Effective Conference Promotion Requires More Than a "Contra" Media Partner Deal

Many conference promoters request a free listing in the Web version of the Pharma Marketing Network (PMN) Conference Calendar, in exchange for "Media Partner Recognition." The latter usually includes placing the PMN logo and link somewhere on the conference site -- either at the bottom of the conference home page or on an internal Media Partner page. Sometimes, such recognition also includes a short paragraph description and inclusion of the PMN logo in the printed conference brochure that is handed out to attendees.

These "contra" deals are valuable to conference producers who often must promote their conferences on a limited budget and PMN is happy to help our clients reach their goals while at the same time informing our Web audience of interesting pharmaceutical industry conferences.

But let's look at some numbers to see if  a pure "contra" deal is the best option for your conference.

The Web version of the Pharma Marketing Conference Calendar receives over 2,500 unique visits PER WEEK. Usually, for strict swap deals, the listing of your conference begins 45 days prior to the event. Thus, your conference listing is potentially seen by over 16,000 visitors! So, getting your conference listed in this calendar is very valuable.

A version of the PMN conference calendar -- Conference Calendar Update -- is sent via email to all 8,000 Pharma Marketing News subscribers every 2 weeks. It is the emailed version of the Update that generates the greatest number of clickthroughs.

If you just promote your conference via a Media Partner contra deal, your conference only appears in the Web calendar and NOT in the Update email version sent to all subscribers. The result is fewer clickthroughs on your conference listing.

Here's a typical timeline showing the clickthroughs on a conference that is listed in BOTH calendars:

Notice how many more clicks this conference gets from the email Update version of the calendar (the tall bars). A pure Media Partnership contra deal only gets you about 25% or less of the potential clickthroughs you would get with a paid, discounted Media Partnership deal that includes the listing in the Update.

Obviously, neither PMN nor its clients can reach their financial goals via pure "contra" Media Partner deals alone. Sometimes you need a more integrated, paid campaign that is more likely to get you results. What you pay for this -- at a discounted Media Partner rate -- can be a fraction of the return you are likely to get in increased registration fees.

Topics of Interest to Pharma Marketing News Subscribers & Pharmaguy Followers

Advertisers often ask questions such as "How many of your subscribers are involved in data or marketing analytics and market research?" One way to answer this question is by surveying Pharma Marketing News (PMN) subscribers and Pharmaguy™ Twitter followers to learn more about our audience and their interests.

Without further ado, here are the results of surveys to date. Remember, every e-mail ad (blast) sent to the PMN subscriber list is also posted to the Pharma Marketing Network® web site. When the e-mail goes out, a tweet is also sent to Pharmaguy followers -- learn more about them here -- with a link to the Web version of the e-mail blast. In addition, the ad is also summarized with a link in a "Messages from Our Sponsors" widget (see an example on the right) embedded on the most-visited pages of the Pharma Marketing Network. Thus, your ad reaches many more pharma professionals than just our subscribers and followers.

Topics of Interest to PMN Subscribers (N = 437)

(Click on the chart for an enlarged view)

Topics of Interest to Pharmaguy Followers (N = 2032)

(Click on the chart for an enlarged view)

A Twitter Campaign Can Reach a Whole New Pharma Marketing Network Audience

Over the past year, I have noticed that Twitter has been used by more and more Pharma Marketing Network advertisers to promote their events, white papers, expertise, and even their products and services.

Many advertisers have their own Twitter accounts, but a few also take advantage of Pharma Marketing Network's Twitter account (@pharmaguy) to have "Pharmaguy" send out tweets on their behalf. DISCLOSURE: In case you didn't know, Pharmaguy is me, John Mack, Publisher of Pharma Marketing News. You can find an archive of Pharmaguy tweets here.

Factoid: The use of Twitter among the nation’s largest corporations has nearly doubled: 60% of companies listed on the 2010 Fortune 500 have a corporate Twitter account with at least one tweet issued in the previous 30 days, up from 35% who did so a year earlier, according to research from the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth. Meanwhile, 56% of Fortune 500 companies have a Facebook profile.

Over 26,600 people follow Pharmaguy on Twitter as of October, 2016, and that number is growing rapidly.

Twitter is an effective channel for reaching an entirely NEW Pharma Marketing Network audience; ie, Pharmaguy's Twitter followers. To learn more about this audience, every new Pharmaguy follower is asked to complete the Pharmaguy "Getting to Know You Twitter Survey." Over 1,500 have complied and given valuable feedback about who they are and what they are interested in (see a detailed summary here).

A single tweet, however, is fleeting; the vast majority of Pharmaguy followers may never see it.  An independent Twitter Campaign may include SEVERAL tweets that link directly to the registration page.

The typical Pharmaguy Twitter Campaign includes 6  tweets sent on different days/times to Pharmaguy's followers. Each tweet is uniquely worded as in the following example (this campaign is not related to the CD offer above):

Check out the aggregate results of the ePrints Medical Marketing Survey commissioned by Reprints Desk: http://goo.gl/tb94 [Sent 25-Oct, 10:30 AM]

Top 2 uses for eReprints 4 physicians according to ReprintsDesk survey are Websites & portals; slide 5: http://goo.gl/tb94 #epharma [Sent 27-Oct, 10:30 AM]

Multiple contact pts., diff licensing T&Cs r top probs in use of clinical eReprints by pharma says ReprintsDesk survey: http://goo.gl/tb94 [Sent 28-Oct, 10:30 AM]

Good Promotional Practices Alliance (GPPa) is sponsored & managed by Prolifiq Software and Reprints Desk. #gppnews http://goo.gl/X3kO [Sent 28-Oct, 1:45 PM]

#FF @GPPnews For best pharma collaborative practice 4 sales, marketing & reg compliance. Also C http://goo.gl/X3kO [Sent 29-Oct, 9:45 AM]

Visit Good Promotional Practices Alliance forum 4 resources re balanced approach to sales, marketing & compliance. http://bit.ly/dkE10C [Sent 3-Nov, 10:30 AM]

Note the use of hash tags and short, trackable URLs. This helps us track how well the campaign has done (more on that in another post to this blog).

I recommend that you consider adding a Pharmaguy Twitter Campaign to your Pharma Marketing Network promotional mix. Here are a few reasons why:

• The majority (62%)  of Pharmaguy's followers are pharma marketing professionals working within a pharmaceutical company or a pharmaceutical marketing agency or consultancy. These are people you want to reach.
• About half of them are looking for "new ideas" for drug marketing; ie, just the sort of information you may have.
• Only 24% of Pharmaguy's Twitter followers are subscribers to Pharma Marketing News, which means that at least 76% of them may not see e-mail ad supplements that are sent to subscribers.

If you are interested in learning more about ordering a Pharmaguy Twitter Campaign and pricing, please Request a Media Kit & Rate Card here.