Healthy Skepticism Library item: 17861

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: news

Cooney B
What is the range for return on investment for speaker Webcasts?
MedAdNews 2010 May 18
http://medad.canon-experts.com/2010/05/what-is-range-for-roi/

Full text:

Virtual Speaker Q&A

What is the range for return on investment for speaker Webcasts?

Answered by Expert: Bill Cooney

First, be cautioned that several pharma and biotech companies have discontinued assessing ROI on speaker programs because they do not want to create a link between peer education activities and a “profit motive,” which they believe may trigger a legal/regulatory risk. Following that same cautious reasoning, my firm refrains from directly connecting speaker programs to ROI, although we work with some pharma and biotech companies who have assessed ROI for their virtual speaker programs.

Perhaps the best way to comment on ROI is to focus on the “I,” that is, the investment. Virtual speaker programs can lower the investment (or cost) per participant, by 60% to 85%. That’s a lot! In our 17-year experience with virtual speaker programs, we’ve consistently observed that virtual speaker programs produce a similar market effect as local speaker programs. That may seem hard to believe, because local speaker events have the advantage of a more personal face-to-face interaction between speakers and their audience. However, virtual speaker programs have the advantage of leveraging top-tier national speakers, who tend to be more respected and persuasive.

The bottom line is that, if you can lower costs by two-thirds and maintain effectiveness, ROI is increased by 300%. And lowering the cost of speaker programs is not just good business, but it’s also good in terms of ethical marketing and public perception.