Demonstrating your team’s accomplishments with year-end reporting is an accidental nary marketer should walk up. Your enforcement squad volition admit a reminder of achievements successful 1 presentation. 

Most of america person felt the unit of creating year-end presentations for the enforcement team. My colleagues connected the MERGE concern quality team, Tracy Smith, Senior Director of Business Intelligence, and Stuart Fern, SVP, Group Business Development Leader, shared their contented connected the taxable of creating year-end reports. 

1. Know your audience 

Put yourself successful the enforcement team’s shoes. They allocated dollars to the selling fund and astatine the extremity of the year, they expect a summary of the results. The C-suite wants to know: 

• Did you execute what you said you would?
• Were your channels and tactics effective?
• And if not, why?

Remember, the C-suite doesn’t request granularity. Keep it high-level. Tell the communicative of the “why” down the metrics with arsenic overmuch objectivity arsenic you tin muster. Be prepared to explicate wherever you fell short. 

For galore organizations, the information presented astatine year-end meetings volition beryllium shared with the board. That’s different crushed it’s important to support the communicative astatine a precocious level. 

2. Focus connected what matters 

What is the topline fig your section is liable for? SQLs? Total marketing-influenced revenue? That’s the metric you should highlight.

Consider your audience. What metrics resonate with your C-suite? What metrics volition they privation to stock with the board? 

For example, if your CMO focused connected CRM tools, stress the size of your database and however overmuch it grew oregon however overmuch gross was generated per email sent.

Having a hard clip determining which metrics to pull? (If you are, marque agreeing connected what’s important your fig 1 point to hole adjacent year!) Figure retired wherever your squad spent the astir clip and wealth and study connected that. 

Dig deeper: Getting backmost to basics: Marketing ROI

3. Tell a story

If there’s 1 mode to not impress the enforcement team, it’s presenting information and displaying charts and graphics with small to nary context. 

Avoid that trap by crafting your story. Infusing a communicative into year-end reporting volition guarantee your connection is understood by your audience. Eliminate pieces that don’t beforehand your story. Support your presumption with data, and guarantee it tin beryllium understood erstwhile shared with radical (e.g., committee members) who whitethorn not beryllium successful the room. 

If determination was a extremity you didn’t conscionable — don’t shy distant from this. Be forthcoming — archer the communicative of why you didn’t conscionable this extremity and explicate learnings you tin use adjacent time. Be definite to pass with your squad beforehand to summation alignment and guarantee determination are nary gaps successful your story.

Dig deeper: For information storytelling, commencement with the story

Some things are beyond your control, truthful it’s important to stock the interaction outer events whitethorn person had. Explain immoderate gaps oregon spikes you experienced passim the year. If proviso concatenation issues constricted your quality to vessel products and reduced sales, the C-suite should beryllium reminded of that. 

It’s besides important to see an manufacture analysis. For example, selling operations teams struggled with retaining endowment owed to the competitory marketplace successful 2022. Did this interaction your team’s quality to execute campaigns efficiently? 

5. Document the sources of your data 

Always beryllium prepared to backmost up the information you contiguous with the source. You whitethorn person questions connected a azygous metric, truthful cognize precisely where those information came from. Credibility is important to the occurrence of your presentation. Document the root of your information and destruct discrepancies.

For example, your organization’s accounting strategy whitethorn see debits from returns, whereas the selling team’s Google Analytics 4 does not stitchery this data. That’s wherefore it’s important ever to papers the source! (And ideally, you’ll cognize the gross measurement the C-suite and committee use. If you do, usage that one.)

Dig deeper: 5 steps to marque the astir of your reporting and analytics

6. Build visualizations that enactment the narrative

Once you’ve settled connected the narrative, you tin statesman processing your information visualizations. The bully quality is that you don’t request the latest and top information visualization instrumentality to archer your communicative effectively. Google Sheets oregon Excel are large starting points if you don’t person precocious tools similar Domo.

It’s important to retrieve that gathering information visualization takes time. Be diligent and carve retired capable clip for respective rounds of revisions. 

Dig deeper: What is selling show absorption and however tin it assistance you?

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Opinions expressed successful this nonfiction are those of the impermanent writer and not needfully MarTech. Staff authors are listed here.

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