Lisa's Top 5:

Tactics for Building Impactful Analyses!

Clear communication is at the heart of producing analyses that support better decision-making and business growth. Whether you're a seasoned professional or just starting out, mastering a few basic tactics can significantly elevate your analyses. Particularly if you are supporting executives with enormous demand on their time and attention (not to mention their email!). In this week's post, I'm delving into five strategies I've used to elevate my analyses: benchmarks, lookalikes, collaborative KPIs, prioritizing results, and writing to be understood.

1. Benchmarks: Setting the Standard for Success

Benchmarks are at the foundation of any analyses, and serve as quantifiable standards against which you can measure your performance. By establishing realistic benchmarks, you can assess whether your efforts are meeting expectations, falling short, or exceeding them. This process involves analyzing industry standards, competitors' metrics, and your own past performance to set achievable goals. A benchmark can be as simple as the average number of people viewing your content - is your new content for instance drawing more or less content than in the past?

For example, if your goal is to improve social media engagement, you might benchmark your current engagement rates against industry averages or competitors' metrics. This helps you understand where you stand and what improvements are needed. Benchmarks provide a clear direction for your marketing efforts, ensuring that you're always striving for better outcomes.

2. Lookalikes: Identifying Comparable Audiences

Lookalike analysis is a valuable for identifying new opportunities by comparing current data against historic data. This approach involves analyzing past products or audience behaviors to find similarities with current ones. By looking back at how previous products or content performed, you can identify patterns and trends that can support/inform current strategies.

For example, consider a company that recently launched a new blue-colored widget. If the data on this new product shows performance similar to or slightly better than the green-colored widget launched at the same time last year, you can use this comparison to refine your efforts. By analyzing the demographics, behaviors, and engagement patterns of customers who purchased the green widget, you can create targeted strategies for the blue widget, potentially increasing its appeal to a similar audience.

This strategy helps in personalizing marketing efforts and reaching potential customers more effectively by leveraging historical insights. By identifying lookalike products or audiences, you can optimize your strategies, improve efficiency, and potentially impact the likelihood of successful outcomes.

3. KPIs Are a Team Effort: Collaborative Definition and Monitoring

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are essential for measuring the success of marketing strategies. However, defining and monitoring KPIs should be a collaborative effort involving appropriate stakeholders. This ensures that everyone is aligned on what metrics are important and how they contribute to broader business objectives.

For instance, in collaborative marketing, KPIs might include website traffic, social media engagement, lead generation, and return on investment (ROI). Regularly reviewing these metrics as a team helps identify areas for improvement and ensures that marketing efforts are aligned with business goals. This collaborative approach fosters a shared understanding of what drives success and encourages a data-driven culture within the organization.

4. Prioritize: Organizing the Most Critical Info | The Magic 3!🪄

When presenting analysis, it's crucial to prioritize your results in a journalistic fashion—begin with the most significant findings first. This approach keeps your audience engaged and ensures that key insights are not lost in a sea of data.

Imagine you're analyzing the impact of a new marketing campaign. Instead of starting with minor details, lead with the most compelling results, such as a significant increase in sales or engagement. This structure helps maintain focus on what matters most and ensures that your analysis resonates with stakeholders.

Additionally, when supporting executive teams, it's beneficial to focus on three key findings (the Magic 3!) representing the most important insights from your analysis. This approach makes it quick and easy for executives to grasp the value of your insights, focusing them on the most critical points and providing a concise narrative to share with others.

5. Write to Be Understood: Clear Communication Without Jargon

Finally, effective analysis must be communicated clearly and without jargon. A good analysis should be accessible to everyone involved, from stakeholders to team members. Avoid using technical terms unless they are essential, and always explain them if you do use them.

By adopting these five tactics—benchmarks, lookalikes, collaborative KPIs, prioritizing results, and clear writing—you can elevate your analytical skills and ensure that your insights drive meaningful action in the world of marketing and beyond. Whether you're analyzing customer behavior, marketing campaigns, or business strategies, these tools will help you navigate complex data landscapes with clarity and precision.

By tapping into these strategies—benchmarks, lookalikes, collaborative KPIs, prioritizing results, and clear writing—you can focus the audience of your analysis on the most critical take-aways - this is essentially your topline. It sets the stage for your readers to quickly understand what is most important and relevant to their priorities, and provides better context to understand the value of the insights you've shared for your business. Win!