Attending a healthcare conference is a significant investment of time and money. The return often comes down to what happens while you’re there: the conversations you have, the relationships you build and the opportunities you create with the hospital and health system leaders you want to reach.
But those conversations don’t happen automatically. Senior healthcare executives arrive with packed schedules, balancing sessions, meetings with colleagues, peer networking and requests from companies competing for their time. Earning a place on their calendar takes some planning, and some of the most important decisions happen well before the meeting request is sent.
Here are four ways to create better opportunities to connect with healthcare executives at conferences.
#1 Be Strategic About the Healthcare Conferences You Attend
Consider which conferences attract the hospital and health system leaders whose needs align most closely with the solutions you offer, including their roles, areas of responsibility and the types of organizations they represent. If you're trying to reach rural hospital leaders, for example, a conference centered on the issues facing rural healthcare, such as the AHA Rural Healthcare Leadership Conference, puts you in an environment built around the priorities of that audience.
#2 Start Your Conference Outreach Early
By the time a conference gets close, many healthcare executives already have packed schedules. Start identifying the people you most want to meet and reaching out well in advance, especially to executives at the top of your list.
Go beyond the basic information you already have about the executives you want to reach, such as their title, organization, location and health system size. Look at what they're speaking about, what their health systems are investing in and which challenges they're talking about publicly. The conference agenda can be especially useful. The sessions executives participate in, panels they moderate and topics their organizations are discussing can help you understand what's top of mind and where your organization may have something valuable to contribute.
Also check what connections your organization already has with the executive or health system. Review your CRM for previous conversations, event participation and content engagement, and talk with colleagues to explore whether other relationships exist within the health system. What looks like a cold prospect may not be so cold after all. Knowing that history can help you build on connections that are already there.
#3 Make the Meeting Worth Their Time
Give executives a reason to see value in the meeting. Consider what your organization can bring that would make 20 minutes genuinely useful: proprietary research, benchmarks, insights from work with similar health systems, emerging trends you're seeing across the market or a subject matter expert who can offer a valuable perspective. The meeting can still include a conversation about what you offer. The point is to give the executive a reason to want the conversation in the first place.
#4 Take Advantage of Programs Designed to Facilitate Connections
Executive access doesn't have to depend entirely on outbound meeting requests or chance encounters on an exhibit floor. Some healthcare conferences offer structured programs that bring healthcare leaders and companies together around defined challenges and areas of interest.
The AHA Hosted Buyer Program, for example, brings solution providers and hospital and health system leaders together in a low-pressure setting to explore solutions and make connections. Five-minute solution showcases give vetted providers an opportunity to introduce their expertise, while roundtable discussions bring providers and hospital executives together around common challenges. There’s no obligation to purchase, so the emphasis is on conversation, connection and seeing where there may be a fit.
Other formats can create opportunities for deeper engagement around a specific issue. AHA Knowledge Exchanges, for example, bring healthcare executives together with subject matter experts for facilitated discussions centered on challenges hospitals and health systems are actively navigating. For companies with expertise in the topic area, it’s a chance to join the conversation with healthcare leaders who are already thinking about and working through the issue.
Conferences that offer these types of programs and formats can create more natural opportunities to connect with executives and have meaningful conversations around shared interests and challenges.
Earning a Place on the Calendar
Healthcare executives arrive at conferences with packed schedules, so every meeting request is competing for a limited amount of time. The companies that break through aren't necessarily the ones with the biggest presence or the ones making the most noise. They're the ones that understand the executives they want to reach, know what they can bring to the conversation and give them a good reason to make room on their calendar.
For companies looking to make those connections, the AHA's deep relationships with hospitals and health systems can help create the right environment. By understanding the issues healthcare leaders are working through and building conferences and engagement opportunities around those priorities, the AHA helps create settings where companies and executives have a meaningful reason to connect.