Patients who are interested in research can be reached by pharmaceutical sponsors and contract research organizations who partner with clinical trial advertising and marketing companies. From using digital outreach tools to making connections with local doctors, agencies can utilize a variety of techniques for capturing the attention of patients and motivating them to take additional action. If your trial could use some recruitment support, it would behoove you to consider the following clinical trial recruitment services.
Clinical Trials: Digital Advertising
Clinical trial advertising agencies utilize a variety of channels to reach prospective research participants. Some of the most popular channels include:
Social Media Advertising
Facebook has an astonishing 2 billion daily users, and is an extremely popular method of reaching patients. Their ad platform provides for effective targeting of users by demographic information and detailed interests. You can also create look-alike audiences from existing email lists.
Key benefits of using Facebook include its variety of ad types, including banner ads, link ads, carousel ads and video ads, not to mention its wide reach. Facebook also sports robust targeting and retargeting choices. Some restrictions are their limits on ad copy, personal attribute targeting. And you may also be inadvertently reaching many people who are uninterested in your trial. It is important to utilize this platform properly to get the best results.
Paid Search: Google AdWords and Bing Ads are popular ways of reaching prospective patients. This type of advertising can help you in connecting with patients searching for clinical trials, or those who may have additional questions regarding their condition.
One key benefit of search ads is that they give you the ability to reach individuals who are actively searching for clinical trial opportunities. However, these ads must be closely monitored because they can become expensive. You do not want overly broad keywords, for example, because you may begin attracting clicks from patients who are uninterested in clinical trials.
Display Ads: These are graphic banners or ads that appear on various websites that patients may be visiting. Since some of these ad networks are more highly specific than Google, they may be more appropriate when you need to reach specific patient populations.
Using display ads allows you to incorporate strong visuals for attracting patients. You also have flexibility for direct contact with patients, although there may be some restrictions on the length of your text. Since these types of ads rely upon design, they may not be an appropriate choice for those without a design team or in-house designer.
Non-Digital Advertising Options
A combination of digital and print advertising can be used by patient recruitment agencies to effectively target desired patients. These types of approaches may include:
Print advertising: If you have discovered through research that your desired patient population is less active than others online, print advertising may be a better choice for your needs. Consider what type of print media your target population may be reading. It may be a helpful to keep things local for geo-targeting. Another consideration is that local outlets may be less expensive.
This method allows you to reach a large amount of people very quickly. Some drawbacks are that print advertising can become expensive and may not allow for precise targeting. You also do not have the ability to alter your imagery and copy on the fly.
Reaching Doctors: Among patients seeking a trial, 58 percent would like to begin their search with their physicians, according to a CISCRP survey. However, many doctors are quite busy and may not be aware of clinical trials that each of their patients may be interested in. By advertising directly to doctors, these patients can be reached, since these types of patients are more comfortable learning about trials from their own doctors.
Doctors can be reached by website advertising or attending local health conferences in your region. There also numerous new sites that physicians utilize to stay current on the latest guidelines and news in their field.
There is no great secret to the advantages of reaching doctors: It is the preferred method of learning that patients use regarding clinical trials. One drawback is that this group may be difficult to reach, and a good deal of trial marketing is somewhat generic. So ensure that you have enough creativity to differentiate yourself.
Partnerships: One method of reaching patients who are informed and interested is using partnerships with nonprofit organizations. According to a recent patient survey, patients prefer hearing about trials from their own doctors, while fellow patients and nonprofits were a close second. Since nonprofit groups are typically connected with research participation advocacy, patients connected to those groups tend to have more knowledge regarding clinical research, and are more motivated to participate.
Digital Targeting Strategies
The most effective digital advertising companies start optimizing campaigns at the moment that their ads launch. It is important to constantly run tests of one audience segment against another. When beginning a campaign, the focus should be upon reducing costs per patient registration for those taking trial pre-screeners. After the campaign has launched, focus needs to shift on metrics further down the funnel.
Designing Clinical Trial Ads
The selection of design and imagery for your ads is extremely important to clinical trial marketing campaign success. The first step is becoming informed about your audience and relating to patients on their own terms. This allows for the building of trust and relevancy that ensures success.
It helps to think about clinical trial advertising design consisting of three components: the visual message, the verbal message, and the call to action. Ad copy that is used, imagery, and call to action needs to be comprehensive and work together for the creation of an easy patient narrative.
Clinical Trial Adds: Copy Tips
When beginning to write clinical trial ad copy, you’ll want to use past research on your targeted patient population. This allows you to better understand the makeup of your patient population and how they are experiencing their condition. Naturally, it is important to realize the patient’s use of language and what is motivating them to participate in research so that it can be reflected in your copy.
Since most Americans read functionally at an eighth grade level, it is important that your writing be both clean and simple. Also, create variations in your copy depending upon what platform that you are using, since platforms have various character limit restrictions and rules regarding your ability to discuss trials or converse with patients.
Working with a clinical trial patient recruitment company
A wide range of services is available from recruitment agencies. This ranges from database access to digital patient acquisition to EHR matching. You might want to consider asking a number of different questions when conversing with potential vendors so that they make a good match for your trial.
* What specific techniques does the company use for the recruitment of patients?
* What is their payment model?
* Are additional services available like pre-screener development?
* Does the company have the ability to screen patients by phone?
* How are challenges like high costs handled by the company during a campaign?
After you have found a company to work with, enact a routine reporting schedule that allows your team to remain current on the state of the campaign. Helpful feedback with sponsors and sites is also available from recruitment companies when patients fail a pre-screener.
The Future of Clinical Trial Advertising
It is possible to spot a few notable trends regarding the future of both clinical trial patient recruitment and related advertising. One key trend is patient involvement, since patients increasingly desire to remain involved in every aspect of their healthcare, including the recruitment of patient peers and research protocol development. This has implications for clinical trial advertisers, since patients living with the condition you are involved with need to be consulted. It is increasingly clear that patients must be involved in every aspect of medicine.
Another key takeaway is that technology is increasingly important. Digital health is surging, and online marketing is growing increasingly sophisticated. Naturally, the recommendation of doctors will continue to be extremely important regarding research, but ensure that your ad strategy contains online outreach elements. Although you may find that certain ads are best for your intended audience, you should realize that patients typically have caregivers that search for online research opportunities outside of the influence of the patients. This presents an opportunity to use technology to amplify your outreach in a targeted fashion.
The Bottom Line
Every patient population is different. One group may be actively searching online while another is reading a newspaper. Advertising and clinical trial marketing allows you to reach both groups. The key takeaway is that you must be informed about your patients. So began to research, communicate with individuals and organizations, and incorporate their input in influencing the ad copy of your clinical trial, as well as your design and targeting decisions.
