Pierre du Bois, head of communications, Lymphoma Association Jenny Coldwell, acting digital manager, Lymphoma Association Visit the CharityComms website to view slides from past events, see what events we have coming up and to check out what else we do. www.charitycomms.org.uk

1. Pierre du Bois
Head of Communications
@pierreduboisuk
Jenny Coldwell
Acting Digital Manager
@jencoldwell
Lymphoma Association
Adopting a ‘digital first’ approach to health information

2. Supporting people
affected by lymphatic cancer
• What we do
• What we used to be like
• What we changed
• Why we did it
• How we made the case
• How we did it
• Overcoming resistance
• Getting funding
• What it achieved
• What’s next?
• Continuous improvement
• Personalisation
• Personas and user journeys
• Content strategy and story telling
What we’ll tell you

3. Supporting people
affected by lymphatic cancer
• £1.2 million charity dedicated to
helping people with lymphoma
(medical information and support)
• Lymphoma is the 5fth most common
cancer in the UK
• Commonest cancer in young people -
14k people diagnosed every year
• Most common symptom a persistent
lump in your neck, armpit or groin,
itching all over the body, tiredness for
no reason and sweating - particularly at
night
What we do

4. • Telephone helpline offering
emotional support at the heart of
what the charity does
• Printed 'literature' posted out by
helpline and to hospitals - uploaded
to website as PDF
• Conservative trustee board and
helpline team who questioned
whether older people are digitally
literate (although they all are!)
• 8th place on Google for searches
of 'lymphoma'
What we were like – in 2010!
Supporting people
affected by lymphatic cancer

5. Make information mobile-
friendly
• Over 2-year period,
repackage PDFs as mobile
friendly web pages –
several thousand A4 pages
in total
• Insert 'personal
experience' videos
• Created downloadable
audio books and e-books
What we changed
Supporting people
affected by lymphatic cancer

6. • Improved service to people affected by
lymphoma (more user-friendly, people
want to view health information
discretely)
• Multimedia experience (online videos)
gives patients a feeling of ‘what it’s like’
• Rich, search-engine friendly content
means improved online profile and
more people with lymphoma knowing
about the charity
Why we did it
Supporting people
affected by lymphatic cancer

7. Creating the evidence base
• Consultants advised us that digital is
key communications channel for us
(together with health professionals);
survey showed patient information is
most valued service the charity
provides
• Analysis of stats showed that the vast
majority of information simply
downloaded from LA website as PDFs
- not sent out by post as assumed
• Reports, board papers and
presentations to staff
Making the case
Supporting people
affected by lymphatic cancer
Online (85.4%)
Health professionals
(13.1%)
Helpline (1.5%)

8. • Took our general Lymphoma booklet, broke it
up into short web page stubs and attached
PDFs
• Over two year period repurposing all PDFs as
printer-friendly web pages
• RNIB created audio books for us - less than
£400 for a 100 page A4 booklet
• Almost two years' work before launch and
professional usability study
• Got advice on new architecture from
Minervation and Liz Woolf (ex CRUK head of
cancer web
content)
How we did it
Supporting people
affected by lymphatic cancer

9. • Helpline team
• Extensive consultation and
interviews with nurses
(interviewed to 20+ nurses)
• Focus group with patients
• A lot of patience, reassurance,
explanations, making
accommodations
• Without chief executive and
board buy-in, would not have
worked.
Overcoming resistance
Supporting people
affected by lymphatic cancer

10. • Go for charitable trusts
that like 'future proofing'
projects
• Made bid to a charitable
foundation who agreed to
fund this work with a
grant of £60k over two
years. Money mainly
spent on:
- Additional staffing
(repurposing)
- Audio books
Getting funding
Supporting people
affected by lymphatic cancer

11. • Almost 600,000 page
views since launch in
June 2014
• Top spot in Google
for searches for
‘lymphoma’
• Number of weekly
users up 140% since
the content went live
• Increase in number
of people signed up
to our database
What it achieved
Supporting people
affected by lymphatic cancer

12. Supporting people
affected by lymphatic cancer
With a new set of business
objectives for the charity, we
need to create a direction for
our digital work, in-line with
the charity’s overall aims.
• Create a 2-year digital
strategy
• Digital transformation
across the whole charity
What’s next?

13. Ensure we remain
user-friendly and
continue to provide
information that people
are looking for, through
regular market research
and analysis of our
audience.
Continuous improvement
market research and analysis
Supporting people
affected by lymphatic cancer

14. Supporting people
affected by lymphatic cancer
• Digital champions
• Hold monthly one-to-one
meetings with digital
champions and quarterly
digital forum meetings
• Provide regular digital
training for all staff
(can be done in-house to
reduce cost)
• Send regular digital
updates to staff to
increase internal
awareness and
knowledge
Hub and Spoke Model

15. • Independent market research by
Action Planning shows us that
people want disease specific
information
• Work with our web agency and
consultant to develop
personalisation strategy
• Tailored content
• Filter by keywords
Personalisation
Supporting people
affected by lymphatic cancer

16. Supporting people
affected by lymphatic cancer
• Worked with agency Action Planning to create three personas
• We will develop more disease specific personas and user
journeys to aid our personalisation project
Personas and user journeys

17. Supporting people
affected by lymphatic cancer
Content strategy and storytelling

18. Supporting people
affected by lymphatic cancer
Conclusions
• Having a ‘digital first’ approach to health
information not only provides a better
service but can extend a charity’s reach
• Develop an evidence base to lobby your
chief executive and trustee board and
keep them up to date with progress
• ‘Future proofing’ is often attractive to
trusts and donors
• The work never ends – people looking
for health information want an
experience tailored to their condition

19. Supporting people
affected by lymphatic cancer
Any questions?

20. Visit the CharityComms website to
view slides from past events, see what
events we have coming up and to
check out what else we do.
www.charitycomms.org.uk

21. Digital
transformation
Conference
21 May 2015
London
#charitydigital
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