Leveraging influencer marketing and paid media to drive traffic and brand visibility

When a leading clinical trials company asked us to start engaging a new audience, driving them to their clinical trials, we knew we were going to have to do something different to break through to our target audience and cut through the noise in the healthcare space.

Our key objectives:

• Expose the brand and its range of trials to specific target audiences
• Raise awareness of what happens on clinical trials and the importance of continued research into new treatments
• Drive increased traffic to their website for volunteer sign ups

The results:

• Multiple successful influencer campaigns, surpassing landing page targets and increasing website conversions by 25%
• Paid media placements over 1,000% over target page views
• Brand search increased by 402% year on year

All our work contributed to changing the narrative surrounding clinical trials in the UK, leading to an award win for Healthcare Campaign of the Year at the PRMoment Awards.

What we did

As the audience brief for each clinical trial changed, we relied heavily on insights to steer us in terms of the channels we chose to target each audience. Using a range of insights tools , we were able to identify where our target audience consume their news and content, which fed the below implementation:

Influencer marketing and content creators:

• Through influencer marketing, we were able to leverage the audiences of key opinion leaders and existing online communities across specific conditions.
• Working with influencers on content and deliverables that met the strict eligibility criteria from trial researchers, as well as remaining true to the content of the influencer, we were able to resonate with their audiences in a genuine and authentic way.
• Our initial campaign was so successful, the team repeated a similar campaign with the same influencer two months later.

Targeted paid media:

• Targeted paid media options were activated for a range of trials to support other outreach activity.
• Through paid advertorial, drafted by the No Brainer team, with a wide range of regional media titles, we were able to hyper-target residents in areas local to specific trial sites.
• This resulted in clear spikes in traffic through 2021 linked to campaign activation timelines and brand searches increasing 402% YoY.

Why was it successful?

• Detailed research and insights were undertaken for each trial, ensuring we were targeting the correct audience through the most suitable channels.
• Using micro-influencers that have the condition of the trial they promoted ensured:
  • They remained a trusting source of information – not too large a following and still fit the ‘someone like me’ style of micro-influencers.
  • They helped to remove some of the stigma surrounding trials, explaining why they’re important.
  • They could answer any questions and signpost users where to go to sign up.
• Using multiple channels ensured we reached our audiences on different levels, exposing our reach and helping change the narrative surrounding clinical trials on larger scale.