confirm the time with them.
The first step towards conducting meetings is to plan the meeting well in advance. And the meeting needs to be scheduled in time to give ample time for the attendees to get themselves ready for the meetings – if this invite is sent too early, it might just end up slipping their mind. Sure, they’ll get a reminder, but they might not even remember accepting the invite.
Challenge: Ensuring meeting requests are error-free.
All the planning in the world will come down to naught if the meeting data is wrong. With a high volume of meeting requests being sent, human errors are bound to happen, especially if meetings are being scheduled manually.
This is another pitfall of using Excel to manage calendars, where executive calendars have limited or zero visibility. It’s been quite common to see executives being booked twice for the same slots – which puts a lot of people in a delicate situation.
Event planners spend a lot of time doing a lot of different tasks and they are generally pressed for time. What adds to this is the task of keeping the meetings machine running – making sure there are no double-bookings, keeping track of last-minute changes, rescheduling and updating meeting agendas. This can be a handful for people already burdened with running all the other aspects of the event.
2. Getting confirmed meetings
Challenge: Getting external parties (HCPs, customers) to accept the meeting invite.
Meetings can only go forward when attendees agree to attend. External participants in healthcare meetings have their own agenda when the come to an event, so getting them to accept your meeting invite is a task.
Challenge: Getting a large enough number of meetings to justify the budget spend for the next year.
Events have become an ROI driven affairs, and everyone expects more than just impressions. Getting enough confirmed meetings, and ensuring that these meetings further the sales agenda makes a better case for the next year, probably with an even bigger budget.
3. Executive calendars
Challenge: Ensuring that during events executive calendars are filled with important meetings and these meetings run smoothly.
Healthcare executives are an incredibly valuable resource in meetings because they can help speed up your sales cycle. So it’s prudent to get the most out of their time that they are there, and that they are attending the meetings that matter the most. Meeting requests need to be prioritized by deal size and value, and this calls for better visibility into executive calendars.
4. Meeting Management
Challenge: Ensuring all planned meetings actually happen, all company executives are where they are meant to be, and HCPs/customers experience an exceptional brand interaction.
Meeting compliance has been a problem ever since we started having meetings, and you know it best. Also, if your internal attendees have no set agenda People decline meetings or end up as no-shows for various reasons, but there’s still a lot we could be doing to drive up these numbers.
5. 1:1 meeting metrics
Challenge: Defining the value of meetings and measuring the relevant meeting metrics.
All meetings have to achieve an outcome, and the value of said meeting rests on meetings those pre-defined objectives. The success of a meeting is not singular either, and there are multiple metrics that shed light on the quality of meeting success.
Collecting the right kind of data to build reports on these metrics. We can hazard an educated guess to say that very little data is collected about B2B meetings. Data about meeting duration and number of attendees can offer valuable insights into what works and push us along our relentless path onto optimization.
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These are all the common challenges that occur in conducting and managing 1:1 meetings at Healthcare events. We have co-produced a whitepaper with HCEA about 1:1 meetings at healthcare events, which offers a holistic view of the event meetings landscape and the best practices to solve the above problems.
