Designing for your health care target audience

Audience generation – how to make it work from healthcare to medical communications.

It may not be apparent, but the designer’s role to garner attention from your specific audience to increase audience attendance is just as important as the topics and speaker roster. This is accomplished by the graphics, layout, title, and key terms working together to better project your programs objective to the intended health care target audience..

Initially, a designer should ask how is the audience being generated, online or supplemented with a print piece to further expand the awareness of your program? From those answers the initial program design theme can be determined. If it is mobile-first or email, that would require a different approach than if the initial audience generation was via print..

In the healthcare field, there are cliches that have proliferated a variety of therapeutic categories. For an example, let us use a program that covers a cardiovascular topic. As part of the design discovery process, you need to ask, is using an image or graphic of the heart as your theme imagery, really going to support the programs goals or interest of the audience?

The program title may be interesting by the use of key terms or “tickle” phrases, but the integration of appropriate imagery and design need to support the takeaway message of the program. The designer’s goal is to try to summarize what the “key message” is visually, but with “added value” to the specific audience.

Using the cardiovascular topic as an example, does the design of your audience generation piece visually convey a specific point-of-focus? Are the main speaker topics focused on the physiological, surgical, therapeutic, chemical, molecular level, or HCP/patient engagement? It is important to dig a little deeper to better understand that there “will” be a significant amount of promotional materials already using the heart. The competitive environment will be flooded whether it’s the inbox or the hotel room welcome packet or bag.

With over 20 years of experience, GV CERV Communications has designed medical and healthcare-related program materials for a wide range of therapeutic categories and topics. From key opinion leader (KOL) programs to large scale congresses and symposiums, our approach and experience develops the entire audience generation and event support materials spectrum such as:

• Online invites (email, social media campaigns)
• Content management sites suited for event promotion and registration
• Email templates and “Save-the-dates”
• Supplemented flyers, door drops and audience generation mailers
• Banner program ads
• Powerpoint presentation design with supportive graphs, tables, infographics and animations
• Meeting hand outs and program workbooks
• Q&A support tools
• Podium and venue audience generation signage with takeaways

Every program can potentially have the need to create supplemental spin-offs at the conclusion of the event. Therefore the design discovery process and the goals need to carry over in those pieces as well, regardless if they are digital or print. As you can see starting with the appropriate designer and discovery process for your audience generation needs, sets the stage for the “theming and branding” of your program.