Conducting market research can be challenging, but when you are looking to speak to people recently diagnosed, living with, or in remission from cancer, it needs to be handled with the upmost care and attention. This was the challenge that faced a leading UK cancer charity, wanting to connect with people that were not already registered or receiving care and support from the charity.

There is no list that can be bought of people with a cancer diagnosis and it is ethically correct that there are stringent data protection rules around making such sensitive information available. Furthermore, cold-calling to ask if someone has cancer and would like to answer some questions was clearly not an option. So, with an objective to complete the field-work of 200 telephone interviews in just two weeks, the charity turned to DBS Data and its innovative Total Sampling service.

DBS was immediately able to give the charity a head-start with its patient panel, which includes people with medical conditions that have explicitly expressed their willingness be contacted. Through a combination of managed email broadcasts, insertions in relevant publisher networks and serving requests for participation on Facebook – inviting those meeting the criteria to participate, in return for a donation made to the cancer charity of their choice – 250 telephone calls were scheduled.

Within the first week of field-work the charity reached its target of 200 completed telephone surveys. So impressed has the charity been with DBS’, enabling them to complete the work a whole week ahead of schedule, they are now working closely together on other important initiatives.