Healthier Health Comms with a Wholesome Data Diet

Going beyond pre-packaged metrics to fulfill the need for insights and business answers

The majority of the data informing health communications is like fast food.

At first glance, it ticks all the boxes. It is easy to get, it is (mostly) affordable, it is filling, and it is predictable. If we go on a steady fast-food diet, though, we quickly realize it leaves us feeling simultaneously bloated and unfulfilled.

Just like us starving for relevant customer insights and being none the wiser about the impact of our programs and campaigns despite having loads of dashboards, reports, and real-time numbers.

The fast-food data diet feasts on averages

Over the past 20 years, platforms have turbo-charged marketing and communications by simplifying content distribution, media buying, communications integration, CRM, and, crucially, tracking engagement. Tracking allows us to measure the results and inform what we do next.

The main issue is that out-of-the-box solutions are built with a one-size-fits-all approach. Even though there’s flexibility in other parts of the system, metrics tend to be standardized. Additionally, the platform’s assumptions are imposed on the metrics we do get.

Going back to our metaphor: a platform might count an ultra-processed patty as protein, whereas we wouldn’t. Additionally, it might inform grams amounts, whereas we might need to know it relative to our daily intake.

In practice, this means we can choose what to look at from a menu of pre-calculated...