During the Crimean War Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern nursing, needed to demonstrate how conditions of care impacted patient mortality in military field hospitals.

But this was the 1850s, and Nightingale was armed with nothing but dense statistical reports and the knowledge that she had to illustrate the findings to members of parliament and civil servants.

Nightingale came up with an elegant way of visually describing the necessary information. Her hand-drawn diagram, beautifully coloured and - even today - strikingly modern-looking, was an early infographic; a pictorial way of communicating huge amounts of data - in this case the impacts that hospital conditions had on causes of death among soldiers.

Nightingale fortified her infographic with some tight, informative messaging to ensure she was communicating a memorable story. She wasn’t simply in the business of showing that there were more deaths from sickness than wounds; rather Nightingale felt this was her one chance to prescribe the opportunity for investment to make a difference.

Similarly, proving that a marketing campaign will make a difference is critical, yet how many of us find it easy to communicate relevant metrics like Nightingale? Read on to find out how you can learn from her success...