Marketing reporting and analysis can be a real pain, but not to worry. Prior to working as a digital marketer, I was the development reports writer for my university. If you’re not familiar with the Office of Development, you will be one day. That’s the office that does fundraising, and my job within it was to tell people where their money went. In that role, I learned a lot about how to write an effective and actionable report. I use this knowledge daily at Chow-Bryant, and there’s no reason that you can’t too.

Business Topics That Should Be Covered in a Report

For any effective business report, there are a handful of topics that are consistently useful:

1. Who was touched by marketing efforts?
2. What was marketed to them?
3. What time period did this take place in? (Alternate: What is the campaign duration? When did the campaign start and end?)
4. What reasons did you give the audience to care?
5. Where was the money spent and why?

To be honest, things become tricky once you ask about budgets. People often are uncomfortable discussing money, but you must know the info to report accurately. Therefore, I recommend keeping detailed spend records within your department to make it easier on everyone.

No need to talk about money if we have documentation that does the speaking for us. Read more