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.
On a strategic level for example, a high level business summary will be required. It will need to look over the business as a whole and may well need to be broken down in subdivisions such as region, channel, and customer segment or product area. Doing this will help to alert the audience to any vital changes 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 takes places at a more granular level for individual products (product areas), stores or customers (customer segments). So these types of audiences need more detailed reports. You may be tempted to think like an analyst and present the results in a report simply because the information is there and you have done the work. However, this can result in a report being created with too much information that won't be used or not enough usable information. By choosing the right amount of detail for your audience is crucial when it comes to creating an effective business insight report.
2) Spin on content - Many people say that "statistics can be manipulated to support an argument". This implies that statistics are being misused but this principle can be applied to ensure reports are effectively used by allowing you to represent any given set of figures in various ways in reports.
It is vital to "manipulate" or present the content of a report in a way that is relevant to the audience so that the information is delivered to them. Although the word "spin" has negative connotations, we are in fact not talking about distorting the results but simply choosing a way to represent the 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 following examples apply to all kinds of reports and help to illustrate some of the simple points. However, these can be very easily over looked when creating a report. Investing some time in to understanding your audience needs will help you to choose how to represent the results ensuring that all the hard work gone into doing the analyst will help to convert it into a message that is relevant and understood easily.
What will you be measuring? You must ensure that you measure and report on something that is relevant to your audience. It could be something as simple as choosing whether to show the number of customers or what value they bring to a business with regards to profit or revenue. It could also be something a little more involved such as counting the number of "genuine visitors" to a website whilst filtering out the transient ones and which will make the report more relevant than if you show all the 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.
Likewise when it comes to marketing communications a business would need to know how many welcome packs would be needed for their new customers. Whilst on a strategic level the revenue or profits that customers generate will be more relevant. For example in the insurance industry if there is an increase in customer numbers it may be associated with a decrease in their profits because the new customers are a much higher 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.
On a strategic level for example, a high level business summary will be required. It will need to look over the business as a whole and may well need to be broken down in subdivisions such as region, channel, and customer segment or product area. Doing this will help to alert the audience to any vital changes 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 takes places at a more granular level for individual products (product areas), stores or customers (customer segments). So these types of audiences need more detailed reports. You may be tempted to think like an analyst and present the results in a report simply because the information is there and you have done the work. However, this can result in a report being created with too much information that won't be used or not enough usable information. By choosing the right amount of detail for your audience is crucial when it comes to creating an effective business insight report.
2) Spin on content - Many people say that "statistics can be manipulated to support an argument". This implies that statistics are being misused but this principle can be applied to ensure reports are effectively used by allowing you to represent any given set of figures in various ways in reports.
It is vital to "manipulate" or present the content of a report in a way that is relevant to the audience so that the information is delivered to them. Although the word "spin" has negative connotations, we are in fact not talking about distorting the results but simply choosing a way to represent the 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 following examples apply to all kinds of reports and help to illustrate some of the simple points. However, these can be very easily over looked when creating a report. Investing some time in to understanding your audience needs will help you to choose how to represent the results ensuring that all the hard work gone into doing the analyst will help to convert it into a message that is relevant and understood easily.
What will you be measuring? You must ensure that you measure and report on something that is relevant to your audience. It could be something as simple as choosing whether to show the number of customers or what value they bring to a business with regards to profit or revenue. It could also be something a little more involved such as counting the number of "genuine visitors" to a website whilst filtering out the transient ones and which will make the report more relevant than if you show all the 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.
Likewise when it comes to marketing communications a business would need to know how many welcome packs would be needed for their new customers. Whilst on a strategic level the revenue or profits that customers generate will be more relevant. For example in the insurance industry if there is an increase in customer numbers it may be associated with a decrease in their profits because the new customers are a much higher risk.
About the Author:
Apteco have built the FastStats range of marketing tools including modules for data mining, data analysis, customer segmentation and marketing analysis. They can help a business understand their customers more and improve future marketing campaigns for more ROI.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment