31 October 2025
Methods
The challenge of recruitment: doing it at scale and doing it well
How Thiscovery reaches the right participants through a balanced mix of digital, local and community-based recruitment routes.
How Thiscovery reaches the right participants through a balanced mix of digital, local and community-based recruitment routes.
When you are trying to listen to patients, clinicians and the public, the question is not just how many people you reach, but who you reach and how.
Every recruitment channel has its own strengths, and the art lies in combining them in ways that make participation easy, inclusive and meaningful.
At Thiscovery, every project begins with a clear definition of who our client needs to hear from. Our data collection is built to reach those people with precision, using the channels that match their habits and contexts.
To do that well, we draw on a carefully balanced mix of digital and non-digital recruitment routes. From trusted institutional partners to social platforms, community networks and hyper local campaigns, each channel is chosen for what it does best, whether that is helping us reach a specific group, build trust or widen access.
This approach allows us to move quickly and at scale while maintaining the rigour and inclusivity that underpin all our research.
In this article, our recruitment team share the channels we use to reach participants and explain why each plays a role in helping us deliver inclusive, high-quality research at scale.
Relevance is vital. Participants must have lived, professional or experiential knowledge that directly relates to the focus of the research, whether that means living with a particular condition, delivering NHS services, or providing unpaid care.
To ensure these relevant voices are heard, we always start with co-design.
Co-design helps us frame the right questions before we begin recruitment. Working with patients, clinicians and subject experts allows us to define who really needs to be heard and how best to reach them. It helps us understand what matters most to those with lived or professional experience, shape language that resonates, and identify the channels and partnerships most likely to engage them.
Listening is not only a value for us, it is a method. Our interdisciplinary team combines expertise in research, design and communication to create studies that remove friction and make participation easy. This careful design work ensures that when we promote a survey or consultation, it speaks directly to the people who can make the insights meaningful.
To reach these people, we:
Make surveys visible to people going about their everyday lives through organic and/or paid posts on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Bluesky. Boosting posts on these platforms allow for precise targeting based on demographics, location, and expressed interests.
Make the most of the relationships immediately available to you, whether that is NHS trusts, health charities, or Royal Colleges. They can share these surveys through their newsletters, community platforms, and social media channels, connecting directly with engaged networks.
Our growing community of more than 13,000 people provides a ready audience of participants who are invested in health and care improvement. We keep them informed about new opportunities to participate, creating continuity and depth across studies.
Some communities are less likely to be reached by traditional or digital research recruitment – due to language barriers, lack of internet access, or disengagement with institutional research.
We work hard to overcome these barriers through:
Collaborating with trusted local figures, including faith leaders, community organisers, and local influencers, helps build trust and extend reach in ways a generic ad never could.
We place posters in community hubs – GP surgeries, libraries, supermarkets, and public noticeboards – and post in local Facebook groups to make the survey visible where people live, meet, and interact.
Collaborating with NHS partners can offer opportunities for email and SMS campaigns that reach specific patient populations in particular geographies.
Striking up partnerships with these groups can give studies enormous reach when shared with group members. Examples of potential groups include Cancer Alliances and Long Covid networks.
Endorsement from these organisations boost trust and legitimacy. Having your surveys shared via their social channels or newsletters offer ways to reach underserved populations.
Diversity is about hearing a full range of experiences and making it easy for people from all walks of life to take part. When research is accessible and straightforward to join, it becomes more inclusive and its findings more meaningful.
We design our recruitment plans so that anyone with relevant experience can participate, regardless of background, location or circumstance. That means making our studies visible, understandable and easy to complete.
To support this, we:
By combining digital and real-world routes, we reach people across different age groups, communities and levels of digital confidence.
We adapt surveys and communications where needed to make them more accessible. For example, our recent project with RNIB offered a Welsh version of the survey to participants.
We monitor who is taking part and adjust our outreach if particular groups are underrepresented, helping us maintain balance across experiences and perspectives.
At the end of our surveys, participants are invited to share the study with people they know, helping us reach wider networks and uncover a broader spectrum of views.
Not everyone is online. We already recognise the limitations of online research and the barriers that exist for particular communities, families, demographics and regions.
But even for those who are online, we must acknowledge some may not be engaged on mainstream platforms. To ensure wide access, we go beyond digital-only recruitment.
Some of the best places to do this include:
Physical posters, SMS messages or emails sent from a GP practice give legitimacy and reach to people who may not engage online.
These are a trusted information source for many and help us reach local populations at a community level.
These channels are especially useful for reaching older adults or people with lower digital engagement. Our most recent project with ARUK was promoted on Rock FM...
We regularly attend NHS or patient-focused conferences, using these touchpoints as opportunities to recruit healthcare professionals, patients, or the public.
Useful for community engagement, particularly in groups and networks that use WhatsApp as a key way to stay connected and share information.
Our multifaceted approach allows you to:
Finally, it’s worth emphasising the role of our own team and networks. Thiscovery staff often share projects with their friends, family, and ex-colleagues, bringing in thoughtful, motivated participants. And when people take part, we encourage them to come back for follow-ups, helping us build a long-term, engaged community.
Recruiting relevant, diverse participants at scale isn't about choosing one “magic” method. It’s about layering outreach across channels, sectors, and communities. By combining digital with non-digital, targeted with broad, and institutional with personal, we reach the right people and include the voices that carry important, varied perspectives.
Capturing a spectrum of many voices doesn’t happen by accident. It happens by design.
Want to participate in our research or collaborate with us? Visit our live projects page or reach out to our Insight & Innovation team via our contact form.
