Key Takeaways:
- 47% of HCPs want to hear from industry before, during and after congress.
- Congress reach is capped by room capacity, leaving untapped audiences.
- Repurpose existing content to maximise value without increasing production.
Most congress activity follows a familiar arc: months of planning, faculty alignment and medical review, backed by a six-figure investment.
Then the symposium takes place. Delegates hear your data, but when they leave, the opportunity to engage them often goes with them, with no built-in way to extend reach or measure impact.
Scale adds another challenge. Major congresses attract more than 40,000 HCPs, meaning your symposium competes with countless other sessions, and many delegates may not attend at all.
Yet the science remains relevant long after the event. Without a plan to extend its reach, your symposium risks becoming a sunk cost, its value limited to a single day.
The gap is distribution
The obvious fix might be to create more materials, from new slide decks to supplementary publications. But why start from scratch when the content already exists?
Repurposing and redistributing your symposium reaches specialists who couldn’t attend, reinforces understanding among those who did and extends the value of your original investment.
Delivery, however, makes or breaks the effort. That is where a trusted publication comes in, one that can tailor how your science is delivered so it reaches the right specialists in a format they value.
What the data reveals
Our research found that 47% of HCPs want to hear from industry before, during and after events. Their preferred formats are:
- Post-event summaries (46%)
- On-demand recordings (41%)
- Real-time highlights (30%)
- Pre-event previews (20%)
Post-event summaries and recordings lead the way, highlighting the value of making congress content accessible on demand with a respected source.
How EMJ extends your congress impact
That appetite is what EMJ’s post-event offer is built around, with three mechanisms available to turn a single session into a lasting, evergreen resource.
- Symposium summaries, live within six weeks. Our editorial and videography teams turn your session into an on-demand article or video while the topic is still current, giving HCPs a resource they can revisit and share with colleagues whenever it suits them.
- Distribution through EMJ’s specialist email database. We can segment by therapy area and specialty, sending your content directly to the most relevant HCPs to your brand. And with one million HCPs across 18 therapy areas, your target audience is already within reach.
- Amplification across social channels. We can promote your content across our social channels through organic or paid activity, putting it in front of the specific clinicians you want to engage and taking your message well beyond the congress.
The case for this is clinical as well as commercial. IQVIA research finds that 90% of HCPs say access to information beyond the event helps them apply new medical approaches faster, which makes post-congress distribution far more than a pleasant extra. It is a meaningful part of your congress strategy.
Demonstrating ROI
Of course, extending your congress presence also needs evidence behind it. We know how important it is to demonstrate a return on investment from your symposium activity, particularly when it comes to extending the value of that initial outlay.
That’s why we can deliver tailored insight reports aligned to your business objectives, whether your priorities are clicks, opens, impressions, views, sign-ups or something else entirely. We can give you the data you need to demonstrate impact and prove that your investment delivered.
Making the six figures work harder
Ultimately, the real cost of congress is not the six figures spent, but the fact that those six figures bought an audience of one day. Extending your content to the right specialists after the event is what turns a sunk cost into a compounding one.
Your next symposium is already taking shape. Make it work harder after congress. Talk to our team about extending your content’s reach, impact and value.
