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During the all-virtual, all-the-time detour of 2020 and 2021, the innate qualities of in-person professional events came into sharp relief. Yes, you likely accomplished a lot – but you also realized that some nuances of relationship-building, knowledge-sharing, and deal-making could not be fully replicated in a virtual environment. How can live meetings and insights management co-exist?
In returning to those valuable in-person experiences, we lost some critical aspects of information capture that digital tools provide. After years of relying on recordings and transcripts, you might be left wondering: where are the insights going? And how can you put them to work as part of your insights management strategy? Here are three key elements of virtual insight-gathering that we recommend retaining.
Keep most HCP engagements – including ad boards – virtual
Physicians prefer virtual engagements for advisory board engagements largely because they don’t need to spend several days away from patients and family traveling to a meeting that likely only spans a few hours. They still want to contribute their expertise, but not at the expense of other important commitments.
There’s good reason to tailor HCP engagement to physician preferences. According to Ipsos, “The use of digital channels is here to stay, but pharma needs to learn to personalize digital tactics to meet HCPs’ needs using a synergistic mix of channels, designed to target the right HCPs at the right time in the right way.”
Pharma companies don’t need to do away with in-person engagements, but the choice of virtual or not should be a matter of what best supports the end goal. The venue is secondary to how insights are captured and integrated into the strategy.
Data-driven insights will fuel [a data-driven] approach and allow for pharma to track and shape their strategies accordingly. – Ipsos
Make the most of in-person opportunities with virtual elements and reporting
When in-person is the right choice, you can ensure participants are prepared to be productive. Lack of this preparation – and the time wasted trying to stay on track or getting everyone up to speed – is a consistent pain point for medical affairs and commercial teams.
Creating a space to share goals and set intentions before an in-person opportunity is respectful to all participants. Establishing priorities and offering relevant literature or data in one location means everyone arrives at in-person meetings ready to contribute. Your team will be closer to advancing your goals with actionable insights.
Within a robust insights management platform, pre-event agendas and post-event consensus-building are opportunities to get answers to key questions rather than a fragmented collection of email threads that might never reach important stakeholders. Creating a stronger scientific narrative is easier when everyone can access every observation rather than just a slice of the whole conversation.
Give your team the ability to course-correct rather than start over
Impediments to launch or milestone achievements don’t follow your schedule. After investing months preparing for an in-person event, last-minute changes like new clinical data can derail your carefully planned interaction. However, insights management technology enables you to send updates, share new data or other information, and even add pre-work before an advisory board meeting. If something changes after the meeting, you can follow up efficiently or add a new virtual advisory board to understand how changes impact your work.
Download a new white paper co-authored by Within3, MAPS, and global medical affairs experts to understand the fundamental insights management methodology for pharma teams.
