CLIENT  Healthcare   /   SERVICE  Tradeshow/event

Challenge

To gather at least 80 total prospective municipal decision-makers at a private dinner reception with sales staff during a national healthcare conference.

Tool

A healthcare client provided us with a target invitee list of roughly 200 busy government officials throughout the United States attending a major show. First, we made calls to each contact on the list to correct contact information or confirm mailing and email addresses, names, and titles.

globalHMA designed and proposed creative concepts based on the location of the event. The proposal included a thorough venue list of restaurants that could accommodate the group within the budget. We handled all communication with the venue staff to coordinate menus, floral centerpieces, and the floor plan. In addition, we designed table cards, custom-printed name badges held on standing badge boards, numbered table tents, a customized wine list and a branded take-home gift for dinner attendees. The globalHMA team executed all aspects of the dinner.

A three-month direct contact campaign was implemented to nurture the leads into attending the dinner. The campaign included a direct mail invitation, email invitation, a reminder-email blast, and follow-up phone calls. A response form recorded RSVPs of invitees. Each response was automatically saved to a downloadable Excel spreadsheet that was accessed through a custom-built administrative login. Following the dinner event, an email blast was sent to all attendees.

Results

A total of 104 people attended the dinner, exceeding expectations by 30%, resulting in great conversations, engagement, and new customers for our healthcare client. With the last-minute cancellation rate reduced to less than 1%, we made use of every budget dollar.

For many years, we coordinated and managed a critical event for CIGNA — a dinner where their sales reps forge the relationships needed for new key accounts. Through careful targeting and a complex marketing automation program, we select these key accounts, identify the people in the target audience, and invite them to the dinner. Government officials have a high rate of cancellation, but we were able to reduce that rate from over 50% down to 10%. Each year, we help CIGNA increase the effectiveness of this dinner through razor-sharp targeting and high participation rates.