Does creating a monthly marketing report send shivers down your spine? That doesn’t have to be the case. I’m going to show you the ins and outs of compiling an exemplary report that will likely have your CEO inviting you to his weekend barbeque. (No promises.)
Once you’ve incorporated a monthly marketing report into your workflow, you’ll begin to appreciate the extra analysis of your marketing efforts and the transparency it provides your entire company.
Article Contents
Why You Need a Marketing Report
If your CEO isn’t breathing down your neck you may find yourself asking, “Why do I need a monthly marketing report?” It may seem like just another task being added to your already busy work schedule.
In reality it’s one of the most important ways to provide the transparency necessary to include your entire team (not just the marketing department) in your marketing process. It’s also an important way to ensure sales and marketing are working together to accomplish collective goals.
Moreover, CEOs and other executives often don’t have access to the vital information they need to make informed decisions. Without a report of your marketing activities, how can they hope to understand the success or shortcomings of the past month?
Why Your Marketing Report Should Be Monthly
Don’t just assume your marketing is working—keep track of the data.
Typically, companies create a pragmatic set of analyses of profitability data that is refreshed monthly. Your marketing report should match this review structure.
Why monthly? The long and the short of it is that monthly works best for all parties involved.
Even though you must track certain metrics on a weekly basis, you should always keep your eye on your end-of-month goals. The tweaks you make throughout the month by looking at your data on a weekly basis can really determine whether or not you reach your monthly goals.
If you report too often, you’ll find yourself with too little information to report and too much time spent creating reports. Monthly marketing reports give you the time you need to produce results.
Executives likely won’t be focused on tracking your department more frequently than that anyway. At the end of the day, your reports will help you be a more informed and agile marketer.
What to Include in Your Monthly Marketing Report
Now for the game plan. Include the following items in your monthly marketing report and you’ll be on your way to that weekend barbeque. Be sure to save me a burger.
Monthly Marketing Highlights
Below are examples of which details should be included in your monthly marketing report. Plugging your most relevant information into a graph or chart is a great way to display your monthly highlights.
Beginning your report with these highlights allows the reader to make a quick analysis of your overall marketing activities before digging into the more detailed reports.
New Campaign and Past Campaign Progress or Results
Time to provide some historical context while showcasing how brilliant your team has been this month. Provide comparisons of this month’s work against the past 6 months or year.
Progress is the name of the game, and you’ll be able to use your monthly marketing report to ensure continual optimization of your marketing strategy.
Statistics
Break down your monthly marketing report and provide lots of informative detail. Include the important facts and figures by listing these statistics in your marketing report:
– Blog Posts Published –
Account for the content you created each month. Keep track of published blog posts and their metrics in order to determine where your content marketing should be heading. Do you need to write more or less frequently? Longer or shorter articles? Report in detail.
– Email Sends and Statistics –
Just like blog posts, measuring and reporting email sends and statistics will help you further optimize your email marketing strategy. Should we be emailing more or less often? What changes have we made this month and how has our email marketing been affected? Be sure to include statistics like open rate, bounce rate, click rate, conversions, and unsubscribes.
– Website Visitors –
Much of your marketing may be focused on driving traffic to your website. Be sure to detail just how much traffic was generated and where it came from. You should include how many of those visitors became leads.
– Marketing Qualified Leads –
Tons of traffic can only take you so far. Your marketing report should include important figures like MQLs to help rate the performance of your website and the marketing driving your traffic. Try adding details like leads over time (past months vs. this month).
– Sales Qualified Leads –
Just like with MQLs, measuring and reporting your SQLs will help you ensure your marketing is reaching the right people. You may want to include information on your leads vs. goals.
– MQLs and SQLs to Sales –
The performance of your sales team will be judged (in part) by the rate of leads generated to sales converted. After all, it’s sales that keep the lights on. This ratio will help to determine if your Sales department needs to implement any changes to their strategy. Are they following your SLAs (service-level agreements)?
– Customer Loyalty –
Your marketing report should also include information on the long-term value of your marketing efforts. Reporting customer loyalty is a great way to display that feedback. Be sure to include the following:
- Lifetime value
- Retention rate
- Net promoter score
- Revenue per customer
- Profit margin (percentage)
Goals and KPIs
Your goal is to keep your team improving. The future of your brand-building activities is important information that needs to be reported.
Sales needs to understand your goals in order to work together harmoniously. Your SEO will surely want to know what to expect from your team.
They’ll also want to know how you’ll be evaluating your success. Your monthly marketing report should also include the KPIs (key performance indicators) that you’ll be using to measure your success.
Define the goals and KPIs you’ll be using to evaluate them. Make them known through your monthly marketing report.
Wipe the sweat off your brow. You now have the foundation to create an awesome monthly marketing report. It’s time to show off your team’s hard work, so get cracking and I’ll see you at the barbeque.
Here’s to your success!
– Peter
