Your clients are really busy professionals; do you think they would like multiple emails from you containing tons of data? Well, this is not what your clients need. Clients need effectual reporting from you, something which is concise, comes in a timely manner, supported by logical data, relevant for evaluating the success of their investments and most importantly actionable.
Most agencies recognize the indispensable role of client reporting in servicing their valued clients and this function continues to evolve as a way for them to differentiate themselves and provide best-in-class service. Reporting plays a key role in a digital marketing agency’s rapport with its clients; hence it is important for them to continuously prove the value and worth of their efforts and authenticate how their activities have helped businesses succeed.
This blog post explores in details why client reporting is important and also highlights the tips to make your reporting better.
Aim Of The Client Reporting Process
“Client Reports” this could refer to one of a number of diverse documents created by agencies for their clients. Different types of clients need/demand different types of intelligence depending on their business objectives. But whatever may be the type of client, and whatever the type of report, the aims of reporting to the client is always common:
- Provide info on where financial investments have been made.
- Provide info on what activities have been performed by the agency for the period of reporting.
- Display the value or worth that has been delivered by the agency and also explain the logic behind any business decisions and actions taken.
Client Reporting – Why Is It Important?
Reporting is often considered as an inconvenience, but it should not be. There are many reasons why your reports are an important part of your liaison with your client; hence you need to exploit them to their full potential.
- Builds Client Relationships
One of the biggest mistakes made by agencies is not regularly performing reporting for every client. It is important to understand that clients need to know what you are doing, how everything is working and why you are doing it. Reports enable you to have regular and scheduled communication with your clients. This kind of communication not only involves valid data to examine but also offers this bright opportunity to touch the base of a client and know them more. Basically, this is a chance to build your relationship with your clients. Also, keep in mind clients like to see reports which are more than mere canned templates, try customizing them to their specific digital marketing and business goals.
Also Read Traits of a Good Digital Marketing Agency
- Educates Clients
Why do clients enter into a contract with agencies? It’s simple because they have very less or no understanding of web analytics. Clients cannot interpret silos of data independently, as an agency you need to educate them on how to understand the online metrics. Putting all the data in the reports is not enough; clients need to learn how to interpret that information. The education route can work well when you give written explanations in their reports, some parts can also be explained in detail during personal meetings. Sharing your knowledge with your clients and educating them on what you do and how you do it makes them feel included in the entire process, this, in turn, will help you understand your client’s needs and expectations better.
- Ties Accountability For Both Parties
Every client has specific needs and expectations and reporting help to keep both parties (agency and client) responsible to each other. Reports serve as concrete proof to monitor specific KPIs and metrics set by the clients. With reports, you can ensure that your clients always provide you with goals which are real, specific, and measurable tying both parties responsible for its accomplishment.
- Displays Transparency
Reporting keeps the agency accountable for their work, hence share and talk about even the poor performance. Creating and sharing reports regularly shows the proactiveness of an agency, it doesn’t matter whether it’s good or bad as some situations can be out of control. But be transparent when it comes to reporting, as some things are open to interpretation and need an explanation to better understand and control. By unveiling the true picture on the online performance in your reports, you can establish better transparency furthermore good faith with your clients.
- Gives You Proper Credit
We spoke about reporting both good and bad performance, apart from transparency it also helps in getting you proper credit for your efforts. If your clients’ campaigns are doing great how are they supposed to know it if you don’t show it to them? This is where reports come in action. They serve as a proof of your hard work furthermore get you all the credit from your client’s.
Tips To Make Reporting Better
Client reporting is one of the most common reasons why people leave an agency, hence don’t underestimate this function. Here are few tips which will make your reporting better:
- Summarize everything relevant on the first page
- Report only relevant data
- Avoid the use of jargon where possible
- Optimize data and make it more readable
- Include actionable recommendations
Final Thoughts
Client reporting was once considered just another brick in the wall, but today agencies have realized that it is absolutely critical for their success. Hence, agencies need to keep quality reporting as one of their top priorities among all their other efforts. Remember, without proper reporting your efforts means very little to your clients. ReportGarden offers the right tools to build reports which will simply wow your clients. Group PPC, SEO & Social accounts into one client report, save time and impress clients!
