Medical Marketing: Increase CME Course Registration by 51% With These 5 Easy Tactics

Continuing Medical Education (CME) is a requirement for care providers, but that doesn't mean doctors will line up to sign up for your next CME course. Increasing course registration starts with your marketing efforts. When doctors don't know about the opportunity, they aren't going to sign up. Even if they do know, if the materials you're presenting don't impact their practice, why would they bother registering? Implement these tactics to figure out the best ways to give your next course a big registration boost.

[RELATED: Want to know how to increase the attendance at your next medical conference? Find out everything you need to know!]

1. Write a Solid Buyer Persona

Sure, you want every doctor to attend your event, but you need to be a bit more targeted in your marketing approach. Did you know that 51 percent of event organizers fail to improve their attendance primarily due to missing buyer personas? When you don't know who your customer is, it is impossible to target your marketing. If your next course focuses on neurology, don't waste time marketing to podiatrists.

2. Promote to Institutions, Not Individuals

If you can sign up a hospital, you'll instantly get dozens of doctors. When you send out invites to individual doctors, your efforts only repay you with a single registration. Hospitals, nursing homes, medical schools and other health care providers offer a major opportunity to earn a major contract. By focusing your efforts on employers, you gain access to a much larger potential audience.

3. Make Sure Your Registration Is Mobile Friendly

Today's doctor is constantly on the go. You don't want to limit their registration options to time spent behind a desk. As many as 20 percent of event registrations happen through mobile, so be sure to offer it as an option.

4. Keep Your Registration Form Simple and Easy

Doctors are busy. If your registration form takes too long to fill out, they will keep putting it off. You want something short that only asks the absolutely necessary questions. The quicker the registration form, the more likely you are to get doctors to sign up earlier. Remember, you can always send out follow-up surveys or ask for more information later.

5. Make Sure Your Registration Form Works for Everyone

If your form displays perfectly on iOS, but has trouble with Android, that could be a problem. If it works on Internet Explorer but has trouble on Chrome, that's also an issue. Your registration form should help maximize the number of attendees you sign up for your next CME course. It can only do that if your form is accessible to the maximum number of users.

Medical marketing isn't that much different from any other form of marketing. You need to get the word out about your CME course offerings early and often. After all, you want to give doctors the most time possible to clear time in their schedules. You also want to encourage early sign-ups with special offers or bulk discounts to major healthcare providers. Using tried-and-true marketing that targets specific specialties can help you leverage every course to the maximum.

Using a management software package like the MedEd Manager can help you overcome any of the technical difficulties by bringing in an experienced partner to help. This CME event manager helps automate marketing and ensures your registration works for everyone interested in a class.

Learn more about the MedEd Manager.