The Brief

For nearly a century, WVC has been providing continuing education to veterinary professionals through its flagship event: the WVC Annual Conference. Having gained notoriety as a leading provider of veterinary education, the organization expanded its offerings in recent years to include year-round courses, enlisting Marketwave’s help along the way to share the news surrounding both its new and traditional programming.

The Challenge/Goals

Since 1928, the WVC Annual Conference has taken place every year except one. The only challenge with that? Veterinary professionals began to view WVC as only an annual conference. However, the organization needed to drive attendance to all of its year-round, continuing education events.

Strategy/Approach

Embarking on a proactive media relations campaign, our team balanced messaging surrounding WVC’s celebrated history with its new, innovative offerings. Press releases, social media content and conference press kits were created, all with one overarching goal in mind: Make things as simple and straightforward as possible for members of the media. Each encounter gave us the chance to strengthen our relationships with reporters, direct traffic to landing pages on the WVC website, and communicate upcoming events and courses WVC had on its lineup.

Results

By tapping into both WVC’s legacy as a top provider of veterinary continuing education as well as its forward-thinking approach to course offerings, our team had accomplished what we set out to do: Help boost attendance at WVC events throughout the year while also strengthening the organization’s position as the leader in its industry.

• Conference Attendance: A 10 percent increase in conference participants, totaling nearly 15,000, occurred between 2015 and 2016.
• Year-Round Event Attendance: Through our media relations efforts, our team helped sell out events like the Veterinary Technician Symposium, one of WVC’s new course offerings.
• Media Coverage: Throughout 2015 and 2016, we garnered coverage in many top trade publications, including Veterinary Practice News, DVM360 and the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association. More than 93 online and print articles were published as a result of our efforts. Leading up to the 2016 WVC Annual Conference, our team issued a press release highlighting the upcoming event, which led to 865,571 impressions.