Before creating a digital marketing report for a client, it is important to spend some time focusing on a digital marketing strategy. Digital x strategies are the foundation of any work an agency puts into a digital marketing campaign as it helps hone in on the main marketing objectives. With this, agencies can clearly discuss the goals and objectives that need to be achieved with their clients.
This strategy will be the front and center of all the work an agency puts into digital marketing campaigns as it is structured around the main objectives of a business and clearly states what the goals are that need to be achieved.
Tips to follow to ensure your clients understand their reports:
1. Understand your client’s business
This will all be defined in the digital marketing strategy so this should already be known by the time you need to compile a report for the client. Knowing and understanding your client’s business is imperative to decide what data needs to be included in their monthly reports.
2. Only include data you know your client wants to see
Before compiling a report for your client, it is important to know what data the client wants to see. It is also good to get an idea of how your client prefers data from their digital marketing campaigns to be presented, some clients prefer a visual report while others prefer something more in detail with tables and insights.
3. Define terms as you go
When building a digital marketing report, it is very easy to assume that your client will just understand what each metric is and what certain terms stand for. Most of the time, they don’t, so it is advisable to define metrics and terms throughout the report. Some of the jargon and acronyms used in digital marketing can be extremely overwhelming for non-marketers. Define terms as you go and only use acronyms when you know your client is familiar with them.
4. Avoid unnecessary data
This tip refers back to knowing what data your client wants to see in their reports. Keep your reports simple and based on your client’s main objectives so that when there are questions about the report, your feedback can be clear in answering the questions your client may have based on the performance of their digital marketing campaigns.
5. Always include insights
Insights in a client report should be short but remain clear and relevant to the data being represented in the report. Adding insights into your reports per section makes it easier for your client to navigate through the report and read through the insights.
6. Focus on and highlight the results
Clients don’t always know exactly what they are looking for in a report to give them an indication of how well the digital marketing campaigns have performed. When you present your report to a client, make sure you highlight the KPIs or sections of the report that shows which objectives and goals have been reached.
Mistakes to avoid in client reporting:
Here is a summary of the most important mistakes to avoid in client reporting:
Only reporting on the good data – Be honest and transparent with your clients, and show them the good and the bad results.
Not breaking down data by channel – Showing all data from multiple sources combined is a great way to display data. Make sure you have a section in the report to break this down as it is important when businesses need to make decisions.
Not using visuals – Data generally makes more sense when it is presented visually so it is imperative that there are different chart types used throughout the report.
Long reports – Let’s be honest, your clients don’t care about a lot of the data the same way that you do. All they want to see is that you are following what was set out in the marketing strategy and that your efforts are making them money, so don’t bore them with a lengthy report.
Reports have been sent… What’s next?
Stay in contact with your clients once you have sent them their reports. They may not always have questions but it is a good idea to follow up with them a day or two after sending the report to make sure they understood it and also that everyone is on the same page moving forward. A face-to-face meeting or a video call with a shared screen is the best way to discuss a report with a client and these sorts of meetings should be arranged at least twice a year or when important digital marketing campaigns are run.
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