Monthly marketing reports are crucial for any business’s success. While it is typically a very tedious monthly task, reports serve as a source of actionable insights into performance and team alignment. It’s vital information that you’ll later use to optimize strategy to get higher ROI.
To cut time prepping the report and get straight to the insights, use this article as a hint on what to include in your marketing report each month.
1. Summary Page
A summary page should be the first part of your monthly marketing report and should include a project overview and highlight the metrics that are the most important. The summary should be easy to read and concise. Use data visualisation tools to make it easier. This part of the report should give the client a general understanding of where marketing efforts stand for the month. Everything after the summary page should be more detail information of what has been highlighted in this section.
2. Current Marketing Strategy
Those reading your monthly marketing report may not be as well versed in your marketing strategy as you. This is where a section that explains your current marketing strategy can be incredibly helpful. This section of the report should answer a few questions, such as:
- Who is the target audience?
- What are the primary channels for marketing?
- What opportunities for growth are you currently pursuing?
- What is the current scope of the project?
You should make sure that the project scope is clear and reinforce confidence with this section that your marketing strategy is well-thought-out. If part of your marketing offerings is SEO, this area of the report is where you would provide a brief overview of SEO efforts. The marketing strategy section is also where you can discuss target audience, as well as on how customers are being reached.
3. What You Have Done
This section is where you can provide some historical context while showcasing how brilliant your team has been during the month. Show comparisons of this month’s work against the last month, the past six months, or year.
Provide a short overview of what you have accomplished during the month in relation with your client’s overall marketing strategy. For example, did you launch a new campaign, work on website development, design new collateral? You can list tasks accomplished during the month.
Example:
Tasks completed this month:
- Reviewed strategy and analytics
- Complete site audit
- Launched 7-day Facebook campaign around blog
- Published four blog posts
- Published daily content on social media channels
- Gained 10 new backlinks.
More detailed information can be included later in the various metric sections. Any changes in the audience or market should also be discussed in this section, along with any relevant information about the competition. This section is important because it lays the groundwork for how well clients understand the rest of your marketing report.
4. SEO Overview
The SEO Overview section includes any information about the SEO services you provide to clients, such as keyword research, link building, or site optimization. In this section, you can explain how your client’s rankings have increased and elaborate on what has been done to achieve the results. The SEO section should include tables that display information like new backlinks or a site audit that shows the progress on the website.
Part of the SEO section should be dedicated to search rankings for various keywords. To keep things simple, consider choosing a short list of keywords that your clients ranks well for and any relevant keywords they should try to improve their ranking for.
5. Traffic Metrics
It’s crucial to understand where web traffic is coming from, as well as how it performs, in order to not waste any money or time on developing marketing efforts on unsuccessful channels. Are visitors coming from referrals, organic search, paid search, emails? Metrics to highlight in this section of the monthly marketing report include:
- Top Landing Pages
- Sessions
- % New Users
- Top Referrals
- Bounce Rate
- Pages/Session
- Email Campaign Performance.
These traffic metrics can be used as a foundation for other sections in the report where you can dive deeper into channels and make any relevant recommendations. Use these metrics to improve your marketing strategy for the next month.
6. Conversion Metrics
Your clients will likely be most interested in any metrics that impact their bottom-line. The conversion metrics section should be the core of your marketing report and feature several charts displaying the important data your clients care most about.
These statistics and graphs should backup your progress and goals. Keep in mind, however, that the report should still be easy for your client to understand, so try not to overwhelm with information. Make it easy to read. Include reports on various conversion metrics, such as:
- Organic vs. Paid Leads
- Cost per Conversion for Paid Channels (Facebook Ads, Google Ads, etc.)
- Leads by Channel (Paid Search, Organic Search, Referral, Email, Social, etc.)
Compare these metrics from one month to another to determine where there is success and which areas need improvement.
7. PPC Campaigns
You should also include a section for PPC campaigns in the marketing report each month if you manage campaigns for clients. This section should include metrics related to paid channels, such as:
- Ad Spend
- Impressions
- CTR (click-through rate)
- ROI (return on ad spend)
- Cost per Conversion.
Be sure to compare these metrics to each marketing channel. Recommendations can be made to clients based on these metrics, especially if your client has a limited budget.
8. Social Overview
Social Media is an important component to any digital marketing strategy with its own KPIs that should be included in a monthly marketing report. Provide your clients with a performance overview for each of their social media channels, such as Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, etc. Be sure to focus particularly on engagement metrics to show more of a deeper look at the success of each channel. Include a web traffic report showing traffic from social channels to highlight how social media can generate new leads.
9. Blog Traffic and Lead
If you manage the content marketing strategy or a blog for a client, there should also be a section in your report about blog traffics and leads. This information should be documented every month to ensure the blog has optimal performance. Take a look at how visitors are finding the content you publish on the blog and analyze which marketing channels are the most successful and which could use some improvement. This can help optimize your content strategy by highlighting what type of content draws visitors.
10. Goals and Ideas
Setting goals and achieving them is what keeps brands and businesses growing, so you will want to include a goals and ideas section in your monthly report. Revisit goals you set each month to check on progress. It’s a good idea to highlight plans for future marketing campaigns. This provides a way to involve clients and offer them a chance to follow your progress and ask questions.
11. Financial Projections
While this section of the report won’t ever be completely accurate, it should feature all information present in the marketing plan. Discuss any future expenses for promotions that you anticipate spending in the next month or so, along with the estimated ROI. The financial projections section should include the projected costs of achieving the goals you mentioned in the previous section of the marketing report.
This article was originally published at Improvado.io, by author Hailey Friedman. Original article >>
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