Synexus Poland. Email marketing in a highly regulated industry.

Clinical research has been a communication battleground from day one, partly because of what regulators allow, partly because of the post-COVID anti-vaccine backlash that follows anything with the word “trial” in it.

The constraint

Copy can’t directly encourage someone to join a clinical trial, and every send goes through legal review first, which routinely rules out ordinary benefit-driven language. For Polish audiences, open and delivery rates hinge on something else entirely: plain, accessible language and a bit of education, without dismissing the concerns people in this space actually have.

What we did

Rounds of A/B testing across recurring sends narrowed the newsletter down to a format that respects both the legal constraints and the reader:

• A subject line and preview text that inform rather than persuade
• A single, specific call to action (a therapeutic area, a location, a phone number) instead of a generic “join our study”
• Plain-language explanations of what participation actually involves, addressed before the reader has to ask
• A visual layout built to survive being forwarded, screenshotted, or opened on a five-year-old phone

Takeaway

In a category where you can’t sell in the usual sense, clarity does the work that persuasion can’t. The newsletter that performs best is the one that reads like information, not marketing.