Association meetings are in full swing! It’s time to catch up with old friends, observe the competition, learn about ground-breaking science, and hear about the late-breaking clinical trials. There is always so much to accomplish and so little time to do it all. An important objective of attending an association conference is to meet and engage with the Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) in your therapeutic area.
While this may seem simple in theory, your competitors also have the same goal. Time is of the essence to network and interact with targeted KOLs with whom you’d like to collaborate for speaker’s bureau activities, curriculum development, clinical trial design, brand insights, and more.
Plan Your Time Wisely
It pays to plan ahead and be intentional as you organize both formal and informal KOL activities at association meetings. View these as opportunities to build the foundation for successful, lasting professional relationships with your KOLs. Research in advance:
1. Which KOLs will be attending the meeting? Will their colleagues also be there?
2. How can you attract these KOLs with compelling content to stimulate conversation?
3. Which activities will lead to follow-up discussions and future engagements?
Partnering with an experienced med comm agency can give your team the edge in creating events that ensure each one of these touch points are perfectly optimized to foster the most meaningful interactions.
Here are three strategies to make the most of your time with desired KOLs at association meetings:
1. Host an Advisory Board Meeting
Association meetings offer convenient venues for engaging a group of KOLs because they are already attending the conference. This allows you to convene a team of leading experts together for an advisory board session while they’re in town. Use this time to host a guided, interactive session where you can glean insights, debate science, gather feedback on your brand’s educational strategy, or probe any number of other topics. For more tips on holding advisory board meetings, download our white paper “Best Practices and Proven Processes for Advisory Board Planning” here.
2. Coordinate Dinner Events
Association meetings are a perfect opportunity to build and strengthen KOL relationships. Invite 10 to 20 of your top KOLs to join your colleagues to connect for an hour or two outside of the association meeting. You can serve hors d’oeuvres and beverages or host a sit-down dinner. Either setting will help to spark insightful conversations about the association meeting, as well as open the door for follow-up discussions afterwards.
It’s important to remember that this kind of event should not be promotional in any way and should simply be an opportunity for you and your team to connect with KOLs as friends and colleagues. In light of the OIG’s 2021 special fraud alert on speaker programs and overall increased scrutiny within the industry, it may be helpful to collaborate with a trusted agency partner who can work with your compliance team to ensure that all of your engagement strategies meet the highest ethical standards.
3. Conduct Executive Encounters
Executive Encounters provide your company’s leadership with the opportunity to interface with KOLs attending association meetings. The objective of one-to-one briefings is to gain a better understanding of the KOL’s interests in a given therapeutic area and provide insights into topics of clinical or educational importance to your brand. With the right planning and preparation, this strategy has the benefit of feeling like an informal off-the-cuff session that allows high-level executives in your organization to interact with the best and brightest KOLs and build relationships.
Advance recruitment – your agency partner can cross-reference your list of targeted KOLs against registered association meeting attendees to identify who will be attending and then reach out to gauge their interest in meeting with your company’s executive(s)
Correspondence – your agency will help you prepare and issue invitations, meeting confirmations and reminders, and thank you notes to maximize KOL participation and minimize no-shows
Key questions – to make the most of your time with KOLs, your med comm partner can develop an agenda of recommended questions to steer the conversation and get the insights you need from each
Executive Encounters onsite management – your agency can coordinate meeting room logistics (whether onsite at the convention center or offsite at a hotel suite or other location), greet each KOL and help them locate the meeting room, and even attend Executive Encounters to listen and capture insights from the conversation if desired
Post-program follow-up – your agency partner can provide you with a report of attendees and no-shows and handle program closeout with a final aggregate report upon completion of the Executive Encounter series
A Final Thought
Make sure to be intentional with your plan at association events to meet and spend time with the experts. The more effectively you plan your schedule, the more successful your KOL interactions will be. These activities are often cumulative. By creating opportunities that make a positive impression, the more likely you are going to gain interest from KOLs at association meetings and beyond.
Let’s Connect
Learn more about how Vision2Voice can support your KOL engagement strategy at association meetings here or drop us a line:
