The COVID-19 pandemic has been a challenging year for businesses around the world, especially as it relates to how people and companies meet. Companies have had to change their meeting strategies to adapt to the “new normal” and the uncertainties of the current climate, but one thing that is certain – companies are looking for nimble, “next-level” solutions for their meeting needs.
Even in “normal” times, investigator meetings are ever-changing. Same for healthcare and pharmaceutical professionals – meetings have evolved to focus on engagement, efficiency and making it easy to interact with attendees, associations and more. But with COVID-19 changing everything, traveling to meet with those involved in a clinical trial, getting to know one another and establishing everyone’s roles now have to be done from a distance.
87% of the industry has already put in place initiatives to make better use of virtual meetings for clinical trials.
As investigator meetings continue to happen virtually, it’s important to promote engagement from your attendees while maintaining a high level of productivity. So what are the virtual trends for meetings in 2021 and beyond?
Scarritt Group’s virtual meeting solutions deliver dozens of important features along with the stellar service they’ve always been known for, but regardless of which partner you choose, below are a few virtual event trends that can be worked into your investigator meetings to deliver the most engaging experience possible.
Storytelling Tactics
Since communication is so crucial during an investigator meeting, get everyone involved in the conversation. Rather than using simple questions with multiple choice answers, work practical scenarios into the conversation that will produce a dialogue that’s effective even in a virtual environment.
Multimedia for Engagement
We all know that simple presentations can be difficult to engage with. While charts, graphs and images are effective, consider working in additional multimedia such as animation, video and audio to help attendees stay engaged, and ultimately, help you conduct a more solutions-oriented meeting.
Scarritt’s Virtual Tip: Does your virtual meeting tool have an Artificial Intelligence Assistant there to help users along the way? If not, consider technology that includes this feature as having an intelligent avatar serving as a virtual concierge to answer questions 24/7 is crucial to ensuring engagement stays high and users get the most of their meeting.
Interactive Features
Continuing on the topic of involvement, utilize interactive features such as polls and surveys to give your attendees a voice and create a productive atmosphere. It’s important to stay on task, but don’t forget to work in some breaks where attendees can grab a snack or a drink, use the restroom or engage in unrelated conversations. This will act as a refresh for attendees and some virtual meeting tools – like Scarritt Group’s solution – even include a virtual food court to chat with colleagues while on break.
Complete Customization
In addition to being FedRamp compliant, you’ll want to ensure your virtual meeting can be fully customized to your organization’s needs. From branding and signage throughout, to colors and calls-to-action used, right down to the details of the imagery itself and the time of day, full customization is paramount. This level of personalization will ensure your attendees feel “virtually there”, as if they were at a traditional brick-and-mortar convention center.
Scarritt Group’s Virtual Investigator Meeting Solutions
Scarritt Group has been a part of over 8,000 meetings since 1999 and our experienced team, state-of-the-art technology and commitment to service have been innovating the future of meetings well before COVID-19. Before virtual meetings became the main form of communication, we were busy creating an online experience that helps professionals save on travel costs while conducting productive investigator meetings.
Now more than ever is the perfect opportunity to take advantage of the Virtual Conference Center—our immersive virtual meeting solutions designed for pharmaceutical companies and clinical research organizations.
For more information about how Scarritt Group can help you provide a virtual solution for investigator meetings focused on high engagement rates, contact us online or give us a call at (520) 498-2900 and set up a free demo to see it for yourself.