In today’s competitive market, carrying out a successful pharma product launch is essential to achieving your company’s goals. With so much on the line, you need to get it right the first time.
One of the most impactful channels to use when launching a pharmaceutical product is strategic events. When done well, pharma product launch events create buzz, educate HCPs, and motivate sales reps and leadership.
But, executing flawless events as part of your pharma product launch strategy requires extensive planning, resources, and experience. If you want to ensure your pharma product launch events drive real results, follow these proven best practices.
By focusing on the details, staying on message, and leveraging the power of experience, you can create events that accelerate your pharma product’s path to success. With the secrets to delivering successful engaging pharma product launch events in this guide, your product will hit the ground running.
Define Your Pharma Product Launch Goals And Strategy
Define Your Goals And Strategy
To have a successful pharma product launch, you must first define your goals and develop a comprehensive strategy. Some key considerations include:
- Identify your target audience: Are you focused on physicians, nurses, physician assistants, or a combination? Determining your key HCPs will guide your messaging and outreach.
- Set clear objectives: Do you want to raise awareness, educate HCPs about clinical data, gain early adopters, or drive prescriptions? Establishing distinct goals will shape your tactics and metrics for success.
- Develop your messaging: Craft compelling messages highlighting your product’s key benefits and differentiation. Align messaging across all channels for consistency in your pharma marketing strategy.
- Choose impactful launch activities: A mix of live and virtual engagement is ideal. Live medical education symposia, advisory boards, and speaker programs are highly valued by HCPs. Webinars, eLearning, and virtual congresses also have a role. An interactive and personalized event app can boost engagement for all activities.
- Leverage data insights: Use attendee data from your events to gain valuable insights into HCP interests and behavior. Feed these insights back into your pharma CRM to optimize future outreach. Continually track metrics to measure progress against your goals.
- Provide ongoing support: Continue to engage HCPs with educational resources, live and on-demand content to solidify your messaging after the initial launch period. Staying connected and responsive to customers builds loyalty and boosts prescriptions long-term.
Following these best practices will position your pharma product launch for success and maximum impact. Defining a comprehensive strategy, developing a targeted yet multi-channel approach, and leveraging data and technology solutions are key to winning in today’s competitive marketplace.
Create Excitement Pre-Pharma Product Launch With Teaser Campaigns
To generate excitement for your pharma product launch, implement a strategic teaser campaign in the months leading up to the event.
Build Anticipation
Dropping hints about your new product without revealing too much detail will capture interest and keep guests speculating. Tease information on your website and social media, through event emails to your mailing list, and at other industry events you attend. For example, you might share a product slogan or code name and ask people to guess what it is.
Create A Countdown
As the launch gets closer, share more details to create a sense of building momentum. For instance, reveal parts of your product logo or packaging design each week. Or highlight different product benefits and features in a series of social media posts or email newsletters. A countdown creates excitement by giving people a sense of progress toward the final reveal.
Drive Event Registration
A strategic teaser campaign should ultimately drive registrations for your product launch event. Once you announce the date and location details, the hype you’ve built will prompt people to sign up right away to be among the first to experience the new product in person. Offer an early bird discount or other incentive to encourage swift registration. And make sure you have event registration software that is fully customizable to your brand, easy to use, and can create a personalized journey for each individual HCP.
Deliver On The Hype
At the pharma product launch event, ensure you have an impactful product reveal and experience that lives up to the anticipation. Use interactive and engaging elements to showcase your product in an exciting way. Your HCPs will appreciate that you delivered on your promises and provided an opportunity to be part of something new in an exclusive setting.
A successful teaser campaign piques interest in your pharmaceutical product launch, builds momentum for your pharma product launch event, and delivers an experience that matches the hype. By strategically revealing details to generate speculation and creating a sense of progress toward the final unveil, you’ll have guests eagerly awaiting the chance to see your new product in person.
Plan An Engaging Live Or Virtual Pharma Product Launch Event
To achieve a successful pharma product launch, planning an impactful launch event is key. When launching a pharmaceutical product, in-person, virtual, or hybrid events are highly effective at educating customers and generating excitement. Consider the following best practices when planning your event:
- Host an in-person event to build personal connections. However, make it hybrid by offering a live stream or recording the event for those unable to attend. Promote the event through emails, social media, and your website.
- Create an engaging program. Include presentations from leadership, medical experts, KOLs, and patients highlighting the product’s benefits. Also incorporate interactive elements like Q&A sessions, panels, and product demonstrations.
- Focus on experience. For an in-person event, select a venue that reinforces your brand image and an interactive mobile event app. For a virtual event, use an engaging virtual event platform and optimize the user experience. In either format, provide resources for attendees to actively engage with the content.
- Generate media buzz. Invite journalists, bloggers, and industry influencers to build awareness. Offer embargoed media kits with the product news release, fact sheets, and images within your event app. Pitch reporter meetups or exclusives with company leaders.
- Follow up and measure impact. Send a post-event email with presentations, video recordings, and photos. Survey attendees about their perceptions and what they found most valuable. Monitor media coverage and social media mentions to gauge overall reach and sentiment.
“Any FAQs that are captured during the Q&A, for example, are perfect to help you develop future promotional materials and will help prepare sales reps for the types of questions doctors are going to ask when they go and knock on their doors.”
By applying these best practices, you can host a pharma product launch event that inspires your customers and sets the stage for a successful product launch. Through a combination of live, virtual, and hybrid event elements as well as comprehensive follow-up, your pharma product will gain valuable exposure and connect with the audiences that matter most.
For ideas and benchmarks, read our latest article about HCP event engagement.
Leverage Technology To Enhance The Pharma Product Launch Event Experience
Leveraging technology at your pharma product launch event can significantly enhance the attendee experience and drive greater engagement. By incorporating a mobile event app, live polling, gamification, and more into your pharma product launch event strategy, you enable a highly interactive experience that fuels meaningful connections between your brand and HCPs.
Empower HCPs With A Dedicated Event App
An event app allows you to put vital event information directly into the hands of attendees. HCPs can view their own personalized agenda, session details, speaker bios, interactive maps, and more to help them navigate the pharma product launch event. They can also connect with fellow attendees through networking tools, ask questions, and provide feedback. For your brand, an event app generates data on attendee interests and engagement that feeds into your CRM platform, creating an omnichannel event journey.
To see some of the event apps SpotMe has created for leading life science and pharmaceutical companies, visit our customer page.
Engage And Assess Instantly
Live polling during sessions is an easy way to spark discussion and gain instant feedback on your content or pharma products. Ask HCPs their opinions on trends in the therapeutic area or their experiences with current treatment options. Their responses can guide an open Q&A to address their concerns and shape future pharma product launch events.
Boost Engagement With Gamification
Gamification, such as leaderboards, badges, and points, taps into attendees’ competitive spirit to motivate engagement. Have HCPs earn points for interacting with your brand, then offer rewards and recognition on a leaderboard. This strategy boosts time spent with your brand both during and after your pharma product launch event.
Develop And Share Compliant Content
If you want to achieve a high attendance rate and keep HCPs engaged at your pharma product launch event, content has to be engaging and adhere to all pharma compliance regulations. All claims presented at the event must be validated and evidenced by clinical studies. Having one-click access, Q&A moderation, job code displays from MLR reviews, and on-screen disclaimers are just some ways to be compliant while using event technology.
Remove Any Language Barriers
Depending on the size of your pharmaceutical product launch, your event may be local, regional, or global. And if it’s on a global level, you may have doctors, HCPs, nurses, or KOLs whose native language isn’t English. To avoid any miscommunication, you can use live captioning or translations within your event platform.
Monitor Post-Event Behavior Change
Like all of your other events, your pharma product launch strategy should be an omnichannel journey and you should monitor how HCP behavior changes after your event if you want to understand the effect it has had on them. Collecting attendee data and following through with them post event using records fed from your event platform to your CRM is crucial to tracking the success of your pharma product launch and the increase in prescriptions.
By leveraging technology in these interactive ways at your pharma product launch event, you can gain valuable insights into HCPs’ perspectives and strengthen their connection to your brand. An event app, live polling, and gamification create a personalized experience for attendees that will leave a lasting impression. With the support of an experienced event technology partner that offers professional white-glove services alongside its event solution, you can implement an effective, compliant pharma product launch strategy to achieve your event goals and gain a competitive advantage.
Looking for an external agency to help manage the event technology for your pharma product launch events? Check out our recommendations of the top medcomms companies and pharma event management companies.
Measure Success And Optimize Future Pharmaceutical Product Launches
Once your pharma product launch events have finished, take the time to measure their success and determine key learnings to optimize future events.
“After your pharma product launch, you want to trigger some kind of post-event follow-up, so there’s an organic reason why a sales rep or MSL should go and knock on a doctor’s door and be able to continue a conversation they’re already aware of. The sales rep could open with “I saw you attended the ESMO event in Madrid and I was wondering what were the most interesting sessions for you?” Having this organic touchpoint or kickoff point to start a conversation is crucial. But you can only do this if you use event technology to track attendance at your pharma product launch event and store it in your CRM to make it part of the omnichannel journey.”
Review Event Metrics
Carefully analyze all available event metrics and KPIs, including:
- Event registration and attendance rates. Compare to goals and past events.
- Content engagement like session attendance, interactions, downloads. See what topics and formats resonated most with HCPs.
- Social media mentions and shares during and after the event. Monitor relevant event hashtags.
- Post-event survey results on attendee experience, key takeaways, and intent to prescribe or recommend the product. Look for trends in the data.
Debrief With Internal Teams
Meet with internal cross-functional teams involved in the pharma product launch to review successes, challenges, and opportunities for improvement. Discuss:
- Feedback from sales representatives and medical science liaisons on attendee questions and concerns. Address any knowledge gaps.
- Lessons learned from the event planning and execution process. Identify ways to streamline efforts for the next pharma product launch.
- Technologies, formats, or experiences that enhanced HCP engagement. Explore expanding their use at future events.
Refine Your Pharma Product Launch Strategy
With the insights gained, work to strengthen your overall pharma product launch strategy and approach to events:
- Re-evaluate audience targeting to ensure you are engaging KOLs and high-value prescribers with the greatest potential to influence peers.
- Determine how to improve content based on attendee interests. Refresh or replace underperforming content.
- Continue an active social media presence to stay engaged with event attendees and extend the product conversation.
- Plan additional regional or local events, webinars, or peer education as needed to address any remaining questions or objections among target audiences.
By taking the time to properly measure your success, debrief, and refine your pharma product launch strategy after events, you can achieve maximum and lasting impact from the investments in your pharma product launch. Continuous optimization will enable you to accelerate product adoption and growth.
Get The Most Out Of Your Pharma Product Launch Events With SpotMe’s Event Platform
A successful pharma product launch event leaves a lasting impression and fuels excitement and demand for your new product.
But without the right HCP event platform, engaging HCPs is almost impossible in this digital era. By using SpotMe’s fully compliant end-to-end event platform which has countless management and engagement tools, you’ll achieve a pharma product launch event that inspires your audience and accelerates your pharma product’s path to success.
With 20+ years of unrivaled experience in the event tech industry, SpotMe is the first choice for enterprise event engagement in high-touch industries. Our event technology is trusted by 12,000+ event builders worldwide, including 10 of the top 20 life science companies such as J&J, Novartis, Roche, Sanofi, and GSK.
To find out how to leverage SpotMe to ensure your pharma product launch event is the catalyst that propels your product to new heights, schedule a live demo now.
