Discover the Impact of The WISDOM Study
A Q&A with Steffanie Goodman
Steffanie Goodman, MPH
Strategic Initiatives & Partnerships at The WISDOM Study
Our journey with the WISDOM Study at UCSF is one of our favorite stories of locking arms with a bold, visionary partner to take on big challenges with an insights-driven strategy, audience-centric design, and a real-world pilot.
Merit Senior Strategist, Christine Dormeier recently caught up with Steffanie Goodman, Head of Marketing & Partnerships for the WISDOM Study. Here's a snippet of our insightful conversation with Steffanie, where she delves into the study’s goals, her experience, and key takeaways from our collaboration.
Christine: Hi Steff, Thanks so much for your time to retrospect with us today! Can you start by describing the WISDOM Study and your role in it?
Steffanie: Yes, the WISDOM Study is a landmark national research study intended to improve and modernize breast cancer screening guidelines for women so that women can live longer and healthier lives. It was created and launched in 2016.
Originally, the study was designed to be a randomized control trial so that people were randomly assigned into one of two groups: either the control group, which was the standard of care for breast screening to receive annual mammograms, or the novel group under investigation which is testing a personalized approach to breast screening. In the personalized group, women complete a robust risk assessment including a saliva based genetic test kit they receive in the mail from WISDOM and an online survey about their breast health. From this risk assessment, the WISDOM Study then identifies a woman's level of risk for developing breast cancer which varies person to person based on lots of different factors. And then the WISDOM Study provides a personalized breast cancer screening recommendation to the participant each year after the participant completes their yearly survey.
My role in the study is to support marketing, communications, and partnerships on a local, regional and national level. I primarily support our central headquarters’ marketing and communications program, which is the playbook on a national scale for what our satellite recruitment sites can do from their local level. I've been working with the WISDOM Study for four years, and I'm also a participant.
Christine: How would you describe the goal of the WISDOM Study?
Steffanie: The goals of the study are to not just update and modernize screening, but really also to try and identify women at elevated risk for breast cancer before they develop cancer and offer breast cancer risk reduction guidance to women who are at high risk.
We're trying to help prevent cancers before they start and help improve the way cancers are detected through more accurate risk prediction methodology. We enroll women between the ages of 30 and 74 into the study. The study is conducted mostly online through yearly surveys and a one time genetic test. But we re-analyze genetic test results as we learn more about the way that polygenic risk scores impact women's risk for breast cancer.
“The goals of the study are to not just update and modernize screening, but really also to try and identify women at elevated risk for breast cancer before they develop cancer and offer breast cancer risk reduction guidance to women who are at high risk.”
Christine: Thanks for the summary! What is the ultimate vision for the WISDOM Study?
Steffanie: Our vision is large and multifaceted. We aim to prove that our model is effective at identifying women at high risk, and utilizing this approach for preventive measures so that risk can be reduced before cancers begin to grow. We also hope to reduce unnecessary screening for women at lower risk and the burden that comes with having unnecessary biopsies (from mammogram call backs and false alarms). We want to see a world where women's risk for breast cancer is identified at younger ages, when more can be done about their cancer risks, like using preventive medications. That's why we're enrolling women as young as age 30. So yes, the ultimate long term vision is really to prevent cancers, and detect them earlier. We also envision making systemic changes, where government agencies and professional medical organizations will adopt our screening methodology as recommended and clinically approved screening recommendation.
Christine: And why is it important for women to get involved in this study?
Steffanie: Well, the study is unique in that we're helping women in real time, as well as trying to improve the long term approach to screening and prevention and systematic changes in the United States, like policy changes. So it's really important for women to get involved in the study, because, first of all, if they enroll in the study, we don't just ask you for your information, we actually give back comprehensive risk information about their personal risk for breast cancer. We give them their genetic risk for breast cancer, we tell them what their overall risk is in the next five years and in their lifetime. So they can be empowered and take control of their breast health, and make informed decisions. So it's really important for women to get involved for their own personal health.
But it's also really important for women to get involved because the more women that participate in the study, the more we're able to power the results and understand if the results are clinically significant. And then we can make changes to screening guidelines. This is a population based study, so to really move the needle on policies and guidelines, we need 100,000 women who are representative of the women that live in the United States. And it’s really important that diverse women get involved so that we understand that this approach works for all different types of women with all types of genetic structures and also to understand if it's realistic and accessible for women of all different backgrounds.
“...the study is unique in that we’re helping women in real time, as well as trying to improve the long term approach to screening and prevention and systematic changes in the United States, like policy changes.”
Christine: Would you mind speaking to the challenges that you came to us with at the end of 2023?
Steffanie: The challenge that we were tasked with, and why we hired Merit, is because we were expanding our eligibility criteria and wanted to enroll younger women as young as age 30 into the trial. And this is a challenge because the norms around breast cancer awareness and mammogram screening are to pay attention and be thoughtful about your breast health starting at the age of 40. It's really like the zeitgeist in the United States and internationally to start thinking, ‘Oh, I need to get a mammogram around the age of 40, or even around the age of 50’. To attract young women into a research study is challenging unto itself. Young women are busy doing other things. And women are not thinking about their breast health under the age of 40 – so we knew that it was going to be a significant hurdle to do this.
I want to highlight a few specific challenges with this study. In particular, this study is recruiting and enrolling women into the trial who've never had breast cancer. And enrolling healthy volunteers into a healthcare study, it's really hard. Enrolling people who have illness and disease into a study is a little bit easier, because they're motivated to try interventions to help themselves heal. But for women who are healthy, there's less motivation. So we needed to create an educational advertising campaign that would have beautiful design, be attractive, use communications and messaging that would be motivating and eye catching to this population to try to get them in the door.
Christine: How were we at Merit able to help you all address those challenges?
Steffanie: Wow, you guys are so amazing, you were able to help in so many ways that we didn't even know we needed help. You applied very rigorous methodologies around a review of the marketing and communications landscape, around breast health and breast cancer. You did a deep dive into our history, and our messaging and communications and our pain points. So you were really informed about the community, the landscape of the disease, and comparative communications in research, and around breast health. You understood the complexity of our program.
Merit went above and beyond, with updating our branding, the look and feel, our color palette, so that it mapped to our initial brand. You gave us a new look and feel that's fresh and vibrant, and modern and attractive. And you worked painstakingly hard at developing beautiful graphics that resonate with the modern look and feel that’s relevant to younger women, but are also attractive to all audiences.
You helped us by creating messaging and communications that are resonant and not intimidating to younger women. And you developed lots of different versions of the creative, then validated it through online surveys and focus groups with younger, diverse audiences. You refined and updated the materials based on the feedback that you got and developed several pieces of collateral that could go out across several different marketing channels and promote the study. I mean, you did so many iterations of the design and the messaging until we felt as a team that it was right, and that we would give it a shot.
Your team developed a paid digital ad strategy that we felt was something we could stand by and you found wonderful ad partners that would help implement the ad campaign and optimize the campaign in real time so that it was effective. You guys just hit it out of the park.
Christine: Thank you, we were honored to be a part of the work you all are doing! Do you feel like your expectations were met?
Steffanie: Yes, absolutely. The deliverables far exceeded my expectations. We were able to take away a set of communications that we've already started using, language that we're already implementing when we speak about the study, that we're already integrating in our own ongoing social media campaigns. We now have materials that we're really proud of, and that partners want to use to promote the study.
And the paid ad campaign numbers were good. That’s (study recruitment through paid ads) a really hard nut to crack. You created a microsite landing page for us – you did so many things that were above and beyond what we ever thought would be necessary. All of the elements that needed to be put in place to create a very seamless frictionless experience for a user, these best practices that we would never have thought of, and that we didn't expect to do, you helped us with all of these things.
WISDOM Study Campaign Creative
“You applied very rigorous methodologies around a review of the marketing and communications landscape, around breast health and breast cancer. You did a deep dive into our history, and our messaging and communications and our pain points. So you were really informed about the community, the landscape of the disease, and comparative communications in research, and around breast health. You understood the complexity of our program.”
Christine: As we move along the process to creative development, was there anything that you felt was a great takeaway from that part of the process?
Steffanie: I think that it took time and patience. But you know, we started out at a good place because you guys are amazing — the early concepts that you created were so good that, compared to other agencies we've worked with, we could have used an early iteration, you started out so strong anyway. And then they just got more and more refined.
From the focus groups, we heard from younger, diverse audiences that they actually didn't want to see lifestyle looking graphics and portraiture, because they wanted to feel like if they were going to enroll in this study, they wanted to feel like this was a trustable. A trustworthy organization, not a brand that is selling you something. That was something that surprised me, and was the key learning from the insights.
Christine: With the campaign itself, both implementation and measurement, were there any takeaways there that come to mind?
Steffanie: I really wish that my organization could have allowed us to implement the full tracking methodology where we could have monitored the user's behavior from the ad throughout our internal private portal so we could see where people were dropping off. And then I wish that we could retarget – but we can't do that. Because we are a nonprofit, academic medical research center, we are not willing to do that because of patients’ privacy, HIPAA compliance, and valuing the public’s trust in us as a reputable healthcare organization not a commercial business.
However, we were able to implement other metrics that did track the impact of the campaign. We were able to see the number of clicks and impressions the ads had . There were over 500,000 impressions, I've been looking at the data, which is an incredible amount for a small budget. We were able to see user behavior and engagement with the ads and how many people were clicking on the ads, which was really high. We exceeded industry benchmarks with audience engagement in the ads. So we know the ads are working. We know people are clicking on the ads. We also were able to see the amount of ad clicks to the landing page, we had over 5000 viewers to our new landing page. That's huge. And then we were able to track the clicks that brought people to register for the WISDOM Study website. So the evidence shows that the ads were really successful.
The learning for me is to see that users drop off from clicks onto the WISDOM website through to completing enrollment. So that means that there's more work to be done with getting people to commit to finishing their enrollment. And we need to figure out what we can do to keep people engaged and try to understand where we lose people, because the ads worked – they drove people to the website, then we see a drop off.
Christine: How would you describe the experience working with our team?
Steffanie: There aren’t enough good words in the dictionary to describe the stellar experience that I had with your team! Imagine working with a top agency that is the most professional group of experts in their field – marketing, strategy, communication, design, brand. And the gift of being a small nonprofit research study that receives the support from this top stellar team that could be doing ads for the biggest brand names out there… and you guys worked for us. It was such an incredible experience! You are all incredibly talented. Every single one of the people that we worked on with your team, each of you are so talented in your role. So proficient, your communication style is empathetic. You want to understand your client, you are gracious and kind to your client, you take the time that is needed. You never left us hanging, you answered questions immediately. Your emails were professional, and also kind.
I think one of the one of the very early, remarkable things about your team that I definitely want to highlight is when we first started engaging with you, your team took the time to educate us on marketing, communications, branding, the universe of the language around it, and the examples of what it looked like and what it meant, which like, no one's ever done that with us. And you gave us examples of how these things apply to the campaign that you developed for us. It was like a grad school level class on marketing communications and working with creative ad agencies.
It’s just phenomenal the amount of deliverables that you guys have created for us, not just the final deliverables, but also the amount of support materials that you created and managed every step of the way – has been incredible more than we ever expected. For example, initial campaign concepts, inspiration, and moodboards so that we could think about look and feel and reflect on what resonates.
You also had awesome project management tools, where I was very appreciative after every meeting you’d send a summary email that listed out what we did and what the next steps were. We had a project plan, we had timelines. And the project management was very tight and efficient, and very well organized, and super professional. Even the documents that you created looked good, nothing was sloppy, everything was super top notch professional. We felt like we got an extremely high end experience.
One more thing, you used technology really efficiently. And you taught us how to use technology for efficiency in our campaign. You've empowered me to use these tools like Figma and Stripo so I could make edits on those platforms. And now, I have a beautiful catalog of ads that are created in Figma and all these digital files so I can mix and match and I'm empowered to create more marketing collateral based on what you've created, along with the microsite / landing page. To me, these are notable because they're going to continue on and have a long life.
www.joinwisdom.org
“There aren’t enough good words in the dictionary to describe the stellar experience that I had with your team! Imagine working with a top agency that is the most professional group of experts in their field – marketing, strategy, communication, design, brand. And the gift of being a small nonprofit research study that receives the support from this top stellar team that could be doing ads for the biggest brand names out there… and you guys worked for us. It was such an incredible experience!”
Christine: We’re so glad we were able to deliver that premium experience for you! Looking into the future. What are your hopes for the WISDOM Study?
Steffanie: Oh, my hope for the WISDOM Study marketing and communications is that we can continue to work with you! I would love to see if we could ever fund the development of a commercial that would go on streaming channels, I think that'd be awesome. I would love it. I would also love it if we could fund alternative ad concepts to explore some of the directions that we didn't go in this time and see if maybe there's a little bit of different messaging or different look and feel we could try.
My personal hope for the future of the WISDOM Study is that we can invite more younger women into the study and keep them engaged in the study. I would also love your help to keep women engaged in the five-year study. Because the study is a smart study, it updates its model, and we are going to keep learning about polygenic risk scores and how it impacts people's risk. And if we could actually succeed in preventing cancers for younger women, that would have such a high impact. And I will know that I put all my energy into my job for so many years, for a reason.
Christine: Amazing. Thank you so much, it’s been so inspiring and encouraging to work with your team. This is a dream project for all of us, and we just really appreciate the chance to be on this journey with you and we're so excited for everything that we've done.
