From Trade Shows to Pharma Events: A Journey Through Healthcare Marketing

[00:00:00] Joy Rios: Hello there and welcome to the HIT Like a Girl podcast. My name is Joy Rios. I'm the show's host. This is a place where we get to talk about how crazy complicated healthcare is. We're all trying to figure it out. So I liken it to a puzzle and the puzzle keeps getting bigger and each one of our guests essentially brings their piece of the puzzle to help us all make sense of it. We all have different experiences and things that we can bring and contribute to help each other learn and grow and get better. I selfishly learn a lot and like to be able to share it all with our listeners. So I would like to give you a moment to introduce yourself and tell us about your piece of the puzzle.

[00:00:49] Paulina Rugg: Wonderful. Thank you very much for having me here. My name is Paulina Rugg. I'm the Director of Event Marketing at Health Gorrilla. We are a health information network and I've been with the company for about two years now. I'm originally from Mexico City and I came here back in 2001. So I'm loving being here at Health Gorilla.

This is my second year, lots of great opportunities, networking, and just enjoying my time here.

[00:01:18] Joy Rios: It is pretty intense, right? There's a lot going on and a lot to pay attention to, for sure.

[00:01:26] Paulina Rugg: There is. It definitely, I don't think that there's enough time to be able to do everything. I wanted to go ahead and sit in all the different sessions.

There's so many really good speakers. But thankfully we're being very busy in our booth.  

[00:01:39] Joy Rios: And it's, it is impossible just to absorb it all. There's not enough, literally not enough hours in the day. And if you could clone yourself 10 times, you still wouldn't be able to do it all.

[00:01:49] Paulina Rugg: Exactly. And even like they record the sessions and all this, like you don't have enough time.

[00:01:54] Joy Rios: Yeah, exactly. Then you just have to block out your weekend and just be like, okay, I'm going to catch up for where I was. That's correct. I would love to hear more about your journey and of course, selfishly, I want to hear all about from the beginning back from Mexico City because I'm just, okay, what was it like?

One, growing up and growing up there and then moving to wherever you moved to when you moved to the States. And then however you got to where you are now. I know that's a lot to cover and it's a lot.

[00:02:23] Paulina Rugg: Definitely. It's about 22 years you're telling me to go over. So where to start? I was born and raised in Mexico City, biggest city in the world, or one of least one of the cities, biggest cities in the world.

I was very fortunate to have a fantastic childhood. Love my country. It's, I don't know if you had I don't know if you had the opportunity to actually go to Mexico City. It's like such a cosmopolitan area. So I was very fortunate enough to be born in a place where there's every type of food, every type of people and religion, and there's so much to offer.

But my journey really began in the United States in 2001, when my dad was asked to move. He used to work for IBM and he was asked to move to the U. S. to manage Latin America, portion of Latin America. And it was just like easier to travel for him. It was like less expensive, I don't know. And that's really what brought us to the U.S.

We always have that desire of moving to the United States. My dad saw it as an opportunity to have a better lifestyle, better opportunity in education, even though that Mexico education is really top notch. It was just, it was an opportunity to brother up our careers, our minds. And once we moved here I came with the idea that it was going to be like a two year deal.

We were going to, I was going to study here for two years, go back to college over there. For ones that we stayed came was like no way back. I lost a lot of my friends and they're on the I didn't lost them. They're still there. I still like my best friends are still living in there and they're like my sisters.

I have actually my part of my family that is still there and I go back and forth and see them. But once that I moved here, I did see the world a little bit in a different way. It was a different lifestyle, a little bit like not as hectic and crazy as in Mexico. And during the US it opens up to opportunities around the globe.

So my journey really started, I studied Hospitality and Tourism Management and in there my career began in the tourism industry. I worked for the Mexico Tourism Board for a few years. Actually no, for a year. So I was there, I was in charge of putting like all their events together to promote tourism to Mexico.

[00:04:36] Joy Rios: Okay.

[00:04:36] Paulina Rugg: And that was such a unique experience. That's how I started in the events part of it. I'm still doing events, but never thinking that I will be in health whatsoever. I always thought that it was going to be completely different. And it was like very several years until I came to health.

But I was in the tourism industry at the Mexico tourism board when we had an event at the convention center in Miami beach, and I fell in love with trade shows.

[00:05:02] Joy Rios: How does that happen? You saw a trade show and you're, I'm in love with this. It's just like a lot of information in the same place. Was that what it was?

[00:05:10] Paulina Rugg: It was just like to see like how many people come from all over the world, all with a different goal, but at the same time, like a very same journey, same goal. In this case the treasures are like just very focus oriented. So you have in this treasure was like Japan and Colombia, and you have every single country in the world that they're trying to promote tourism to their own countries.

And it was such a great experience just to see the different narratives of how things how to bring people to the booth to really have create excitement and create an educational piece to really promote something in return. So when I was working at the when I was at the convention center, I was, I think that this is a great opportunity for me to really get a better understanding of everything that events have to, because events is such a vast industry.

You have your social events, you have your health events, traditions and conventions. So I decided to start on that journey. I applied for a job there and they hired me like right on the spot pretty much. I worked. I was very fortunate because I was actually on there a visa. So I came here originally with my father with an L visa.

And that only allowed us to stay here for a certain period of time. And I was dependent on my dad.

[00:06:27] Joy Rios: What does the L stand for?

[00:06:28] Paulina Rugg: The L stands actually, honestly, I don't know, but it is a work visa. So only a company from the U S. It brings you to the United States to allow you for a certain period of time. What the difference is that you are able to apply for a green card.

That was the whole thing. So my dad started applying for the green card, but I turned 21. 21, it was, okay, now you're on your own. The rules change, right? The rules completely change. It's you're on your own. You have to look. Even if your dad had it, it doesn't come back down to you. It didn't come back to me.

So I was, pretty much as you're 21, I'm starting college, I was like, go on your own. I was there, I had a student visa and then the moment that I graduated, I found this job opportunity that at the convention center where they sponsor my visa. So it was fantastic and I worked there for several years.

I learned like a lot of the parts of the industry and events and the conventions and the trade shows. And it allowed me to see so many different type of events from consumers to trade shows and a lot of in the health industry. And I remember one clearly that it really impacted me and I thought that it was like such an a great experience.

And that was the Academy of Cardiology. They have actual hearts in the exhibit floor, just still pumping and then outside of a body. And it was just, wow, amazing to see. And during that journey, I was, okay, I have been here for five years. I really want to do something else.

I want to try something different. And I decided to go to the other side of the industry. We're still waiting on events, but I wanted to be more on the business side. And I end up going to work for a company, a pharmaceutical distribution company. The name is Anda Pharmaceutical. And they were owned by Tevo Pharmaceutical, which is like one of the largest generic pharmaceutical companies out there.

And that's how I started liking really in health. It was more on the pharmaceutical side. I was there for five years doing all their events and events marketing. It was a fantastic experience. It was a great journey to that's really when I really understood like the convoluted world that Hilti is revolving is like, there's, it's so complex.

It took me like several years to really get an understanding of but yes, I was there for five years working mostly on like bringing trade shows. We did different type of events going from like the company that we, I was worked on.

So in the pharmaceutical with ANDA, which was a pharmaceutical distribution company, we distribute product to generic pharmacies are. brand pharmacies, independent pharmacies.

So more on the corporate side, so the CVSs and all of these. Then you have your independent pharmacies, your mom and pops, you have your hospital pharmacies. So we went to different type of events depending on the market that we were serving. And I was there for five years.

[00:09:38] Joy Rios: I'm curious about, okay, so let me ask you some things.

One about the event part and the convention center, if you are in, I have just, we've been to a lot of convention centers, so the prep for getting all of these booths set up, and it's a whole industry in and of itself, just like booth makers.

[00:09:58] Paulina Rugg: Oh, it is crazy. It's a whole industry, right?

The reason why the convention star centers are there is what is the whole reason? That's what I always say. It's to create jobs. And the beautiful thing about these events is like the amount of money revenue generating for a whole city brings. So what comes from these events? It's massive.

For us right now I'm talking about Health Gorilla to come to the event is it starts from like putting a strategy together to then what is it that, how are you going to achieve those goals? And then bringing like our partners to really have that vision and put it into paper and then put it into, okay, this is going to be our bootstamp.

What is going to be our foot. What is it that we're going to be doing in all of these sections? And it's the amount of preparation that takes it's, it seems so simple, but it’s not.

[00:10:52] Joy Rios: It's very complicated. And not because this isn't, you're the only event that you do, right? So how many events do you, are you guys part of per year?

[00:11:02] Paulina Rugg: So it really depends. We at Hilt Gorilla, we have about 20 events that either participate or exhibit. We have four large events like the HEMES 5 HLTH.

[00:11:14] Joy Rios: But already that's more than one a month, right? That's two a month almost.  

[00:11:18] Paulina Rugg: Yeah, exactly. Then the other ones are like on the smaller scale.

Some of them we attend, but there's still a whole preparation to just to attend to make sure that we are sending like the right messaging, the right people. We are not just going there to just attend and just walk the floor. It's really being strategic because otherwise they don't know They're not meaningful.

[00:11:35] Joy Rios: Yeah, I know. It needs to be purposeful and you're in and have a solid strategy of who is going to be there. What conversations do you want to have? What goals do you have to get out of that event? And I'm sure that is different based on the topic of the convention itself.

[00:11:52] Paulina Rugg: So just as an example, right now, for HLTH, we are here and we're starting to prep for next year.

It's okay, what's working? What's not working? What are we going to do? Let's start thinking about we're going to be doing for our next event to see what makes sense. So it's also like one of the beautiful things about it. And when I see events is that it's a channel between all the different departments within our organization.

We have to have a very cohesive relationship and understanding of our common goals are in order to bring them together. and decide what are going to be like our goals and objectives for each particular event and how we are going to all work together towards that same goal and where we're going to be like our campaigns, what it's going to be like, how it's going to work out to make sure that it's going to be successful.

[00:12:39] Joy Rios: So you are a person that I could probably ask this random logistics question. How often are booths reused?

[00:12:45] Paulina Rugg: That's a good question. It really depends. We actually have our own booth that we purchase. Not so long ago, we actually just used it for the first time at HIMSS and we went through a whole process of is it more convenient to rent, is it more convenient to own, because renting, the easier thing with renting it is that you use it once, you can get move on, it's still expensive.

Now, if you know that you're going to be using the thing over and over, it might be better. If you are going to have using the thing footprint for several years, your investment is going to be better worth it.

If you have that single one. But so much goes into that decision. It does.

So like we have to go to our feet. We have to have again, wait, our vision, it cannot just be like our vision for the next six months. But what is going to be our vision for the next five years? What kind of events we're going to be attending? In our case, we decided to purchase like a large space that could be divided into different sections.

So it's like a puzzle. So it gets, we can use it for either a configuration of a 20 by 20. Or we can use it for a master, like a 50 by 40 square feet. So that's the beauty of it because otherwise buying like this massive thing and just using it for what I want to do, it's not a good investment.

[00:14:02] Joy Rios: No, but there's so many things of okay, how many meetings do you want to have? How quiet do you want those meetings? Are you doing demonstrations? Are you going to have a theater? Some of them are two stories when they get really on the bigger side of things. And depending on the event itself, like the footprint, like you said, that all of that, I'm sure that it's not cookie cutter, it cannot be cookie cutter.

[00:14:24] Paulina Rugg: It's not. So like in this case for this event we start planning probably heavily, really involved, about six months ago where we decided, okay, we want to have Inboot sessions. What kind of inboot sessions? And I have to be very close with our communications team to decide what is it that we're going to market or what is it that we either we are putting more educational content.

Is it going to be more salesy? Do we want to invite our partners or we want to invite some of our customers? We did a mix of everything, right? We tried to keep entertaining. We want to use that content that we put there. Not just for the event, but we can also repurpose it. So we made that decision ahead of time in order to be able to build the booth around them to have that space specifically for that.

And then it's okay, how many sales people are we going to be bringing? Who are we going to be bringing from that? We also are very data driven. So in our case, we utilize the tools that help us measure everything that is happening at the event. Coming back from the event, we'll be measuring all of that for the next six months, sometimes up to a year.

[00:15:28] Joy Rios: Wow, really? What types of things do you mind? What types of things do you measure?

[00:15:32] Paulina Rugg: We are very targeted on our numerical side, how many meetings happened at the event. On the sales side from the leads that we collected, what actually became actionable, how many meetings translated into sales.

And that takes like a sales cycle and it really depends on the type of market that we have. Sometimes it takes three months, sometimes it could be a year or even more. So depending on the event that we go or like the, and these events are tough because we are hitting a lot of different markets. So it's not like we can just say three months and that's it.

So we are measuring that. We're also measuring on our like current customers, we can do upselling. So we're looking at that. We are measuring our own staff. Like how are they doing? Are they being productive? Are they following up? Are they meeting with the time? So like we had like certain amount of pre scaling meetings.

We try to be ahead of the game. So we start like doing our outreach, probably about a month ahead, two months ahead, trying to promote the event. And we have like our amazing SDR team, which is part of the marketing team that they start reaching out to the attendees way ahead of the event, trying to promote and to get those meetings in place.

So we're starting to say okay, do they actually come to the event? Can we reschedule them if they didn't come? And then once that they start it's just like beginning on that cycle.

[00:16:54] Joy Rios: The other part. Okay. So here's my other questions around attracting people, right? So of course, if you have sessions that are in public and you have a audio visual and people can come by and sit that makes sense.

But I've seen some, and especially in Vegas where people are, oh, we have a magician or we have, the things that will attract somebody there and also what you decide to distribute and give away the, either collateral versus swag or gifts, right? And so are you part of those conversations?

Are you part of those decisions as well?  

[00:17:27] Paulina Rugg: Yes, we're like all these part decisions. So it's like I do, I'm the one that makes the final decision pretty much on a lot of these things. So he's looking into and also thinking, right? If the type of things that we're going to be giving people have to take it back.

Do we want to give this massive thing or do we want to just be also more friendly approach I would say something that they can easily transport and that is going to be meaningful. They're not going to get there. I love coming to these convention centers and these conventions and we come back with so many really good like gadgets and I give it to my kids or I give it to my husband and all that.

But a lot of times I come back and I'm, “Why?” I'm just going to throw it out. And I feel that we're polluting the world. And it's just, “Why?’ So it's we try to be very mindful of the things that we are giving to make it attractive. And then also being a little bit playful

[00:18:14] Joy Rios: I think about that a lot as I'm going through the halls. I'm, okay what, and also with my own stuff, right? If I'm creating anything, I'm, what I don't want to do is, put all this effort into creating trash, right? Essentially somebody's going to hold it, that's cool, and then throw it away. That feels like a big waste of money. And the same that in and I gotta say… 

[00:18:36] Paulina Rugg: Going back to the polluting area, and I just probably not the topic to be here, but I do find that it's it's very important because when I'm putting this going back to your question about the rentals and owning a lot of these boots are not going to be reused again. And it's just it pollutes the conventions. They pollute so much. So I've been very mindful as well on that. It's okay, let's try to minimize like the color of pieces this, go digital, the carpet, let's reuse it. Let's not go in a white color because the white is going to get trashed.

[00:19:07] Joy Rios: So I was thinking the same thing. Signage of any of these things, right? How much of it actually has an opportunity to get reused? A lot of times it doesn't. 

[00:19:15] Paulina Rugg: It doesn't get a messaging change. So is this even if I want to try it, then our team decides no, we're not longer going to do this message for next time. It's oh, it hurts.

[00:19:26] Joy Rios: I know it does. One of the things that I noticed in this particular convention is that they do a little bit more digital advertising so that way you can just use screens and then you can update the screens and I'm, okay, we're in a digital world now.

And of course, with QR codes for everything, helping people.

[00:19:43] Paulina Rugg: Even business cards. I'm trying to start doing, not doing business cards. I know that now we have the app, but still some people want to, and it's okay, we have a QR code that we just not have multiple.

[00:19:56] Joy Rios: One of my favorite networking tricks is showing people how to do the scan the QR code for LinkedIn. And you're just, look, we're already connected. Scan it. And the business it's cool when people have business cards, but again, what do you do with it? You're going to end up. Transferring that information and then throwing it away.

[00:20:12] Paulina Rugg: Yes. Oh, I'm talking about that. We have our own lead retrieval system. So that sounds like one of the things that I actually work with. The way that we measure our success is our lead retrieval system connects to our CRM platform so everything gets integrated like right away.

So we have a whole system. I love the system. We part, we have a great partner that it integrates with mostly all the different lead retrievals that exist out there. So it is based on an API with that system. It connects to the events organizer lead retrieval system.

So rather than me using HLTH’s app, I have my own one that I can then build. It's not just the contact information that I collect. I can do a whole workflow behind it. Depending if it's a sales prospect, a prospect that is going to be for sales, or if it's a current customer, or if it's going to be for a strategy team, there's a different set of questions that we put, that we build, that we can have meaningful conversations.

We're meeting one to one. With the hundreds of people that we're meeting, it's really tough to just keep up with all of these sessions. So it actually has a really nice voice to text tool that you can actually just speak to it. It puts all your notes there and it automatically sends it to our CRM system. So then our sales team can really follow up in a quicker and more fashionable way.

[00:21:30] Joy Rios: That's absolutely, what's neat, and you guys are such a data rich company. So it makes sense that you would have something like that. I swear. I have one thing I struggle with. I don't have that sophisticated of a system to keep track of everybody and then I'm, I don't have an encyclopedic memory either.

So being able to not, being able to recall all that information that you get that comes your way, especially at an event like this. It's like a flood of information. So to be able to make sense of it is a challenge.

[00:21:59] Paulina Rugg: It is very challenging. I don't understand back in the day how they used to do it.

You'll come and you'll have a piece of paper and business cards and you'll come with your stock of business cards. I'm, that was crazy.

[00:22:09] Joy Rios: How do people do it? This has been fantastic just as far as learning the event side of things. Are there any other things that you think other people should know about what goes into events that I'm not even asking about?

Because I'm, this is a huge part of healthcare. A lot of healthcare happens and conversations and meetings and connections happen at these types of events.

[00:22:31] Paulina Rugg: First of all, I find them that are so valuable, right? I feel that COVID really put like an attestment of how incredible value these events are.

They tried to go to virtual and it's just, it's not the same. That connection that happens on the show floor where you're, it's just, it's exceptional.

[00:22:48] Joy Rios: I know, but my, I have had my own criticism where it's not a matter of whether this is all needed. And like how much actually happens here.

We're having a ton of conversations and people meet and all of these things are really great. But when it comes to the problems we're trying to solve in healthcare specifically, and trying to support patients and outcomes, they're a lot of times to the point of what we're talking about is this the best use of our money and what we're spending it on?

You're, oh, if you spent $5,000 on coffee, when it could have gone to, I don't know, a patient program that supported them somewhere. But it's really hard to make that balance. Both and are important and I don't know, and you're, it's worth the investment essentially.  

[00:23:32] Paulina Rugg: That's who we are. Very data driven. Because events are very hard to see the ROI. It's a very gray area that if you don't do it the right way, you really don't know if you're getting your return on investment. And I think that back a few years ago, it was even harder. I do think that with technology, it has advanced to just say okay, we went to this event, this is the amount of money that we spend, but this is the amount of sales that we got.

These are the amount of opportunities. And it's not just about how many sales you got, but it's how many brand impressions did you use? How many times did we repurpose our content? That goes a long way. How much, how many partnerships did we build? So it's those connections cannot be replicated in a different type of setup.

I really don't think so. The other thing is that sending the connections in a Zoom meeting, it's not going to be the same. And sending people to the other side of the country, you're not going to send all your sales team. It's these are really good opportunities where you can have the right people meet the right people.

So I find these events being extremely important for the industry. This is where bright minds come together to try to come with solutions to make a better world. And in this case, health is such an important part of our society. I think that we all want to be better, expand the lifespan. And I just find it fascinating what we're doing here to try to get into a better place.

[00:25:03] Joy Rios: I have something that came across my feed recently that is no, not only will we live longer, which is great, but we want to be healthier. I don't want to be 90, but I'm like, yeah, you don't have terrible health and I'm not able to walk.

[00:25:14] Paulina Rugg: Exactly. What's the whole point? Yeah, no, thank you. We want to have a healthy lifestyle.

[00:25:19] Joy Rios: Yeah.

[00:25:20] Paulina Rugg: One of the things that I was actually very fascinated about on the sessions that I was looking at is how these technologies now allowing us to be proactive and get ahead of the game. It's not just, “Oh I have diabetes.”

How can I get my life better? It's but how can I prevent it?  

[00:25:38] Joy Rios: That’s one of the biggest things. How can we not get sick in the first place instead of have to deal with all the aftermath, which we do. It's lovely to hear your passion about the events and thank you for sharing everything that you know because I feel like I've learned a lot and this has been giving me an opportunity to ask a bunch of questions that I've had about it because I've been to a million of events.

As have you, but I have never really had an opportunity to sit with somebody who is reading…

[00:26:04] Paulina Rugg: The whole event marketing. I mean, just again, you see eventsand it's “Oh, it's just another event.” It's just so convoluted.   

[00:26:06] Joy Rios: Yeah. It's a lot. So thank you for making some sense out of it. I really appreciate your contribution, Paulina.

[00:26:08] Paulina Rugg: Thank you so much for having this. It's been a lot of fun.

[00:26:10] Joy Rios: If people want to follow you, connect with you, work with you, plan an event with you, where would you direct them?

[00:26:25] Paulina Rugg: I will say LinkedIn, should know my LinkedIn profile, but I'll have to actually look for it.

So you can look for me at Paulina Rugg and that is P A U L I N A Rugg, R U G G. Gotcha.

[00:26:41] Joy Rios: All right. We will include that in the show notes. Thank you so much for being here.

Thanks for listening. You can learn more about us or this guest by going to our website or visiting us on any of the socials with the handle hit like a girl pod.

Thanks again. See you soon again. Thank you so much for listening to the hit like a girl podcast. I am truly grateful for you and I'm wondering if you could do me a quick favor. Would you be willing to follow or subscribe to this podcast or maybe leave us a rating or review or if you're feeling extra generous, let Would you share this episode on your Instagram stories or with a friend?

All of those things help us podcasters out so much. I'm the show's host, Joy Rios, and I'll see you next time.