In healthcare, understanding patients' needs and perceptions is essential to designing products and services that truly create value. But when a company operates under a B2B model, direct access to end users can become a challenge.
This was the case for a health tech company that wanted to run nationally representative research to better understand how potential patients relate to the world of care and medical attention.
The challenge: recruiting a representative sample
The company, which had traditionally worked with corporate clients, faced the challenge of reaching end users across different regions of the country. Because user governance data sat mainly in the hands of its clients, we had to set up an independent recruitment process that would guarantee a truly representative sample.
The goal was to include people with different demographic characteristics, with particular attention to geographic distribution and gender balance.
Our UX Research team determined that the key was to optimize the recruitment process, ensuring the greatest possible diversity in the sample. To do that, we designed specific campaigns that connected effectively with different user profiles across the country.
The process: cultural communication as a strategy
To tackle the recruitment challenge, the team ran three different campaigns, each with its own focus:
Focused on attracting users who already knew the company and its services.
Aimed at a broader audience with no prior knowledge of the company, to bring in new participants.
Built with the cultural communication technique: messages were aligned with current, relevant topics for each target audience.
The cultural communication campaign incorporated contextual elements, tailoring the message to connect with different demographic groups. Here are some examples of messages adapted to different profiles:
Always busy taking care of everyone, but putting your own health on the back burner?
Ever felt out of place in a waiting room?
Key findings: optimizing recruitment
The results of the three campaigns showed clear differences in their effectiveness:
- Organic: attracted a significant number of participants, but since these were people who already knew the company, the sample was biased and didn't bring in enough new users.
- Generic: brought in new participants, but with imbalances in gender and geographic location that undermined representativeness.
- Specific with cultural communication: the most effective. It attracted the right target audience, in less time and with less investment, and with much more representative gender and location segmentation.
This campaign also recorded the best unique click-through ratio and the highest conversion rate on the participation form, confirming that the message was more relevant and appealing to the audience.
Business impact: more representativeness and efficiency
The cultural communication technique gave us access to a more diverse and representative sample, strengthening the validity of the results. By designing campaigns aligned with the context and realities of each demographic group, the company didn't just improve recruitment: it also made better use of its resources.
The final report, based on a stronger and more balanced sample, provided greater reliability for strategic decision-making.
Conclusion
This case shows how a strategic, culturally sensitive approach can transform the recruitment process in UX research. By designing campaigns to connect with different demographic groups, the company achieved a more representative sample and did so more efficiently in terms of time and resources.
Cultural communication stands out as a key tool for future research: connecting with the right users and delivering more reliable and actionable results.