In healthcare, there’s no shortage of data. What’s scarce is clarity.

If you’re leading strategy or marketing for a health system, you already know the feeling: siloed datasets, outdated benchmarks, internal pressure to show ROI — and a market changing faster than your tools can track.

In my last piece, I wrote about the power of replacing “I don’t know” with something more confident. This article is about how to get there.

And why now, more than ever, you need a clearer line of sight into how your market behaves, what patients need, and where your system should focus next.

The current state of healthcare marketing: too many questions, not enough answers

We’re all being asked to do more with less — to grow commercial volume, protect margin, and communicate value while costs rise and payor dynamics shift.

Yet most teams still rely on incomplete views:

• Static market share reports without payor nuance
• Consumer data that stops at demographics
• ROI models built on informed guesswork or borrowed assumptions

This fragmented view makes real growth planning feel more like an art project than a data-informed strategy. And when every move must be justified to finance, strategy, and even external stakeholders, gut feel isn’t enough.

We built Unlock Market Lens™ because we kept hearing the same thing from clients, “We’re surrounded by data. But we still don’t know where to focus.”

What’s needed: clarity that connects finance, strategy, and marketing

Market Lens is our answer. It’s a quarterly-refreshed market intelligence platform that brings together four key things health systems need but rarely get in one place (and never at this level of specificity).

1 — Competitor performance and vulnerabilities
Market Lens surfaces comparative insights on inpatient and outpatient share, volumes, asset strength, and payor mix — all at a local level. It lets you find not just where you compete, but where you can win.

2 — Consumer insights that go deeper than age and ZIP code
Our model layers attitudinal and behavioral signals overtop standard demographics. That means you can build segments around who people are, what they believe, and how they navigate care — not just their census block.

3 — Service line demand and growth potential
We forecast incident rates by service and sub-service line, then apply those to local market populations. Add in your current share and capacity, and you get a forward-looking view of where to focus (and where to pause).

4 — ROI modeling rooted in real campaigns
This is where Market Lens shifts from “data platform” to competitive advantage. We use actual performance data from Unlock’s 3,000+ monthly campaigns — real results, not national benchmarks or syndicated estimates — to project marketing investment needs and returns.

Who it’s for

We didn’t build this for data scientists. We built it for marketers and strategists who need to walk into the room, whether it’s with the CFO or the board, and own the plan.

• Want to project marketing ROI before spending a dollar? Done.
• Need to defend your service line priorities? Now you can.
• Tired of “benchmarks” that don’t reflect your market? Not anymore.

Market Lens helps make the case not just for action, but for the right action.

Why this matters now

Growth in healthcare is getting harder. Commercial coverage is shrinking. Payor scrutiny is rising. And margin recovery is no longer about volume alone. It’s about targeted, profitable volume.

The teams who will win in 2026 and beyond are the ones doing the hard work now: aligning strategy, finance, and marketing around a shared view of what the market really needs — and what the system can sustainably deliver.

If your growth plan still relies on assumptions, now’s the time to ask: what would it take to replace guesswork with confidence?

Let’s make uncertainty optional

I believe the most valuable thing we can give health system leaders right now isn’t another tool. It’s clarity.

That’s what Market Lens delivers.

Because when you know where to focus, you don’t just defend your plan. You lead with it.

Want to learn more about Market Lens?

Join our upcoming webinar with Becker’s Healthcare. Connect with us at SHSMD — where we’re doing live market assessments. Or contact us.

Unlock Health is a full-service marketing communications agency that helps healthcare organizations make authentic connections with patients and communities. Every minute of every day, someone books services they need as a result of our work with clients.