How can you tell a story with your marketing analytics reports?

One thing I have found helpful while working with digital campaign strategies is how the success of the campaign directly aligns with you targeting people who are actually interested in you. And how do you find them? Is by working on your data to identify the segments relevant for your business and narrowing down to the segments which are inclined to your product or service. Next step is to analyse the audience data and benchmark it against the category audience data to get insights on how different your audience is from the industry. Again use these insights and refine your targeting and continue the process.

Imagine you're reporting to marketing executives eager to assess campaign performance. They're keen on ROI, conversion rates, and acquisition costs. Your report should spotlight these metrics, offering insights on top-performing campaigns, areas needing improvement, and budget optimization for better ROI. Visual aids like charts and graphs simplify data, and actionable recommendations add value. For data scientists or analysts in the audience, embrace technicality. Detail data collection methods, statistical models, and anomalies. Tailor your data-driven story to match expertise and interests.

In my experience, you add value or substance to your analytics as you show that you understand how they comprehend your marketing activities and that you know what their objectives and needs are. This has to be reflected in your choice of metrics, tone of language, and angle of projection (spotlight) to answer the key questions in their minds with specificity and simplicity.

Here I need to disagree with one of the AI-written sentences: it's irrelevant how familiar your audience is with marketing analytics tools and methods. Telling a (data) story should be independent of the analytics tools and methods used to create the content for the story. Most of your audience won't care about the tools and methods.

Imagine that you needed to give an elevator pitch to get people to even view the larger report. What would be your hook, what is the most surprising finding, do you have something that will make your audience ask for more info? Lead with that Structure the report like a journey, each piece of data adding a bit more context, diving a bit deeper into the question and revealing the possible answers. Link each section to the next to ensure people organically move through it People will not absorb all of it in one go, ensure there is a summary that captures the key takeaways. It might just trigger people to deepdive again to check on some more facts

One key thing is to drive some call to action. Just having a vague purpose is not enough. Usage of action oriented language, linked to clear benefits, associated deadline, resources and if possible clear KPIs makes things a lot more actionable and drives sense of urgency. On top of these it’s important to identify any risks, associated mitigations, clear feedback loop and most importantly using a confident and bold language. Several times, the message gets pussyfooted and thus fails to drive clear intent.

Imagine crafting a purpose-driven marketing analytics report: begin with a clear mission. Picture yourself addressing the C-suite. Your report's goal: Illuminate the impact of your recent marketing initiatives. The main problem? Identifying which channels deliver the best ROI. The key message? Shift more budget toward those top performers. After digesting your report, you want the C-suite to act by reallocating resources for maximum returns. Avoid delving into minor details, stay on track with this central purpose.

To define the purpose, you need to make sure that you are answering the question that the business or marketing team is asking. You also need to make sure that your insights are clear and concise, and that you have a plan for how to implement your recommendations. Before you define the purpose?take some time to understand the business or marketing goal that you are trying to achieve.?What is the specific question that you are trying to answer??Once you know the goal,?you can start to develop your insights.Your insights are the key findings of your report.?They should be clear,?concise,?and actionable.?Your report should not just identify problems or opportunities.?It should also provide a clear plan for how to address them.?

Think of it this way - if the audience remembers NOTHING but one sentence (of 2 lines max), what do I want that sentence to be? And then let them know what that purpose is explicitly - why make them figure it out when you can just tell them?

Think of your report as a captivating story. You've got your audience's profile down, and your purpose is crystal clear. Now, structure it like a compelling tale. - set the stage with context. Introduce the marketing challenge – say, optimizing ad spend across various platforms - dive into your analytics, revealing insights. Maybe Facebook ads outperform Google Ads, but there's a twist – higher acquisition costs. Analyze why. - summarize your findings. Conclude that reallocating budget to Facebook ads would indeed boost ROI. End with a call to action – propose moving funds accordingly.

A simple story arc with situation, complication, and resolution is only ONE of many story formats possible. Depending on your audience, the message you want to convey, and the content itself, you can leverage different narratives such as inverse pyramid, tragedy structure, hero's journey, or "the butler was it" to name a few.

Transform your marketing analytics report into a compelling story by showcasing the journey of data. Start with a captivating introduction, highlight challenges faced, present data-driven insights as plot twists, and conclude with actionable recommendations. Let the numbers come to life and empower decision-makers with a narrative that drives impactful strategies.

In middle school you may have learned about how to outline an essay. This is the same thing - give a strong set of bones to put your meaty information on.

Just like picking the right scene for a story, select visuals that align with your data and purpose. Charts to show performance trends, graphs to unveil correlations, or infographics for a quick snapshot.

Please, don't make a visual for visual's sake - make sure the visual has meaning and value. Many times reports have visuals that don't help.

Well executed visuals can help your audience absorb the data more quickly and clearly. However, the skill lies in maintaining only enough visuals to convey the data and avoid over filling the report with unnecessary visuals which can in tern create confusion.

Like any great storyteller, offer context, interpretation, and commentary. Connect the dots between visuals, sections, and insights. Keep it concise, clear, and engaging. Use simple language, an active voice, and seamless transitions. With a compelling narrative, your data story becomes a page-turner!

Data is just numbers, the story behind the numbers is what takes the decision in a business. As marketers, it's our goal and purpose to funnel and interpret the data to make informed and knowledgeable decisions. Imagine you're the lookout on a boat and you see land on the horizon. Yes, shouting to the captain and the crew "Land, straight ahead!" is important information. But what if you interpret what you see? What if you're able to see any docks, any inhabitants, resources or even enemies? Are you able to transform the information you have into something really valuable for your crew? Are you able to change the course of the ship Remember, telling a compelling story will always translate into a call-to-action opportunity.

Actionability is key concern. Most of the times, leaders are not just interested in what happened previously but are equally interested in how can we improve going forward and what can be done differently.

It's important to consider the format/channel for the report, too. Must you write a narrative and report, when an infographic would do a better job? Can bullet points or a one-page memo be enough (and let it be enough!)? I think there are too many lengthy reports out there that don't get read because it wasn't the right format in the first place.

You can tell a story with your marketing analytics reports by following these steps: Identify your audience. Who are you writing the report for? What do they need to know? Define your purpose. What do you want the report to achieve? Do you want to inform, persuade, or motivate your audience? Gather your data. What data do you need to tell your story? Make sure the data is accurate, relevant, and timely. Analyze your data. Look for trends, patterns, and insights that tell a story. Visualize your data. Use visuals to make your data more engaging and easier to understand. Tell a story. Use clear, concise language to tell a story that will resonate with your audience. Call to action. Tell your audience what you want them to do.

Keep it Simple, Stupid. If the outcome is a few slides for Cxx people, make it easy to understand w/out long explanations. Self-explanatory by grouping, centralizing, and highlighting the most important trends. It doesn't mean assumptions and basis for the reports are not important. They are. Just keep them in the notes, and be ready to explain everything.