Turning a Mountain of Data into an Attendance Growth Strategy

The world’s largest meeting in its medical specialty approached MYB to improve its strategy for the long-term. With 14,500 attendees and 285 exhibitors, the annual gathering offers more than 500 educational sessions and abstract presentations and opportunities to explore cutting-edge medical advances and connect with the field’s brightest minds.

Suffering from a decade of flat attendance, the organizers recognized the need to develop a more compelling marketing strategy.  The event is hosted by four separate professional societies, and information about the event’s attendees was spread across a road map of member databases, abstract submission portals, social media accounts, and many more separate, individual data files.  The results?  Data in multiple locations making it difficult to understand the holistic activity of any one attendee.

• Analyzed more than 40 different data files and nearly 7 million unique records to identify what data was collected, where it was stored, and how it could be put to use
• Launched a centralized data warehouse for storing all attendee data and built a single record for each individual to identify all member activities and behaviors surrounding the meeting
• Deployed an attendee perception and needs survey to develop a profile of attendees and prospective attendees
• Developed attendee personas to drive a segmented communication plan that resonated with the needs and objectives of DDW’s distinct audiences
• Constructed an Attendee Engagement Score to understand loyalty levels based on each individual’s interactions and purchasing behaviors

The event organizers and stakeholders have a deeper understanding of the needs of their diverse audiences and what is important to each of them. The data-driven marketing strategy and newly created attendee personas have not only guided more targeted communications, but also informed what should be delivered at the meeting.