AMERICAN ACADEMY OF OPHTHALMOLOGY

RESOURCE CENTER

 

BACKGROUND

The Resource Center is the Academy's booth at their annual meeting. This 110' x 110' booth comprises 18 kiosks where most divisions of the Academy are represented, including Member Services, the Foundation, Advocacy, Practice Management, Clinical Education, and Patient Education.

 

I was in charge of marketing operations from 2011 to 2022. I developed the strategy and oversaw the implementation of tactical marketing plans to drive attendance and meet sales goals. That included pre-, during-, and post-show communications, in-booth events, staff training, signage, demo stations and displays, sample inventory, and freight.

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CHALLENGE

To position the Resource Center as attendees' one-stop-shop for everything Academy; to increase customer satisfaction levels; to increase in-booth sales despite customers' increasing tendency to purchase products online.

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SOLUTION

Our Resource Center marketing collateral previously was minimal and had disparate looks that didn't relate to each other or to the annual meeting. I introduced more marketing vehicles along with design themes that tied all collateral together with one cohesive, clean look and drafted text with stronger calls to action. By making multiple events a regular part of our days, I created more reasons for attendees to visit the booth. And I increased the efficacy of staff training by increasing attention through humor, games, and flashcards. 

 

RESULTS

Before I was on the job, customer satisfaction ratings had been consistently between 60% and 83% for the four criteria we measured. I led our 80+ staff to increase those ratings steadily every year; by 2017, we scored between 90% and 95% in all four areas. Despite attendees' spending only 2 hours on the show floor, and purchasing more often online, our onsite sales hung on and we continued to exceed our sales goals by up to 29%.

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