How to create marketing reports that actually benefit your business (rather than ones that just look good)
Creating a marketing report and tracking your marketing statistics can be a really important part of your marketing strategy.
It enables you to track what's working (and what isn't) and make relevant changes to elevate your strategy and meet whatever goals you've set.
However, you need to make sure that how you're putting your marketing reports together is done in a way that will provide you with the insight you need to be able to improve your marketing strategy.
So I've created this little step-by-step guide so you know exactly how to set up a marketing report that is going to benefit your business rather than just look nice.
Step 1: Ascertain what statistics you need to be tracking
Before you even think about creating a report you need to decide what statistics you need to be tracking each month.
The best way to do this is to look at two things:
What your goals are
What marketing platforms you're using
Once you've established what your goals are you'll know what metrics are going to best indicate any progress you're making towards them.
By looking at what marketing platforms you're using you can decide what statistics are going to give you the most insight into how well they are working.
Step 2: Pick a tool or software to record your statistics with
After you know what statistics you need to be tracking, you need to pick a tool or software that you can use to record them each month.
Ultimately, what software you use is completely up to you and your personal preferences. The ones I see used a lot include Excel, Canva and Airtable.
The report itself doesn't have to be overly complicated but you want to use a tool that enables you to publish the report at the end of each month but be active during the month.
What I mean by this is that you want to be able to add data to it and evaluate your statistics in real-time throughout the month but also to be able to give you a monthly overview at the end of the month.
Having a working document is great because you'll be able to share it with your team and make sure that everyone can see what’s happening.
Step 3: Start tracking
To generate a monthly report, you'll have to actually track the numbers.
This might seem like an obvious thing to say but often it can be really easy to forget to update your report as you go along because things like this often get pushed to the bottom of the pile. Especially during busy periods!
That's why I recommend setting up regular reminders for either you or one of your team members to track your statistics and add them to your reporting software.
Step 4: Carve out time to evaluate
When it comes to generating the report at the end of the month, you need to make sure you're actually taking the time to look at those stats and see what's really happening with them.
Because if you don't take the time to evaluate what's been going on this month there's no point in tracking stats in the first place!
To do this you don't just want to look at the number but you want to really interpret what it actually means. For more guidance on this and to see how you can interpret your statistics to give you actions you need to implement to improve and elevate your marketing efforts, I break down multiple examples in this blog!
Step 5: Track the extras
To help you establish what actions you might need to take after you've tracked your statistics I really recommend tracking what you're doing to see these stats.
For example, if you're tracking social media engagement, also track how many times you post a month or how many stories you share.
If you're tracking email statistics, make sure you're tracking the frequency of emails you send or the type of subject line you've been using.
This way you can get strategic in what you change to see what changes affect the statistics.
Step 6: Go beyond a month
Once you've got into the routine of creating monthly reports I highly recommend creating quarterly and yearly reports as well.
This way you can compare the data month by month, quarter by quarter and even year by year.
This helps you to build a bigger picture so you can really start to understand what's working and what isn't.
Now you know exactly how to go about creating a marketing report that doesn't just look great but enables you to figure out all of the actionable steps you can take to improve the statistics that you're tracking, I want to leave you with one final tip.
You don't have to do this by yourself.
An outside perspective can be really great when evaluating the statistics you have in front of you. Having an expert in the industry like a marketing consultant (hi!) can help you interpret your reports and know what actions to take based on the statistics can significantly improve your marketing efforts.
If you want to know more about my marketing consultancy services and how we could work together to devise a plan based on your monthly reports, click here!