Background

CVS Health had launched the Health Trends Report as a thought leadership platform focused on the major forces shaping health care. The program had already established strong foundations, with the report helping CVS Health speak to issues affecting clinical professionals, industry leaders, opinion makers and consumers interested in the future of health and wellness.

The opportunity was to take the program further.

The original report had value, but it was still largely built around a single annual publication. CVS Health needed a broader content strategy that could support the Health Trends brand across the year, create a more engaging digital experience, and help the company show up with greater authority on topics connected to care delivery, digital innovation, health equity, mental health and the changing expectations of health care consumers.

The strategy also needed to reflect the role CVS Health plays in the national health care conversation. As the business continued to evolve following the Aetna acquisition, Health Trends could become more than a report. It could become a platform for helping audiences understand where health care was going and how CVS Health was helping shape that future.

The Task

My role was to help develop a content strategy for CVS Health Trends that gave the program a clearer editorial mission, a stronger audience focus and a more scalable digital publishing model.

The work focused on defining the role of Health Trends within the broader CVS Health communications ecosystem. That included identifying the audiences the content needed to serve, clarifying CVS Health’s right to voice, developing a practical editorial framework, and recommending how the program could move from an annual report into a more consistent content experience.

The strategy needed to support multiple goals at once: build trust, strengthen reputation, provide useful insight, support enterprise priorities and create content that could be distributed across owned, earned, paid, social, executive and internal channels.

The work included competitive analysis, audience research, SEO and social listening inputs, editorial mission development, content pillars, naming and UX recommendations, style guidance, content planning process, distribution planning and a measurement framework.

The Result

The strategy helped reposition CVS Health Trends as a digital-first thought leadership platform, not just a report.

It gave the program a clearer editorial mission: to explore transformational ideas in health and wellness and help peers, customers and the public understand what matters in health care in ways that are helpful, honest and easy to understand.

The work also helped define the “Engaged Health Care Consumer,” a broader audience that included both professional and consumer segments. This included experienced health care providers, health care business leaders, mid-life professionals managing family health needs, and younger health-conscious consumers focused on prevention, wellness and technology.

The strategy recommended a more scalable content model built around foundational evergreen content, timely health care stories and larger franchise content packages. It also outlined how Health Trends could use articles, reports, infographics, videos, newsletters, executive social content and other formats to support different audience needs and distribution channels.

The program ultimately evolved from a static annual report into a more dynamic publishing experience. The Health Trends content lived on CVSHealth.com, supported by downloadable PDFs, executive amplification, enterprise social, paid media, earned media, internal communications and newsletters.

The campaign delivered significant results, including more than 6 million impressions across channels, 150,000 social engagements, a 425% increase in website traffic from paid social and webpage views that were 27x higher than average. Trade media sentiment was 100% favorable, with placements in 11 industry titles and more than 700,000 earned media impressions.

Most importantly, the work helped CVS Health create a clearer, more credible and more useful platform for participating in the national conversation about the future of health care.

The Strategy Included

• Competitive analysis of health care thought leadership programs across major health care, insurance, pharmacy and retail brands.

• Audience research and persona development focused on the “Engaged Health Care Consumer,” including both professional and consumer segments.

• Definition of an editorial mission statement to guide the role, tone and purpose of CVS Health Trends.

• Development of a right-to-voice framework to identify where CVS Health had authority to speak across company capabilities, consumer needs and industry priorities.

• Recommendations for evolving Health Trends from an annual report into a quarterly and eventually always-on content platform.

• Content pillars and messaging alignment tied to CVS Health enterprise priorities, including care delivery, digital innovation, mental health, health equity, purpose and culture.

• SEO and social listening analysis to identify consumer search behavior, topic opportunities and emerging health care conversations.

• UX and site navigation recommendations to make Health Trends easier to find, browse, connect and share across CVSHealth.com.

• Naming and branding recommendations to help the platform feel more dynamic while retaining equity from the Health Trends Report.

• Editorial style guidance focused on credible, caring, confident and conversational content.

• A content creation process that aligned strategy, topic development, stakeholder review, legal and clinical approvals, production and publishing.

• A content stack defining the role of evergreen content, timely news-driven content and larger franchise storytelling packages.

• Distribution planning across owned, earned, paid, social, executive, internal and partner channels.

• A measurement framework covering impressions, unique users, referral traffic, email performance, social engagement, time on page, video completion, PDF downloads and earned media impact.