Mastering Pharma Conferences: A Brand Manager’s Guide to Success

For brand managers in the pharmaceutical world, few events are as pivotal—or as daunting—as a congress. It’s the ultimate opportunity to make your mark with healthcare professionals (HCPs), showcase your latest innovations, and reinforce your position in a competitive market. But let’s be real: pulling it off isn’t easy.

The Congress Challenge: A Marketing Marathon, that lasts for months… 

Congress isn’t just an event. It’s an ecosystem, it’s a finely tuned machine, it’s a village! From pre-event strategy to post-event follow-up, every aspect needs to be seamless, impactful, and on-message. For brand managers, this means juggling a lot of moving parts: designing a booth that stands out, ensuring content resonates, aligning with sales teams, and coordinating with medical and regulatory teams to keep everything compliant. Oh, and don’t forget managing the budget.

What are you trying to achieve from congress?

• Building relationships with HCPs
• Launching a product or driving deeper understanding of your existing portfolio
• Collecting data and insights
• Elevating your brand in the eyes of your audience

It’s a tall order. And with so many objectives to balance, it can be hard to know where to focus your energy.

Why Congress Matters More Than Ever

In a world where digital tools dominate, face-to-face engagement has become more valuable than ever. Congresses are one of the few opportunities to have meaningful, in-person conversations with HCPs—conversations that can change perceptions, strengthen loyalty, and inspire action.

But to make the most of these moments, your approach must be strategic. Congress isn’t just about showing up with a shiny booth; it’s about delivering a holistic experience that captures attention, delivers value, and leaves a lasting impression. That means thinking beyond the event itself and considering the full customer journey.

Common Congress Pain Points

If you’re a brand manager, these challenges will probably sound familiar:

• Standing out in a crowded space. How do you grab attention when every booth is vying for the same audience?
• Creating hyper-local relevance. How do you tailor your message to resonate with HCPs from different regions?
• Managing multiple touchpoints. How do you ensure every interaction—before, during, and after the congress—is consistent and compelling?
• Measuring success. How do you prove ROI and turn insights into action?

Smart Solutions to Congress Complexity

The good news? You don’t have to tackle these challenges alone. By partnering with the right agency, you can transform your congress strategy from overwhelming to outstanding. Here’s how:

1. Hyper-Local Expertise with PrecisionM

At Space & Time, our proprietary tool, PrecisionM, takes hyper-local targeting to the next level. Using mobile GPS signals, we can address HCPs who visit specific congress locations, down to the full postcode. Unlike standard programmatic campaigns that rely on real-time targeting, PrecisionM uses a lookback window of up to 12 months, allowing us to re-engage users who’ve attended a congress or searched for relevant keywords.

With PrecisionM, we can:

• Target attendees with tailored digital display content pre, peri & post-congress.
• Utilise stored historical data to retarget users after events with follow up messages designed for lead gen and content dissemination.
• Manage campaigns on a mobile-specific DSP for greater flexibility outside restrictive environments.

This level of targeting ensures your message is relevant, timely, and hyper-focused on the right audience.

2. The Full Customer Journey

A great agency doesn’t just focus on the event itself. They map out the entire customer journey, from pre-congress engagement to post-congress follow-up. By identifying every touchpoint, they ensure your message is delivered consistently and effectively, whether it’s through email, social media, or face-to-face conversations.

3. Creative Collaboration

Space & Time acts as an extension of your team, bringing fresh ideas and solutions to the table. Providing input on immersive booth designs to interactive content, we work with your existing agencies, to help you create an experience that keeps HCPs coming back for more and is connected and user focused.

4. Engagement That Lasts

It’s not just about what happens at the booth—it’s about what happens after. Space & Times focus on pre, peri and post,  prioritises follow-up strategies, like digital content sharing or data-driven insights, ensuring your congress investment delivers long-term value.

Let’s Make Congress Count

At Space & Time, we understand the complexity of congresses and the pressure brand managers face to deliver results. That’s why we focus on creating tailored, end-to-end solutions that help you cut through the noise and connect with HCPs in meaningful ways. From hyper-local strategies like PrecisionM to collaborating with your strategic agency partners on full customer journey mapping, we’re here to help you own the moment—and the conversation.

Ready to elevate your next congress? Get in touch with our expert team here.