Vanity 800 Number and Call Tracking Provide the Roadmap for a Research Company’s Ad Campaigns

1-800-NEW-STUDY

Background: Clinical research company provides research and bioanalytical services to the drug development community. Recruiting participants for clinical trials is essential to pharmaceutical development. And, advertising to consumers is key to generating awareness of clinical studies and drives patient participation.

Client: The research company has been performing clinical trials for more than 35 years. The company has three major clinical research locations in the United States and has completed more than 1,500 studies, providing their clients with the knowledge to determine early pharmacologic effects of emerging pharmaceuticals.

Challenge: The company needed a memorable response tool for their radio campaigns. They also wanted a way to accurately track the cost-per-lead for all advertising initiatives.

Solution: Use a vanity 800 number in radio campaigns, and access complementary call-tracking data to measure the performance of other media channels.

Results: The research company switched from advertising a numeric toll-free number in their radio campaigns, to using a vanity 800 number – 1-800-NEW-STUDY. According to the Director of Global Recruitment, response to their radio campaigns has increased 22%.

“Switching to a more memorable response tool in our radio ads, where people cannot see or write down a numeric phone number, has improved the response rates to our campaigns. And, we’ve been able to maintain a lower cost-per-lead and allocate our budgets more wisely to maximize patient recruiting efforts.”

He describes the combination of a vanity number and tracking data as a “roadmap to optimizing our advertising dollars.” He says, “Having access to real-time call data is key to our advertising strategy. I can look at our daily call volume to the vanity number, and immediately know which media channels are producing the greatest number of leads.”

The Director also uses the call data to get a summary of their ad campaigns, including the cost-per-lead of each media buy. “By knowing what we’re paying for each lead generated during a campaign, I can place our advertising dollars in the areas that are producing the highest number of leads, and know that we’re getting the most for our advertising investment.”

His close watch of the calls coming into 1-800-NEW-STUDY allows him to maximize lead-generation in each market they advertise in. “I am able to track the cost-per-lead as a campaign runs its course. As soon as we start to see the saturation point, I can change strategy and put our ad dollars to work in another market.”