Use and adapt this recruitment email for your next research study

Emails are an important tool for recruiting participants for clinical trials, particularly when you have a database of interested individuals. Here are a few reasons why:

• Efficiency: Sending emails is a quick and efficient way to reach out to potential participants. You can easily send the same message to a large number of people at once, saving time and resources.
• Targeted recruitment: If you have a database of interested individuals, you can tailor your recruitment efforts to specific demographics or populations. This can help to ensure that you are recruiting the right participants for your study.
• Personalization: Emails allow you to personalize your message by addressing the recipient by name and including other relevant information. This can make the email more appealing and increase engagement.
• Measurable results: Emails allow you to track the success of your recruitment efforts by measuring the open rate, response rate and number of participants recruited. This can help you to identify any challenges or areas for improvement.
• Cost-effective: Sending emails is generally a cost-effective way to recruit participants, especially when compared to other methods such as in-person recruitment or advertising.

There are several factors that can make a recruitment email for a clinical trial effective:

• Clear and concise subject line: The subject line should be clear and concise, and should immediately convey the purpose of the email and the opportunity to participate in the study.
• Relevant information: The email should provide relevant information about the study, including the purpose, eligibility criteria, and location.
• Incentives: Offering incentives, such as payment or other rewards, can help to increase interest in participating.
• Easy to understand: The email should be easy to understand, with clear language and formatting.
• Professionalism: The email should be professional and well-written, with proper grammar and spelling.
• Contact information: The email should include contact information for the researcher or study team, so that potential participants can easily reach out for more information or to express interest in participating

Since these emails are important – Wayturn takes the time to ensure that they are as effective as possible. One part of this is testing, and iterating on the wording using data.

A/B testing, also known as split testing, is a method used to compare the performance of two or more versions of something, such as an email. It involves sending many versions of an email, and sending each version to only a small part of your total recipients in order to measure the response and maximize outcomes.

Usually, we would send a version to about 10% of our list, and test at least 3 email versions. Then the winning email is sent to the remaining 70% of our list.

There are several reasons why A/B testing can be useful for email recruitment:

• Improves effectiveness: A/B testing allows you to compare the effectiveness of different versions of an email in terms of response rate, number of participants recruited, or other desired outcomes. This can help you to identify the most effective version and optimize your recruitment efforts.
• Personalization: A/B testing can help you to determine the best way to personalize emails to individual recipients, such as by using different subject lines or language.
• Test assumptions: A/B testing allows you to test assumptions about what might be most effective in an email, such as the use of incentives or the length of the message.
• Refine strategy: A/B testing can provide valuable insights into what works and what doesn’t when it comes to recruiting participants through emails, which can help you to refine your strategy and optimize your recruitment efforts.

Now, without further ado, here are a five example email templates you can copy adapt to use in your study. We recommend testing at least 3 of them, and sending the one that performs the best to your whole list.

Click on the numbers below: