Prepare the right message - When it comes to selecting the content for your report you need to base it on your understanding of your target audience and how they will intend to use it. By getting this right you are ensuring that all your analysis hard work will achieve the result of providing benefits of a commercial nature to a business.
1) Level of detail - An aspect of any report which is important is making sure that the level of detail is relevant to your particular audience.
At say a strategic level you will need to offer a high level business summary that involves the whole business and may well be broken down in major sub-divisions relating to region, channel, and product area or customer segment. This will show the audience any important changes that are taking place within a business.
Whereas at a tactical level more detail needs to be provided to help them understand the changes. However, there needs to be a balance between the two to disguise any details which may cloud their understanding yet provide enough to reveal the insight. This you can achieve through combining summarising with prioritising the results. For example focus on the top products or customers that form a subset which impacts on businesses top level results.
As for operational planning this starts at a more granular level for those individual stores, product areas or customer segments and will therefore need to be provided with more detailed reports. Although you may be tempted to think like an analyst who should provide information because it is available and because the work has been carried out. Yet this could result in a report being created which has too much information that won't be used or information that isn't actually usable. So you need to choose the right level of detail for an audience when you are creating an effective business insight report.
2) Spin on Content - It is regularly said that "statistics can be manipulated to support any argument". This may imply and misuse of statistics the same principle can also be applied to ensure the effective use of reports, as a set of figures can be presented in a number of ways in a report.
It is vital that the content of the report be "manipulated" or "presented" in a way that is relevant so that information is delivered to the audience. There are negative connotations associated with the word "spin" but here we are not actually talking about distorting results but choosing to represent numbers which:
1. In a language that the audience find easy to understand and so helps them focus on the reports main issues 2. Ensures that the report fits the shape of the data and therefore makes sure the main issues contained within are highlighted
The examples which follow apply to all kinds of reports and illustrates a number of the simple points. But these can easily be overlooked when creating a report. By investing a small amount of time to understand your audiences needs and then choosing how to represent the results will ensure that the hard work carried out into the analysis will be converted into a message that is not only relevant but can be understood easily.
What are you measuring? Make sure you measure and report on things relevant to the audience. This could be something as simple as deciding whether to show the number of customers or their value to a business in terms of profit and revenue. Or it could be more involved for example you could count "genuine visitors" to a website by eliminating transient visitors and so will make the report more relevant that if you measured all visits.
However when it comes providing reports on a more operational level the volume of customers to a business would be more relevant. For example with in flight catering they need to know exactly how many passengers they are likely to have.
Whereas those who are involved in marketing communications need to be aware of the number of welcome packs they will need to provide new customers with. But on a more strategic level the level of profits or revenue generated by the businesses customer will prove more relevant. In the insurance industry for example they need to know how many additional customers they have because this may affect their profit margins as the new ones may be much more of a risk.
1) Level of detail - An aspect of any report which is important is making sure that the level of detail is relevant to your particular audience.
At say a strategic level you will need to offer a high level business summary that involves the whole business and may well be broken down in major sub-divisions relating to region, channel, and product area or customer segment. This will show the audience any important changes that are taking place within a business.
Whereas at a tactical level more detail needs to be provided to help them understand the changes. However, there needs to be a balance between the two to disguise any details which may cloud their understanding yet provide enough to reveal the insight. This you can achieve through combining summarising with prioritising the results. For example focus on the top products or customers that form a subset which impacts on businesses top level results.
As for operational planning this starts at a more granular level for those individual stores, product areas or customer segments and will therefore need to be provided with more detailed reports. Although you may be tempted to think like an analyst who should provide information because it is available and because the work has been carried out. Yet this could result in a report being created which has too much information that won't be used or information that isn't actually usable. So you need to choose the right level of detail for an audience when you are creating an effective business insight report.
2) Spin on Content - It is regularly said that "statistics can be manipulated to support any argument". This may imply and misuse of statistics the same principle can also be applied to ensure the effective use of reports, as a set of figures can be presented in a number of ways in a report.
It is vital that the content of the report be "manipulated" or "presented" in a way that is relevant so that information is delivered to the audience. There are negative connotations associated with the word "spin" but here we are not actually talking about distorting results but choosing to represent numbers which:
1. In a language that the audience find easy to understand and so helps them focus on the reports main issues 2. Ensures that the report fits the shape of the data and therefore makes sure the main issues contained within are highlighted
The examples which follow apply to all kinds of reports and illustrates a number of the simple points. But these can easily be overlooked when creating a report. By investing a small amount of time to understand your audiences needs and then choosing how to represent the results will ensure that the hard work carried out into the analysis will be converted into a message that is not only relevant but can be understood easily.
What are you measuring? Make sure you measure and report on things relevant to the audience. This could be something as simple as deciding whether to show the number of customers or their value to a business in terms of profit and revenue. Or it could be more involved for example you could count "genuine visitors" to a website by eliminating transient visitors and so will make the report more relevant that if you measured all visits.
However when it comes providing reports on a more operational level the volume of customers to a business would be more relevant. For example with in flight catering they need to know exactly how many passengers they are likely to have.
Whereas those who are involved in marketing communications need to be aware of the number of welcome packs they will need to provide new customers with. But on a more strategic level the level of profits or revenue generated by the businesses customer will prove more relevant. In the insurance industry for example they need to know how many additional customers they have because this may affect their profit margins as the new ones may be much more of a risk.
About the Author:
Apteco have built the FastStats suite of marketing tools including modules for data mining, data analysis, customer profiling and marketing analysis. These can help a company understand their customers more and improve future marketing campaigns for more ROI.
