A free slide snapshot that breaks down the engagement model behind lasting HCP impact at medical congresses, from the course Maximising Congress Impact in Pharma with Yacin Marzouki.
Most pharma congress budgets are spent the same way: concentrated into the booth and symposium, producing a short, high-intensity moment that fades once the event ends. The Echo model is built to prevent that.
It's a pre-peri-post engagement approach that turns a single three-day event into months of sustained HCP impact, reaching more healthcare professionals, more often, for longer than a booth ever can on its own.
This free download gives you five original slides from the CELforPharma course Maximising Congress Impact in Pharma, showing exactly how the Echo model works and what it fixes.
What Is the Echo Model in Pharma Congress Strategy?
The Echo model is a congress engagement framework built on three phases: Pre, Peri, and Post. It extends the value of a congress before, during, and after the three-day event itself. Instead of a single spike in visibility, it creates a high moment followed by structured follow-up, producing compounding visibility and sustained engagement over weeks and months.
It stands in contrast to what the course calls the Fireworks model: the industry-standard approach, where spend is concentrated into the booth and symposium, producing a short, intense spike that decays rapidly once the event ends. That approach typically reaches only the healthcare professionals physically present on-site, often a small fraction of the total addressable specialist audience.
| Fireworks model | Echo model | |
|---|---|---|
| Pattern | High spend, short spike, rapid decay | High moment, structured follow-up, compounding visibility |
| Duration of impact | 2 to 3 days | Weeks to months (Pre: around 4 weeks, Post: 8+ weeks) |
| Audience reached | HCPs physically on-site | On-site HCPs plus the far larger group who never attend |
| Budget behaviour | Concentrated in booth and symposium | Distributed across pre-, peri-, and post-congress activation |
Why HCPs' Expectations Require an Echo Approach
Recent HCP survey data shows that congress-only, booth-only engagement no longer matches how healthcare professionals actually want to interact with pharma:
- 91% of HCPs like to be contacted in the weeks leading up to a congress
- 72% want to be informed of relevant on-site pharma activities in advance
- 47% want communication before, during, and after the congress
(Source: InizioEngage, HCP Congress Experience Report, Dec 2023, N=275; ZS, HCP Perspectives on the European Medical Journey, May 2026, N=92)
Who This Is For
This resource is built for people who plan, execute, or report on pharma congress engagement:
- Medical Affairs and Scientific teams
- Brand, Marketing, and Omnichannel teams
- Commercial teams
- Congress, Event, and Logistics teams
Frequently Asked Questions:
The Echo model is a congress engagement framework built on three phases, Pre, Peri, and Post, designed to extend the impact of a medical congress beyond the three days of the event itself, reaching more HCPs, more often, over a longer period.
The Fireworks model describes the common pattern where congress budgets are concentrated almost entirely in the booth and symposium, creating a short, high-intensity spike in visibility that decays quickly once the event ends, with little lasting impact.
Booth traffic is often a small fraction of the addressable audience. For example, a congress with 500 booth visitors and 17,000 total attendees may sit within a specialist population of 38,000 or more across Europe, meaning a booth-only strategy reaches well under 2% of the people who could benefit.
The slides are free to download. They are drawn from Maximising Congress Impact in Pharma, a live online course from CELforPharma with expert Yacin Marzouki, CEO of Biondhealth, which covers the full framework in depth, including measurement, cross-functional orchestration, and journey design.
See the bigger picture
These slides introduce the Echo model. To see how it fits into a complete congress engagement strategy, watch this short introduction to Maximising Congress Impact in Pharma with Yacin Marzouki.
Continue your learning from Yacin Marzouki
If you’d like to learn more from Yacin, CELforPharma also offers a 1-day, hands-on course where you'll learn how to:
- Define clear congress objectives, roles, and success criteria from the start
- Design engagement journeys using the pre–peri–post model to extend impact beyond the event
- Unlock value for both attending and non-attending HCPs
- Measure meaningful impact using KPIs beyond booth traffic and badge scans
- Strengthen collaboration across Medical, Brand, and Commercial teams
Maximising Congress Impact in Pharma
With Yacin Marzouki
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