Patient recruitment and retention are at the heart of clinical research success. Potential clinical trial participants usually have several options to consider, whether they choose to pursue conventional treatment plans or make the carefully considered decision to enroll in a clinical trial. Clinical study branding can get your study noticed as one of these options.
Importance of clinical trial branding
Clinical studies are competing for these men and women. Getting their attention requires a well-thought-out strategy to interest them in taking a closer look – in a word, marketing. Typically, a trial is marketed through such means as TV, radio, and tried and true traditional methods such as posters, flyers, and direct mail. Social media has also become a successful medium for advertising clinical trials.
Before you begin marketing, you must create a compelling look and message that gives your trial an identity. This is called branding, and branding is an art. As you begin your branding efforts, it’s important to make sure you know your audience and understand their challenges and motivations by researching their common traits. Invest in quality market research and contact people who share these characteristics or the indication being studied in the trial.
Tips for getting started
When you start creating your marketing materials, use an expert design team possessing the skills and tools to give you a professional product. Almost anyone with some software and the desire can generate some sort of design. However, using a design done by an amateur is dangerous territory. Unprofessional visuals can make your trial unappealing and endanger its integrity.
When you’re working on the study’s name, logo, and overall look of the study materials, you will need to get buy-in from stakeholders, such as your supervisor, your organization’s upper management, the sponsor, or an outside client.
It’s best to fully engage these people at the beginning of the process. Get their opinions upfront before the creative work begins. They might already have a clear vision of what they want, what they don’t want, and what they expect. Make them part of the creative process. And, don’t wait until you’re done with all your work to present it to them. This is a good way to avoid having to start all over from scratch.
More clinical trial branding information
These tips and more are included in the ebook, “7 Essentials For Clinical Trial Branding and Design,” published by Imperial Clinical Research Services. It presents the branding basics, mistakes to avoid, ways to smooth out the process, and how to make your trial relevant to potential research participants and busy site staff members.
You can download the book for free by clicking on this link.
Updated: 14 August 2022