TreatmentTrials

Patient recruitment on Facebook

Mon, 25 Apr 2011 13:30:00 -0700

I'm speaking at the ACRP Global Conference in Seattle this weekend. The theme of my talk is 'How to create a subject recruitment website that works'.

One of the things I'll be addressing is how to use Facebook to drive patients to your website. My thoughts are highlighted in this video.

Patient recruitment and retention: the role of mobile devices

Mon, 18 Apr 2011 13:00:00 -0700

I’ve just been invited to speak about how mobile devices can be used to boost patient recruitment and retention. My talk will be at SMi's London conference addressing the use of mobiles in healthcare. The conference is being held in October.

The timing of the conference is crucial as mobile device usage is exploding. According to Microsoft:

- There are 4 billion mobile devices in the world.
- 1.08 billion of these are smart phones (iPhones, iPads, Blackberries, etc).
- 3.05 billion can handle text messages.
- By 2014, more people will access the internet via mobile than via the desktop.
- 200 million Facebook users access the service via their mobile.
- 200 million YouTube videos are watched on mobile devices daily.

The last point is especially interesting to me. After all, TreatmentTrials creates web-based videos that explain clinical trials to patients and healthcare professionals.

On that note, some of our clients are using mobile devices to present these videos to patients who are in hospital or visiting a doctor’s office. This is giving rise to several benefits.

Firstly, it’s slashing the amount of time it takes for study staff to explain a trial to potential volunteers. Instead of spending 45 minutes doing this, a PI or Study Coordinator can simply hand an iPad with our videos to a potential study subject. That person can then sit in a quite area to watch the videos. 15 minutes later they’ve got a detailed understanding of the trial.

Next, if the patient is interested in leaning more about the study, they’re able to have a more informed conversation with the Study Coordinator and PI.

And that’s the second benefit of using iPads in this way: a more informed patient. Although we haven’t measured this, the feedback from study staff is that patients are finding it much easier to digest information about a study when it’s explained using a carefully produced video. Especially as they can watch it over and over.

How do you think mobile could be used to boost recruitment and retention?

Patient recruitment campaign launches for colon cancer study

Tue, 22 Mar 2011 02:17:03 -0700

I’m excited to announce that we’ve just launched a new patient recruitment campaign on TreatmentTrials.com. The campaign is targeting people with colorectal cancer that’s spread to the liver.

As with all our patient recruitment campaigns, this one offers an explanation of the study that’s simple yet detailed. In other words, one that’s ideal for lay people.

Our client for the Phase 2 study is the University of Louisville. Their study is being held at multiple sites across the United States.

There are three parts to the campaign we’ve created: production, media management and campaign management.

Production

We’ve created 5 TV-quality videos – the main one being about 15 minutes long. These feature two Principle Investigators, a Study Coordinator and a study subject.

To support the videos, we’ve also written several articles. These explain the study to the handful of internet users who can’t access online videos. What’s more, patients can print them off - then take them to their doctor.

Finally, we’ve also created an online pre-screening form for potential volunteers who want to get in touch.

Before handing the content over for IRB review, we conducted user tests. This allowed us to see if any of the information was hard for lay people to understand. Those things that caused confusion were then changed and re-tested.

Media management

With the above content hosted on TreatmentTrials.com, we’re primarily driving traffic to it by advertising on search engines. In particular, Google, Yahoo and Bing.

To do this, we first wrote the ads. Next, we identified the words that potential study participants would be most likely to search against. Then we purchased media space against each of these words.

Campaign management

Now that the patient recruitment campaign is live, we’re actively managing the search engine advertising. In particular, we’re monitoring which ads are delivering the most enquiries from relevant patients. That means each day we’re checking:

- Which search engines deliver the best results.

- Which ads deliver the best results (we’ve launched with 20 versions).

- Which keywords lead to the most ads being clicked.

- Which areas of the country deliver the best results.

Using the data that our monitoring produces, we’re able to keep improving the effectiveness of the advertising. Which, in turn, maximizes our client’s ROI.

Let me know what you think of our work.

What patient recruitment websites can learn from airport design

Wed, 17 Nov 2010 16:30:00 -0800

Earlier this week, I found myself at two airports I’d never visited before. Despite this, I was able to find my way around them with ease. Why?

Because they’d been created by design teams who’d built logical pathways signposted with easy-to-understand information.

What’s this got to do with web-based patient recruitment? Quite a lot, actually. After all, like an airport, your patient recruitment website will only work if it’s easy to use. How do you achieve this?

The trick is to make every page self-evident to the user. In other words, just by glancing at it, an average person should know instantly what it is. And how to use it.

Needless to say, the more usable your website, the more likely patients are to stay on it and consume information about your trial. Which means they’re also more likely to enquire about trial participation.

To create an easy-to-use patient recruitment website, you need to stick to several rules. Chief amongst these are the following:

Make the important stuff obvious
When a patient looks at a page, they should be able to tell instantly which things are most important.

Make it clear where the patient is on your website
People don’t always arrive via your homepage. Therefore, you need to make it obvious to them where they are on your site. For example, by offering a crumb-trial.

Tell the user where they should begin
Just like at an airport, you need to provide visual clues to help a patient know where to start their journey through your site. For example, by signposting the videos or text you want them to see first. And the enquiry form you want them to complete afterwards.

Make it easy for people to find what they want
Make it obvious to a patient where they should go to find something. Like a contact number. Or information about a similar clinical trial.

Minimize visual clutter
The less visual information used when presenting data, the easier something is to understand. That’s why airport signage looks so simple. By keeping your page layouts nice and clean, you’ll make it easier for people to consume information about your study – and get interested in joining it.

Use simple naming conventions
Always use words that lay people understand. That includes on your navigation items. And everything else on the site – like headlines.

Make it clear what is & isn’t clickable
Use a common website design device to show which text contains a link. For example, by making your text links blue.

Once you’ve completed your website design, you need to test it with users. The purpose of these tests is to see whether people can glide through your site as smoothly as you’d hoped.

Next, use the learnings from user testing to tweak your site design. Once you’ve done this, user test again.

What examples do you have of good usability?

Patient recruitment online: 3 ways to quickly boost your trial's visibility

Tue, 09 Nov 2010 14:30:00 -0800

Can eligible patients easily spot your study on the web? If not, you’re missing a big opportunity to speed up patient recruitment. Here are three things you can do today to instantly increase traffic to your recruitment pages.

1. Advertise on search engines

A patient recruitment campaign on Google, Yahoo or Bing can be set up and launched in hours. What’s more, search engine advertising brings other benefits, too:
•   Your ad is only seen by people searching for relevant words – which you select.
•   You only pay when someone clicks on your ad.
•   You bid on how much you’re prepared to pay for each click.
•   You precisely control your daily budget.
•   You ensure your ad is only seen by people in a specific geographic area (e.g. a suburb, city or state).
•   You can stop advertising instantly - at any time.

2. Advertise on Facebook

Just like advertising on Google or Yahoo, a patient recruitment campaign on Facebook can be set up almost instantly. The main difference is that instead of targeting keywords, you target people by medical condition, age and location. In other words, only people who broadly match your eligibility criteria will see your ad. Other benefits include:
•   You set a daily budget.
•   You can change your daily spend instantly.
•   You can stop advertising instantly - at any time.
•   You decide whether to pay every time someone clicks on your ad – or every time they see it.
•   You bid on how much you’re prepared to pay per click - or every time someone sees your ad.

3. Advertise on a patient recruitment directory

Promoting your study on a directory gives you immediate access to the patients you’re targeting. Different directories offer different services.

For example, some simply host content that you've created - and then email this information to their database of patients. Meanwhile, others - including us - create bespoke information about your study. And then promote it via search engines and Facebook.

How do you boost your clinical trials' visibility on the web?

How to write patient recruitment copy

Mon, 08 Nov 2010 14:30:00 -0800

I believe badly written patient recruitment materials are undermining study participation rates. What do I mean by ‘badly written’? I mean stuff that’s hard to understand – or just plain dull.

Needless to say, poor writing doesn’t inspire people. Or get them to act. That’s true whether you’re selling someone a car - or asking them to join a clinical trial.

What kind of writing will get patients interested in your study? Stuff that’s easy to understand. And a pleasure to read. The following tips will help your copywriter achieve both.

Avoid jargon

Patient recruitment materials are often packed with confusing medical terms. These cause patients to switch off. Therefore, you have to find a plain English way of saying the same thing. If you must use jargon, explain its meaning clearly.

Omit needless words

The less words you use, the easier it is to be understood.

Get to the point

To hold people’s attention, your copy needs to make its points quickly. That doesn’t mean your articles need to be short when there’s a lot to say. But it does mean they should be free of waffle.

Use short words

Long words need more mental energy to process. And the more brain power your copy demands of the reader, the less likely they are to consume it. So instead of saying ‘investigate’, try ‘look at’. And replace ‘prevent’ with ‘stop’. And ‘fortify’ with ‘strengthen’.

Use short sentences

As with short words, short sentences are easier for people to digest. That’s because they only allow one idea to be communicated at a time. Which is much easier on the brain than a long sentence containing multiple ideas. What’s the ideal length? Anything up to about 16 words.

Use short paragraphs

Just as it’s easier to read sentences that contain only one idea, it’s simpler to read paragraphs that focus on only one theme. Also, a short paragraph looks easier to digest than a giant one with dozens of sentences.

What do you think about the state of patient recruitment copywriting?

Patient recruitment: how to create effective content for the web

Fri, 05 Nov 2010 13:30:00 -0700

Tim Benjamin explains how to create web-based patient recruitment content that will interest potential subjects.

Patient recruitment ads on Google: how to cut costs and get more clicks

Wed, 03 Nov 2010 12:00:00 -0700

Did you know Google charges you more if it decides your patient recruitment ads are of poor quality? And that it places poor quality ads further down the page where they get fewer clicks?

It does this to give users a good search experience. What constitutes a good search experience? One in which the most relevant results are given greatest prominence. Therefore, when Google measures the quality of your ad, the thing it’s trying to judge is how relevant it is to the needs of the person doing a search.

Once it identifies the relevance of your advertising, Google assigns you a Quality Score. This is what influences how much you pay each time someone clicks on your ad. And where your ad will be located on the page.

So, how is your Quality Score judged? The first thing you need to know is this: it’s calculated every time the keyword you want your ad to appear against is searched.

For example, let’s say your patient recruitment campaign is for a type 2 diabetes study. And you’ve instructed Google to show your ad each time someone searches the keyword ‘type 2 diabetes’. In this scenario, Google will determine your ad’s Quality Score every time someone undertakes that search.

How your Quality Score is determined

To measure your ad’s relevance, Google uses several yardsticks. The most influential is how often people have clicked on it when searching the current keyword. This is called the click-through rate (CTR). The higher your ad’s CTR, the higher your Quality Score.

Google also looks at other data to establish your Quality Score. In particular:

•   The CTR of all the other advertising you’ve run.
•   The quality of the web page your ad sends people to (this is judged manually by Google employees).
•   The relevance of your ad to the keyword you’ve purchased against.
•   The relevance of your ad and the keyword you’ve purchased to whatever the user is actually searching for.
•   The performance of all your ads in the geographic area in which you want your ad to be shown.
•   The historical CTR of the URLs (i.e. web addresses) you’ve displayed in other ads (all Google ads include a URL at the bottom).

How your costs are affected by your Quality Score

While Google doesn’t provide detailed information about this, analysis by third parties suggests the impact is significant. For example, according to ClickEquations, if your ad achieves the highest Quality Score possible, your cost per click will fall by about 30%. Conversely, they believe the lowest Quality Score will increase your cost per click by a whopping 600%.

Final thoughts

When thinking about Quality Score, don’t forget that it’s not the only factor that decides how much you pay every time someone clicks your ad. The amount you bid - and the amount your competitors bid – is also key.

Likewise, your position on the page isn’t just down to your Quality Score. Rather, it’s a combination of your Quality Score and your bid.

Got a question for me about Quality Score? Leave it in the comments section below.

Patient recruitment videos boosted by new data

Wed, 27 Oct 2010 12:30:00 -0700

Patient consumption of online video is exploding, according to new data.

The Manhattan Research report says that in 2009, 102 million US adults searched the internet for prescription drug information. Of those, 48% viewed an online video about medications. That was up from 21% in 2007.

I’ve believed for some time that online video would appeal strongly to patients. And I think it has a big role to play in patient recruitment. That’s why I founded TreatmentTrials.com.

Needless to say, it’s exciting to see these numbers. The challenge now is for patient recruiters to start taking online video seriously. After all, potential study subjects already are.

What do you think about using online video to recruit patients?

Patient recruitment ads on Google: how much should you pay?

Tue, 26 Oct 2010 10:30:00 -0700

Advertising on Google and other search engines can be an effective patient recruitment tactic. However, it can deliver a poor return on investment if you don’t understand how to get the pricing right.

Before I show you how to do this, it’s worth summarizing the pricing model used by Google, Yahoo and Bing.

When you recruit patients via traditional media (e.g. TV, radio and newspapers) you typically pay a fixed fee regardless of how effective your ads are. In contrast, when you advertise on a search engine, you only pay for results. In particular, you only pay when someone clicks on your ad.

Importantly, you decide how much you’ll pay every time someone does this. You do this by bidding on a certain keyword. For example, if you want your patient recruitment ad to appear when someone searches ‘metastatic melanoma’, you tell Google how much you’re prepared to pay if that user clicks on your ad.

Given that other organizations also want their patient recruitment ads to appear when someone searches for ‘metastatic melanoma’, you have to bid against them. The more you bid, the higher up the page your advertisement will appear compared to your competitors (in practice, another factor known as your Quality Score also determines your position).

If money is no object, you’ll probably pay anything to outbid your competitors in order to beat them to the top position. After all, the top position typically enjoys the most clicks.

However, an effective search engine advertising campaign isn’t just about getting lots of clicks. To deliver value, it obviously must result in eligible patients going on to sign an Informed Consent document. The percentage of patients who do this determines your conversion rate.

The higher your conversion rate, the better. After all, as the conversion rate goes up, the amount you have to spend to consent each patient goes down.

According to Google, two identical ads will generate the same conversion rate, regardless of where on the page they appear relative to each other. However, as the one higher up the page will generate more clicks, it will also generate more enquiries. And, therefore, more enrolled subjects. But, as the one higher up the page will have a higher cost per click, the cost of acquiring each subject will be higher. In fact, it may be so high that it isn’t commercially viable for you.

On that note, how do you select an appropriate cost per click? The answer lies in following these steps (Note: the random values I’ve used are for explanation only – they don’t reflect real world numbers):

Step 1: Identify the value of a consented subject

Let’s say its $1000. With this figure in mind, you must work out how many patient enquiries you need before you get one consented subject. Let’s say you need 10 enquiries. That means each enquiry is worth $100.

Step 2: Identify the value of a click

Knowing that an enquiry is worth $100, you must next work out what percentage of patients clicking on your ad will enquire. Let’s say it’s 10%.

You then multiple $100 x 10% = $10. In other words, the value to you of a click on your ad is $10.

Step 3: Decide how much you’ll pay to receive that $10 click

To do this, identify how much advertising money you’re prepared to spend to acquire a consented subject worth $1000. Let’s say you’ll spend 20% of the subject’s value (i.e. $200).

Next, multiply the value to you of a click ($10) by the amount you’re prepared to spend on advertising to generate one subject (20%): $10 x 20% = $2.

$2 is the maximum you should spend per click. This may or may not result in your ad appearing at the top of the page. However, it will ensure you enjoy the position that best meets your business objectives.

If you have a question for me about any of the above points, please leave it in the comments section below.

Why a patient recruitment ad needs real voices

Fri, 22 Oct 2010 14:00:00 -0700

Here at TreatmentTrials, we firmly believe that patient recruitment advertising works best when it features real people. Like your Principle Investigator and Study Coordinator.

That's because, in the mind of the patient, they're far more credible than actors and models. Or plain text on a webpage.

You can feel the impact of an authentic voice in this superb video for Chicago suit maker, Oxxford Clothes.

How patient recruiters should choose keywords when advertising on search engines

Thu, 21 Oct 2010 14:30:00 -0700

When you use paid search engine marketing as a patient recruitment tool, careful keyword selection is vital. That’s because it will largely make or break your campaign.

Before I explain why, it’s worth clarifying what a ‘keyword’ is. Put simply, it’s the word or phrase that a person searches on Google, Yahoo or Bing.

One of the strengths of paid search engine marketing is that you decide which keywords you want your advertisement to appear against. For example, if you’re recruiting patients for a type 1 diabetes trial, you can have your ad appear every time someone searches the keyword ‘type 1 diabetes’. Meanwhile, you can ensure your ad doesn’t appear when someone searches ‘type 2 diabetes’.

When selecting your keywords, the goal is to choose ones used by the people you’re targeting. That includes patients plus their friends and family.

How to choose the right keywords

The first thing you need to bear in mind is that many of the people you’re targeting may not be actively looking for a clinical trial. They may not even know what a clinical trial is.

Therefore, your recruitment campaign must largely target people who might be interested in a clinical trial – but who’re currently looking for other forms of information about a given disease. For example, a patient wanting information about treatment options.

On that note, you should start by making an educated guess about which keywords your target audience are searching against. Once you’ve got some initial ideas, the next step is to test them with Google’s keyword tool.

Google's keyword tool

You’ll find the tool useful for two reasons. Firstly, it will give you a ballpark figure of how often the keywords on your initial list are searched. Secondly, it will also highlight related keywords you hadn’t thought of. And it’ll show you how often these are searched, too.

When finalising your list, it’s important to remember that the more focused the keyword, the more likely it is to draw in relevant people. That means you generally want keywords with at least two words.

For example, if you’re recruiting type 1 diabetes patients, you should avoid advertising against the generic word ‘diabetes’. Otherwise, you’ll waste loads of money as people with the more common type 2 diabetes click enthusiastically on your ad.

Another benefit of keywords that contain multiple words is that they are generally cheaper to advertise against. That’s because there are fewer advertisers bidding against each other to appear.

I’ll discuss keyword selection and it’s relationship to price in my next post. In the meantime, if you have a question for me about keyword selection, please leave it in the comments section below.

How to recruit patients by advertising on search engines

Wed, 20 Oct 2010 16:30:00 -0700

Does your patient recruitment activity include advertising on search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing? If not, it probably should. After all, 44 million Americans search the internet for experimental treatments and medicines each year.*

In this series, I’ll give you an overview of how paid search engine advertising works. And how you can use it to recruit patients faster.

In this first article, I’m going to give you an introduction to the basics.

What is search engine advertising?

Search engine advertising – also known as ‘paid search’ – appears when you do a search on Google, Yahoo or Bing. The ads appear on the search results page at the top and down the right-hand side of the page. Google calls these ‘Sponsored links’. Yahoo calls them 'Sponsored results'.

Benefits of search engine advertising

Search engine advertising helps you in several important ways.

A highly targeted audience

When you buy advertising space on a search engine, your ad is only shown to patients you think might be interested in your study. That’s because you control:
•   Which search words and phrases your ad appears against.
•   Which geographic areas your ad will appear in.
•   What times of the day your ad will appear.

Performance pricing

When you advertise using traditional media like TV and radio, you pay a flat fee regardless of how effective your ad is. In contrast, when you advertise your clinical trial on a search engine, you only pay when a patient clicks on your ad. If they see your advertisement but don’t click on it, you don’t pay anything. As a result, paid search is often called ‘pay per click’ advertising – or ‘PPC’ for short.

Appearance on the first page of search results

Having your patient recruitment ad appear on the first page of search results is critical to success. That’s because only a handful of people bother to look at the results on the subsequent pages. Getting a ‘natural’ (i.e. unpaid) search result onto the first page is always hard – and often virtually impossible. However, by launching a paid advertising campaign, you can be there instantly.

You control your spend

Search engines allow you to set a daily budget. Once that’s been achieved, your ads stop appearing. As a result, you know in advance what your total spend will be.

It’s fully measurable

It’s easy to track your search advertising campaign’s ROI. That’s because you can see:
•   How many people have clicked on your ads.
•   What percentage of those people pass an online or phone-based pre-screen.
•   What percentage of them then sign an informed consent document.

Potential risks

A search advertising campaign isn’t guaranteed to get you results. For example, it's possible that few people will click on your ads. Or lots of people might do so, but few of them pass pre-screening (which will do awful things to your ROI).

To avoid these problems, you need to manage your campaign actively. In following articles, I’ll highlight what you must do to get the best outcome.

*Pew Internet and American Life Project ‘The Social Life of Health Information’, June 2009.

A patient recruitment idea from Lexus

Thu, 14 Oct 2010 09:00:00 -0700

Do your patient recruitment materials feature your Principle Investigator and their expert opinions? I ask because including your PI is one of the best ways of building patient enthusiasm for your clinical trial.

The reason for this is simple: fronting your recruitment campaign with an expert gives it a big dose of credibility. Why?

Firstly, it gives patients reassurance. People want to know your study is run by experts – individuals who’s top priority is subject safety. A few words from your PI is the best way to do this.

Secondly, featuring your PI will inject human warmth into your study. This will make it stand out from the bland patient recruitment materials offered by most clinical trials.

Thirdly, by showcasing the PI’s understanding of the medical condition and their thoughts on treating it, patients will perceive your trial as being at the heart of thought leadership on the topic.

Using real experts to add credibility to a marketing message is a common practise amongst smart consumer brands. Yesterday I spotted an excellent example in the latest issue of Monocle - a magazine that has gained a reputation for creating advertising that brilliantly serves the needs of both readers and advertisers.

The promotion – it doesn’t feel like an advertisement – replaces actors and models with an expert at Lexus, Hirokazu Koga. Mr Koga is Project General Manager of the Lexus Development Center.

Over several pages, he explains the thinking that goes into developing a new range. The result? You believe the marketing message. And you feel positively inclined towards the brand.

Patient recruitment lessons from new in-flight safety video

Mon, 04 Oct 2010 15:30:00 -0700

Air New Zealand has found a brilliant way to get bored passengers focused on safety.

The airline has launched an in-flight safety video that dispenses with the usual yawn-fest. In its place is a piece of content that powerfully captures people's attention. And ensures that they're able to understand a number of complex messages - despite being a lay audience.

The video is so good at engaging people that it’s had over 500,000 YouTube views in its first four weeks.

Why is it relevant to your patient recruitment? Because it shows how good communications make a difference when explaining complex things to lay people - in your case, when explaining clinical trials.

As a patient recruiter, your key take out is this: apply smart communication techniques when promoting your study to patients and you'll stand a good chance of:

•   Making them aware of your clinical trial
•   Having them understand its complexities
•   Getting them enthusiastic about participation.

Needless to say, I don’t think comedy is the right tool for promoting a clinical trial. Luckily, you don’t need it to be effective. What you do need is to understand the principles of good communication.

Why your online patient recruitment content should be detail rich

Thu, 30 Sep 2010 11:00:00 -0700

Tim Benjamin explains why your web-based patient recruitment materials must be long on information.

Clinical trial patient recruitment using online video

Wed, 22 Sep 2010 11:30:00 -0700

Did you know 44 million Americans search the internet for experimental treatments and medicines each year?* If you can connect with them, you stand a great chance of recruiting your patients faster.

However, if you’re like most sponsors, CROs and sites, you’re probably not making the most of the opportunity. After all, most online recruitment campaigns get little patient attention. Why?

Because they communicate badly. Which means they simply aren’t noticed amongst the thousands of marketing messages that fight for people’s attention each day.

Solving this communication problem involves a variety of steps. An important one is using video to explain your study to potential subjects.

Before exploring the power of video, it’s worth looking at why web-based patient recruitment campaigns underperform.

The most frequent communication mistakes

Are you making any of these errors when recruiting patients online?

Your study is hidden

Is your trial splashed across Google and Facebook? Or is it buried deep inside some rarely visited website? Unless it’s widely promoted, relevant patients won’t know it exists.

Your study lacks a human face

Patients are wary of faceless corporations – especially ones that want to use them for medical experiments. Failing to showcase the people running your study will fuel patient misgivings.

You use medical jargon

If you describe your study using medical language, you make it hard for lay people to understand it – let alone get enthusiastic about joining.

Your information has logic gaps

If you don’t unravel the complexities of your study in a clear and logical way, patients will struggle to see why it’s relevant to them. Feeling confused, they’re also unlikely to make the all-important positive emotional connection with your trial.

You don’t provide enough information

Applying to join a study is a major decision. Few people will bother if you only throw them a few crumbs of information.

Your product is poorly explained

It’s hard to get patients interested in your study when you don’t clearly summarize how your drug, device or biologic works.

You don’t describe the procedures that subjects are exposed to

If you don’t tell potential volunteers what procedures they’ll be exposed to, they’re likely to imagine the worst.

You don’t shed light on how site visits work

Patients have busy lives. When you don’t explain the time commitment, they’ll often assume your study is too time consuming to bother with.

You don’t explain the screening process clearly

Patients don’t know what your screening involves or how long it takes. When you don’t tell them, you sow concerns in their mind.

The potential benefits of participation aren’t clear

Patients are motivated by how your study will benefit them. When you don’t make the potential benefits clear, your chances of recruiting them shrink dramatically.

You don’t explain risks clearly

Patients will often assume the risks are greater than they are. You’ll add to their fears if you don’t explain them properly.

You don’t explain costs clearly

This is one of the biggest questions for potential subjects. Yet promotional materials rarely explain costs with clarity.

You haven’t differentiated your study

Can patients understand how your trial differs from those run by your competitors? Can they tell why they should join your study rather than someone else’s?

Your designs are poor

Your study information must be easy to consume. Tiny typefaces, long paragraphs or hard to read colors kill patient attention instantly.

How to get results

To avoid the problems listed above, you must understand the basics of consumer marketing. After all, the business of recruiting patients is similar to recruiting customers.

On that note, did you know that people who sell products and services to consumers work to a formula? Proven over decades, this formula reveals the five phases a person must journey through before they’ll commit to a purchase.

Why is this formula relevant to you? Because you need to take patients through the same journey before they’ll commit to joining your study.

The formula is known by the acronym AIDCA. This stands for:

•   Attention
•   Interest
•   Desire
•   Conviction
•   Action

Let’s briefly explore what these concepts refer to.

Attention

The first step in getting someone to join your study is simply making them aware it exists. On the internet, that means an eye-catching headline wherever your target patients spend time. For example:
•   Google
•   Facebook
•   Twitter
•   Patient websites

Interest

Now you’ve got the patient’s attention, you need to get their interest. What are patients interested in? It’s very simple. They’re interested in themselves.

What does that mean for you? It means you need to put yourself in the patient’s shoes when explaining the various elements of the study. In other words, describe how each of those elements provides them with a benefit.

For example, when talking about risks, you should also explain what steps you’ll take to minimize them. Because those steps are benefits.

If you’re still not sure what a benefit is, think of it as something the patient would expect to get out of the study.

Desire

Getting a patient interested in joining your study is not enough. You need them wanting to join. If you don’t create this emotional response, they simply won’t enroll.

What’s the difference between an online recruitment campaign that only builds interest and one that also builds desire? It’s in the quality of your communications. Detailed information that’s easy to understand and professionally presented is the thing that will attract the patient to your study rather than to your competitor’s.

Conviction

Your next objective is to convince the patient that your study is the one to join. To do that, you must eliminate any lingering doubts they may have about you or your trial.

How do you achieve this? By proving you’re a leader in your field. Regardless of how well known you are in the healthcare world, the chances are that most patients will know little about you.

Therefore, you need to tell them. For example, what’s your experience in the field? What recognition have you received? Can you offer patient testimonials?

Action

This is the all-important business of getting the patient to actually apply for your study. To get them over this major hurdle, you need to make the process clear and simple.

For example, tell them what the next steps are once they’ve completed an enquiry form. And what happens to their data.

Meanwhile, you must make the enquiry form easy to use. As e-commerce companies have learnt, a confusing or unprofessional looking form dramatically lowers sales.

Why video is the best way to achieve AIDCA

Now we’ve explored AIDCA, the big question is this: how do you achieve it online? Broadly speaking, different bits need different kinds of activity.

Creating awareness involves placing communications on websites used by your target patients. As mentioned earlier, that may include:
•   Google
•   Facebook
•   Twitter
•   Patient websites

I’ll explore how to do this in upcoming articles.

Here, I want to look at how you engage people once they know your study exists – and have clicked on a link on one of the above websites. In other words, I want to talk about how you create Interest, Desire, Conviction and Action.

On that note, the most powerful tool at your disposal is online video. After all, in 2010, 147 million Americans are watching at least one online video each month. 36% of them are aged 45 or above.**

Popularity isn’t video’s only strength, however. Of equal importance is its superb ability to enthuse people. This stems from a number of factors.

Video improves patient understanding of your study

Your study is complex. The better you explain it, the more likely a patient will be interested in joining. Research shows that video does this better than text – especially when explaining complex processes and procedures.

For example, in one study***, a complex industrial process was explained to a group of volunteers. Half the volunteers read an article explaining the process while the other half watched a video that explained it.

Of the people who read the article, only 8% of them could subsequently describe that process to the study’s researchers. In contrast, 65% of those who watched the video could.

Video allows patients to hear directly from your study team

By featuring your Principle Investigator, Study Coordinator and other people involved with your trial, a video gives your study a human face. This provides patients with several important benefits.

Firstly, it makes the study more tangible. The patient can see it’s being run by warm, professional people – not a faceless corporation. This powerfully inspires patient confidence.

Secondly, by having the study team explain the trial in their own words, the patient is able to get a much better feel for it than if they simply read a piece of text.

Video allows patients to hear from subjects who’ve participated in your study

It goes without saying that people are often nervous about the idea of joining a clinical trial. By including existing subjects talking about their experiences of your trial, your video can play a big role in making potential volunteers feel more confident about it.

Video lets patients see the equipment and procedures they’ll be exposed to

Showing patients what they’ll be exposed to if they join your study is a great confidence booster.

Other ways you’ll benefit from video

Besides being a great way to talk to patients, video brings other benefits too.

A convenient format for your target patients

Patients like online video because:
•   They can hear from your study team while sat in the comfort of their own home.
•   They can watch your video over and over. And pause it, re-wind, etc. This makes it much easier for them to understand your study.
•   They can easily share your video with their friends, family and wider world via YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and email.

You can easily measure effectiveness

You can track how often your videos are watched – and how much of each video is watched on average.

Conclusion

Vast numbers of people now use the web to find experimental drugs and treatments. That means the internet must be a central part of your patient recruitment program.

However, you won’t get results if you can’t enthuse patients. To succeed, you must use the same approach as people who market consumer products and services.

That means taking the patient on a journey from initial awareness through to them applying to join.

Once you’ve made them aware of your study, video is the best online tool for getting them to apply. Use it well and you’ll quickly speed up your patient recruitment.

Sources

*Pew Internet and American Life Project ‘The Social Life of Health Information’, June 2009.
**eMarketer, ‘Video Content and Syndication: Long Form Content on the Rise’, July 2010
***The Poynter Institute and the Estlow Center for Journalism & New Media, 'Eyetrack III Report', September 2004.

Clinical trial patient recruitment: why social media alone isn’t enough

Sun, 11 Jul 2010 14:30:00 -0700

The clinical trial patient recruitment world is abuzz with excitement about social media. In particular, hopes are riding high that social media can help sponsors and sites significantly speed up the recruitment of participants.

While I believe social media offers real opportunities, there is a danger of over-hyping its potential. And under-stating its complexity.

Before I explain why, it’s worth clarifying what a ‘social media’ campaign is. After all, many of the conversations I hear fail to adequately distinguish the difference between (a) social media campaigns and (b) paid advertising on social media websites.

Putting it simply, a 'social media' campaign involves open, honest conversations between a sponsor and potential study participants (plus their friends, family and doctors). This could take place on Facebook, Twitter or any other website that allows two-way conversation. Importantly, there is generally no media cost associated with these conversations.

In contrast, paid advertising that appears on a social network doesn’t constitute a conversation (although it may be driving traffic to a conversation). It’s a one-way piece of communication that appears because the sponsor has purchased media space.

Needless to say, the current excitement is mainly focused on the conversational bit of social media.

My primary concern here is that some sponsors and sites may be concluding that merely launching a social media conversation will solve their recruitment problems. It won’t.

To maximise effectiveness, an online conversation must be delivered as part of a wider communications program. After all, the various media channels are not interchangeable – they all play different roles.

Therefore, many studies still need to include traditional channels in their communication mix. Those could include radio, print, search engine marketing, study specific websites, etc.

What’s more, as with all communications channels, online conversations will only be as powerful as the quality of the information the sponsor or site provides.

To engage potential subjects, communication about a study must be easy for non-medical people to understand. Amongst other things, that means:

- Explaining complex concepts.

- Avoiding medical jargon (or explaining it when jargon can’t be avoided).

- Providing more rather less information about the study.

- Giving the study a human face.

As with any clinical trial patient recruitment communications activity, a great way to understand how to use online conversation is to observe what consumer brands do. Take a look at Coke, Nike or McDonalds and you’re sure to find some useful ideas for your recruitment campaigns.

Clinical trial patient recruitment: 9 ways to write effective web copy

Thu, 24 Jun 2010 04:10:49 -0700

Clinical trial patient recruitment is becoming increasingly common on the internet. The reason for this is simple: patients now routinely use the web as a source of health information.

According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project*, 61% of American adults look online for health information each year. And 15% of American adults actively look online for experimental treatments or medicines.

Unfortunately, the clinical trial patient recruitment information these people find is often hard to understand. The reasons for this include:

- Confusing medical jargon.
- Complex words, sentences and paragraphs.
- Poorly explained concepts.

Needless to say, people who don’t understand your trial will be less inclined to participate. So what’s the trick to writing web-based information that engages patients, their friends and their families?

In my view, the answer lies in writing clinical trial patient recruitment information that is simple without being simplistic. In other words, you must write copy that is rich in detail yet easy to understand.

To help you, here are 9 ideas.

1. Embrace complexity

Clinical trials are complicated. Don’t be afraid to explain the complexities. By untangling the various elements, you allow a potential study participant to understand the fine details of your study. This will obviously help them make an informed decision about joining. What’s more, the better informed someone is before they consent, the less likely they are to leave your study early.

2. Explain the medical condition

Without an understanding of the medical condition being addressed, a layperson will struggle to make sense of the study drug or device being tested in your clinical trial. On that note, explain the nature of the condition before you describe the study. This is particularly important when communicating with a patient’s friends and family. After all, they probably know little about it.

3. Describe the standard of care

Your audience needs to know about the standard of care to grasp your trial's relevance. Explain it once you’ve described the medical condition.

4. Everyday words please

Like all industries, healthcare is awash with jargon. Unfortunately, most of it is meaningless to people who don’t work in the field. To connect with your audience, use simple words. If there’s no way around a technical term, use plain English to explain it.

5. Keep sentences short

Short sentences are easier for the brain to process. David Ogilvy, the father of modern advertising, suggests they contain no more than 12 words. As that’s often hard to achieve, try restricting yourself to 16.

6. Small paragraphs are your friends

Giant paragraphs are hard to read. People switch-off when they see them. Follow the lead of magazines and newspapers by restricting them to about 5-6 sentences.

7. Headlines that work

A headline must achieve two goals instantly: tell the reader what an article is about. And grab their interest. To do this, the headlines on your clinical trial patient recruitment pieces should be short. 12 words is the maximum. Also, include the name of the medical condition that your trial relates to. But exclude the name of your study drug or device – unless it means something to your audience.

8. Test for reading ease

Once you’ve written your copy, check how easy it is to read. The simplest way is via the readability checker in Microsoft Word. Based on the Flesch Reading Ease formula, you want to achieve a score of at least 60%. That’s plain English. A score below 60% suggests your copy is tricky to read.

9. Test on real users

Once you’ve crafted you clinical trial patient recruitment copy, test it on real people. Ideally, use those who know nothing about the target disease or your trial. What works? What doesn’t? Use the learnings to polish your work further. Then test again.

*‘The Social Life of Health Information’ June 2009.

Metastatic melanoma to the liver clinical trial now live

Mon, 03 May 2010 19:23:28 -0700

A metastatic melanoma to the liver clinical trial is now live on TreatmentTrials.com.

Sponsored by the University of Louisville, the listing features six videos. That's up from the one video we did for our last study.

And the good news is that our search engine optimisation work is already paying big dividends.

In fact, on Day 1 we managed to achieve #1 spot on Google for the highly relevant search term 'metastatic melanoma to the liver clinical trial'.

Admittedly, this is a link to where our videos are hosted on Viddler. But these Viddler pages direct the user straight to TreatmentTrials.com.

Of more interest is that 'metastatic melanoma to the liver' references on TreatmentTrials are now appearing reasonably high up the search results.

The goal is to appear on the first page of results for all relevant terms within three months of launch.

Special thanks to the following people for getting this project live: Nic and Luke at Zebra Crossing, Ben at Thirst Studios, Mark Huser, Phil Taylor, Helen Boreham and Jonathan Taylor.