Data and Insights the ‘Secret Sauce’ to Tackling UNC Health’s Post-COVID Challenges
// By Melanie Graham //
The pandemic has renewed focus on certain health care pain points: consumerism, funnel wars, and employee retention. UNC Health is taking on all these challenges with a data-first mindset.
As marketers, we often preach the importance of data-driven decisions. Without data, marketing feels like a guessing game.
But at UNC Health, describing the marketing and communications department as “data-driven” feels like an understatement. With an in-house consumer insights team and a robust survey process, data truly sits at the core of everything the team executes.
“We’ve always been a research-based team. But having your own insights group enables you to base everything you do around research,” says Lisa Schiller, chief communications and marketing officer at UNC Health. “They’ve really broadened the types of research we do, both in marketing and across the organization.”
So as the UNC Health Marketing and Communications team digs out of the avalanche that has been COVID-19 communications, research is playing a crucial role in its current and post-pandemic world. From consumerism to employee retention, data will dictate the road ahead.
Here, Schiller shares some of the exciting projects and challenges her team faces in 2022 and beyond, and how its unique research-first approach will come into play at every stage.