how do you write a market research report

What is a Marketing Research Report and How to Write It?

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There is nothing more embarrassing for a marketer than to hear a client say “…this doesn’t quite address the business questions that we need to answer.” And unfortunately, this is a rather common occurrence in market research reporting that most marketers would care to admit.

So, why do most market research reports fail to meet client expectations? Well, in most cases, because there is more emphasis on methodology and analytic techniques used to craft the report rather than relying on data visualization, creative story-telling, and outlining actionable direction/steps.

Now, our next big question is, how do you avoid your client’s dreaded deer-in-the-headlights reaction when presenting such a report? This blog post will answer this and much more, as we go through the following:

What Is a Market Research Report?

Why is market research important, differences between primary and secondary market research, types of market research, market research reports advantages and disadvantages, how to do market research, how to prepare a market research report: 5 steps, marketing research report templates, marketing research reports best practices, bring your market research reports a step further with databox.

The purpose of creating a market research report is to make calculated decisions about business ideas. Market research is done to evaluate the feasibility of a new product or service, through research conducted with potential consumers. The information obtained from conducting market research is then documented in a formal report that should contain the following details:

• The characteristics of your ideal customers
• You customers buying habits
• The value your product or service can bring to those customers
• A list of your top competitors

Every business aims to provide the best possible product or service at the lowest cost possible. Simply said, market research is important because it helps you understand your customers and determine whether the product or service that you are about to launch is worth the effort.

Here is an example of a customer complaint that may result in more detailed market research:

Suppose you sell widgets, and you want your widget business to succeed over the long term. Over the years, you have developed many different ways of making widgets. But a couple of years ago, a customer complained that your widgets were made of a cheap kind of foam that fell apart after six months. You didn’t think at the time that this was a major problem, but now you know it.

The customer is someone you really want to keep. So, you decide to research this complaint. You set up a focus group of people who use widgets and ask them what they think about the specific problem. After the conducted survey you’ll get a better picture of customer opinions, so you can either decide to make the changes regarding widget design or just let it go.

PRO TIP: How Well Are Your Marketing KPIs Performing?

Like most marketers and marketing managers, you want to know how well your efforts are translating into results each month. How much traffic and new contact conversions do you get? How many new contacts do you get from organic sessions? How are your email campaigns performing? How well are your landing pages converting? You might have to scramble to put all of this together in a single report, but now you can have it all at your fingertips in a single Databox dashboard.

Our Marketing Overview Dashboard includes data from Google Analytics 4 and HubSpot Marketing with key performance metrics like:

• Sessions . The number of sessions can tell you how many times people are returning to your website. Obviously, the higher the better.
• New Contacts from Sessions . How well is your campaign driving new contacts and customers?
• Marketing Performance KPIs . Tracking the number of MQLs, SQLs, New Contacts and similar will help you identify how your marketing efforts contribute to sales.
• Email Performance . Measure the success of your email campaigns from HubSpot. Keep an eye on your most important email marketing metrics such as number of sent emails, number of opened emails, open rate, email click-through rate, and more.
• Blog Posts and Landing Pages . How many people have viewed your blog recently? How well are your landing pages performing?

Now you can benefit from the experience of our Google Analytics and HubSpot Marketing experts, who have put together a plug-and-play Databox template that contains all the essential metrics for monitoring your leads. It’s simple to implement and start using as a standalone dashboard or in marketing reports, and best of all, it’s free!

You can easily set it up in just a few clicks – no coding required.

To set up the dashboard, follow these 3 simple steps:

Step 1: Get the template 

Step 2: Connect your HubSpot and Google Analytics 4 accounts with Databox. 

Step 3: Watch your dashboard populate in seconds.

Marketing research requires both primary and secondary market research. But what does that mean and what are the main differences?

Primary market research takes in information directly from customers, usually as participants in surveys. Usually, it is consisted of:

• Exploratory Primary Research – This type of research helps to identify possible problem areas, and it’s not focused on discovering specific information about customers. As with any research, exploratory primary research should be conducted carefully. Researchers need to craft an interviewing or surveying plan, and gather enough respondents to ensure reasonable levels of statistical reliability.
• Specific Primary Research – This type of research is one of the best ways to approach a problem because it relies on existing customer data. Specific research provides a deeper, more thorough understanding of the problem and its potential solutions. The greatest advantage of specific research is that it lets you explore a very specific question, and focus on a specific problem or an opportunity.

Secondary market research collects information from other sources such as databases, trend reports, market or government statistics, industry content, etc. We can divide secondary market research into 3 categories:

• Public market data – Public sources range from academic journals and government reports to tax returns and court documents. These sources aren’t always easy to find. Many are available only in print in libraries and archives. You have to look beyond search engines like Google to find public source documents.
• Commercial data – Those are typically created by specialized agencies like Pew, Gartner or Forrester. the research agencies are quite expensive, but they provide a lot of useful information.
• Internal data – Your organization’s databases are gold mines for market research. In the best cases, your salespeople can tell you what they think about customers. Your salespeople are your direct sources of information about the market. Don’t underestimate your internal data.

In general, primary research is more reliable than secondary research, because researchers have to interview people directly. But primary research is expensive and time-consuming. Secondary research can be quicker and less expensive.

There are plenty of ways to conduct marketing research reports. Mostly, the type of research done will depend on your goals. Here are some types of market research often conducted by marketers.

Focus Groups

Product/service use research, observation-based research, buyer persona research, market segmentation research, pricing research, competitive analysis research, customer satisfaction and loyalty research, brand awareness research, campaign research.

An interview is an interactive process of asking and answering questions and observing your respondent’s responses. Interviews are one of the most commonly used tools in market research . An interview allows an organization to observe, in detail, how its consumers interact with its products and services. It also allows an organization to address specific questions.

A focus group is a group of people who get together to discuss a particular topic. A moderator leads the discussion and takes notes. The main benefit of focus groups is that they are quick and easy to conduct. You can gather a group of carefully-selected people, give them a product to try out, and get their feedback within a few hours/days.

Product or service use research helps you obtain useful information about your product or service such as:

• What your current customers do with the product/service
• Which features of the product/service are particularly important to your customers
• What they dislike about the product/service
• What they would change about the product/service

Observation-based research helps you to observe your target audience interacting with your product or service. You will see the interactions and which aspects work well and which could be improved. The main point is to directly experience the feedback from your target audience’s point of view.

Personas are an essential sales tool. By knowing your buyers’ pain points and the challenges they face, you can create better content, target messaging, and campaigns for them. Buyer persona research is based on market research, and it’s built around data that describes your customers’ demographics, behaviors, motivations, and concerns. Sales reporting software can significantly help you develop buyer personas when you gain insights after you collected all information.

Market segmentation research is carried out to better understand existing and potential market segments. The objective is to determine how to target different market segments and how they differ from each other. The three most important steps in writing a market segmentation research report are:

• Defining the problem
• Determining the solution [and]
• Defining the market

Related : 9 Customer Segmentation Tips to Personalize Ecommerce Marketing and Drive More Sales

A price that is too high, or too low, can kill a business. And without good market research, you don’t really know what is a good price for your product. Pricing research helps you define your pricing strategy.

In a competitive analysis, you define your “competition” as any other entity that competes with you in your market, whether you’re selling a widget or a piece of real estate. With competitive analysis research, you can find out things like:

• Who your competitors are
• What they’ve done in the past
• What’s working well for them
• Their weaknesses
• How they’re positioned in the market
• How they market themselves
• What they’re doing that you’re not

Related : How to Do an SEO Competitive Analysis: A Step-by-Step Guide

In today’s marketplace, companies are increasingly focused on customer loyalty. What your customers want is your product, but, more importantly, they want it delivered with a service that exceeds their expectations. Successful companies listen to their customers and respond accordingly. That’s why customer satisfaction and loyalty research is a critical component of that basic equation.

Related : 11 Tactics for Effectively Measuring Your Customer Service ROI

Who you are, what you stand for, what you offer, what you believe in, and what your audience thinks of you is all wrapped up in brand. Brand awareness research tells what your target audience knows about your brand and what’s their experience like.

A campaign research report is a detailed account of how your marketing campaign performed. It includes all the elements that went into creating the campaign: planning, implementation, and measurement.

Here are some of the top advantages and disadvantages of doing market research and crafting market research reports.

• Identify business opportunities – A market research report can be used to analyze potential markets and new products. It can give information about customer needs, preferences, and attitudes. Also, it compare products and services.
• A clear understanding of your customers – A market report gives company’s marketing department an in-depth picture about customers’ needs and wants. This knowledge can be used to improve products, prices, and advertising.
• Mitigates risks – 30% of small businesses fail within the first two years. Why is this so? The answer is that entrepreneurs are risk takers. However, there are risks that could be avoided. A good marketing research will help you identify those risks and allow you to mitigate them.
• Clear data-driven insights – Market research encompasses a wide range of activities, from determining market size and segment to forecasting demand, and from identifying competitors to monitoring pricing. All of these are quantified and measurable which means that gives you a clear path for building unique decisions based on numbers.

Disadvantages

• It’s not cheap – Although market research can be done for as little as $500, large markets like the United States can run into millions of dollars. If a research is done for a specific product, the budget may be even much higher. The budget also depends on the quality of the research. The more expensive it is, the more time the research will take.
• Some insights could be false – For example, if you are conducting a survey, data may be inadequate or inaccurate because respondents can, well, simply be dishonest and lie.

Here are the essential steps you need to take when doing market research:

Define your buyer persona

Identify a persona group to engage, prepare research questions for your market research participants, list your primary competitors, summarize your findings.

The job of a marketing persona is to describe your ideal customer and to tell you what they want, what motivates them, what frustrates them, and what limits them. Finding out these things means you have a better chance of designing your products, services, marketing messages, and brand around real customers. There is no one right way to create a buyer persona, though.

For example, if you’re in an industry focused on education, you could include things like:

• Educational level
• Education background

It’s recommended that you create 3-5 buyer personas for your products, based on your ideal customer.

This should be a representative sample of your target customers so you can better understand their behavior. You want to find people who fit both your target personas and who represent the broader demographic of your market. People who recently made a purchase or purposefully decided not to make one are a good sample to start with.

The questions you use determine the quality of your results. Of course, the quality of your results also depends on the quality of your participants.

Don’t ask questions that imply a yes or no answer. Instead, use open questions. For example, if you are researching customers about yogurt products, you could ask them: „ What have you heard about yogurt ?” or “ What do you think of yogurt ?“.

Avoid questions that use numbers, such as “ How many times a week do you eat yogurt ?”

Avoid questions that suggest a set of mutually exclusive answers, such as “ Do you like yogurt for breakfast, lunch, or dinner ?”

Avoid questions that imply a scale, such as “ Do you like chocolate-flavored yogurt ?”

Market researchers sometimes call one company the top competitor, another middle competitor, and the third one small competitor. However you classify them, you want to identify at least three companies in each category. Now, for each business on your list, list its key characteristics. For example, if your business sells running shoes, a key characteristic might be the product’s quality.

Next, make a list of your small business’s competitive advantages. These include the unique qualities or features of your business that make it the best choice of customers for the products or services it offers. Make a list of these competitive advantages and list them next to the key characteristics you listed for your business.

You have just finished writing your marketing research report. Everything is out there quantified or qualified. You just have to sum it up and focus on the most important details that are going to make a big impact on your decisions. Clear summary leads to a winning strategy!

Related : How to Prepare a Complete Marketing Report: The KPIs, Analysis, & Action Plan You Need

Here’s how to prepare a market research report in 5 simple steps:

Step 1: Cluster the data

Step 2: prepare an outline, step 3: mention the research methods, step 4: include visuals with narrative explanations, step 5: conclude the report with recommendations.

Your first step is to cluster all the available information into a manageable set. Clustering is the process of grouping information together in a way that emphasizes commonalities and minimizes differences. So, in market research, this will help to organize all the information you have about a product, service, or target market and identify your focus areas.

A marketing research report should be written so that other people can understand it:

• Include background information at the beginning to explain who your audience is and what problem you are trying to solve for them.
• In the body of the report, include a description of the methodology – Explain to the reader how your research was done, what was involved, and why you selected the methodology you used.
• Also in the body of the report, include the results of your market research. These may be quantitative or qualitative, but either way they should answer the questions you posed at the beginning.
• Include the executive summary – A summary of the entire report.

The market research methodology section includes details on the type of research, sample size, any limitations of the studies, research design, sample selection, data collection procedures, and statistical analyses used.

Visuals are an essential part of the presentation. Even the best-written text can be difficult to understand. Charts and graphs are easier to understand than text alone, and they help the reader see how the numbers fit the bigger picture.

But visuals are not the whole story. They are only one part of the presentation. Visuals are a cue for the reader. The narrative gives the story, not just the numbers.

Recommendations tend to follow logically from conclusions and are a response to a certain problem. The recommendation should always be relevant to the research rationale, that is, the recommendation should be based on the results of the research reported in the body of the report.

Now, let’s take a look at some dashboard reporting templates you could use to enhance your market research:

• Semrush (Position Tracking) Report

Brand Awareness Report

Sales pipeline performance report, customer success overview report, stripe (mrr & churn) report, semrush (position tracking) report template.

This free SEMRush dashboard template will help you monitor how your website’s search visibility on search engines evolves on a monthly basis. This dashboard contains all of the information you need to make changes and improve the ranking results of your business in Google Search.

This Brand Awareness Report will help you to get a sense of your brand awareness performance in Google Analytics, Google Organic Search, and Facebook. Use this dashboard to track brand awareness the same way you track other marketing campaigns.

Are your sales and marketing funnel healthy and growing? How is your sales and marketing funnel performing? What are the key conversion rates between your lifecycle stages? With a pipeline performance dashboard , you’ll get all of the answers quickly.

This Customer Success Overview Dashboard allows you to analyze how your customer service team’s responsiveness impacts your business. Use this dashboard to assess the correlation between your customer service performance and churn rate. 

This Stripe dashboard tracks your churn rate and MRR growth in real-time and shows you which customers (and how many of them) you have at any given point in time. All you have to do to get started is to connect your Stripe account.

As we said earlier, there are no strict rules when it comes to writing marketing research reports. On the other hand, you must find your focus if you want to write a report that will make a difference. Here are some best practices you should keep in mind when writing a research report.

• Objectives – The objective of a market research report is to define the problems, identify key issues, and suggest recommendations for further research. If you answer them successfully, you’re on the right way.
• Don’t worry about the format – Be creative. The report could be in a form of a PowerPoint presentation, Excel sheet, interactive dashboard or even a video. Use the format that best fits your audience, but make sure to make it easy to read.
• Include an executive summary, scorecard , or a dashboard – This is really important because time is money, and most people don’t have time to waste. So, how to put everything important in a short role? Address all of the objectives and put them in a graphic dashboard or scorecard. Also, you can write an executive summary template (heart of the report) that can be easily updated and read by managers or CEOs.
• Use storytelling –  A good story always makes a great point because it’s so memorable. Your research report results can double the effect with a catchy story.
• Keep it short – It’s not a secret that we are reading so little in the digital era. Use a lot of white space and bullet points. Too much text on a page means less focus for the reader.
• Be organized – Maintain the order of information. It’s important for the reader to navigate through the report easily. If they want to find some details or specific information it would be great to divide all sections with appropriate references.
• Methodological information – Methodological details could be boring. Include only the most important details that the reader needs to know to understand the big picture.
• Use images (or other visualizations) whenever you can – A good picture speaks for 1.000 words! If you can communicate the point visually, don’t hesitate to do it. It would be a lot easier for those who don’t like a lot of text to understand your results. But don’t push them where you can’t.
• Create readable graphs – The crown of marketing research reports is a comprehensive graph. Make sure to design precise and attractive graphs that will power up and round your story.
• Use the Appendix  – You can include all secondary information such as methodological details and other miscellaneous data in the Appendix at the end of the report.

Market research reports are all about presenting your data in an easy-to-understand way and making calculated decisions about business ideas. But this is something easier said than done.

When busy stakeholders and executives grab a report, they need something that will give them an idea of the results – the big picture that addresses company wide-business goals.

Can a PowerPoint presentation or a PDF report meet those expectations? Most likely not. But a dashboard can.

Keep in mind that even with the best market analysis in the world, your market research report won’t be actionable if you don’t present the data efficiently and in a way that everyone understands what the next steps are. Databox is your key ally in the matter.

Databox dashboards are designed to help you present your market research data with clarity – from identifying what is influencing your business, and understanding where your brand is situated in the market, to gauging the temperature of your niche or industry before a new product/service launch.

Present your research results with efficient, interactive dashboards now by signing up for a free trial .

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Learn How to Write a Market Research Report: 10 Steps to Follow for Success

Dec, 2023 - by CMI

A market research report is an integral part of the coursework for many business programs. It explores the understanding of subjective views of customers towards a product or service. Still, many students struggle to create market reports that effectively address the business question. So, how do you avoid the deer-in-the-headlights reaction when presenting a market research report?  

In most cases, marketers fail to create impactful research reports because they don’t know the actionable steps to follow. 10 main steps occur in a typical market research study and reporting process, from problem identification to acting on the result. Read on to get all the information you need to write a top-notch market research report.

What Is a Market Research Report?

A market research report is a document prepared to evaluate the feasibility of a new product or service to potential customers. Companies do market research reports to paint a picture of what products, services, or actions may be the most profitable to pursue. Actionable information is obtained through market research prepared in a formal report that reveals the characteristics of customers, the value of a product or service, buying habits, and a list of top competitors.

Writing a market research report helps businesses make calculated decisions about what ideas to pursue or not. It focuses on studying consumer behavior that influences spending decisions, including cultural, economic, societal, and personal factors. As a result, businesses can assimilate critical information and tips about prospective customers and target markets.

10 Steps to Write a Market Research Report That Accurately Highlights Market Opportunities

Identify the problem and objectives.

In market research, there’s a famous saying that a problem half defined is a problem half solved. So defining the potential problem, causes, or opportunities in the market is a great place to start your marketing research papers. The information will help you narrow down the parameters of the study, such as the business objective and research objectives. Whether you want to test a hypothesis about consumer opinion or how consumers will react to a new pricing model, they all require identifying a solid objective.  

Develop your research strategy

This is a crucial step in preparing a market research report because it will define the quality of data collection and the reliability of results. Choose between primary research or secondary research methods. Also, you will need to decide whether you will utilize quantitative or qualitative research methods. The most effective research strategy depends on your sample size and profile as well as the desired outcomes based on the objectives.

Use the help of writing services

In case you feel inefficient in handling crucial market research writing steps, such as defining the problem, identifying research objectives, or developing a research strategy, get the help you need from a professional. Reputable academic paper writing services, such as CustomWritings, have plenty of certified academic writers with extensive knowledge and experience in custom research paper writing of any complexity. You can get one written from scratch by an expert in a stipulated time to make your work easier.

Prepare an outline and set a deadline

If you can write a market research report yourself, develop an outline with sections and subsections you will cover in your paper. A typical market research report includes the following sections:

• Introduction
• Methodology

Market research reports also come with a fixed due date. So, allocate time for completing each section to ensure you finish the task before the deadline.

Specify the sample

Before you can start collecting data, you need to specify who will participate in the study. Start by defining your population correctly and defining a sampling frame from which you will draw the sample. For example, you can use a customer list, directory, or membership roster to get a good sample. Large samples produce more reliable results, but the more data you have, the costlier and more time-consuming your research will be. Use statistics to define an optimal sample size.

Gather data and information

Next, conduct fieldwork to collect relevant data. If you’re conducting quantitative research, use text, emails, websites, and social media to reach respondents. For qualitative research, primary data collection typically involves interviews or ethnographic research through video surveys. Find ways to record and organize responses from each source. You can complement each type of research with secondary data that relates to your topic.

Technology has made data analysis a breeze for researchers. Students can use programs such as Excel, STATA, and SPSS to organize, clean, analyze, and interpret basic results of their market research. The type of analysis you’ll adopt will depend on your hypothesis. Some good marketing analyses that you can conduct include:

• Market segmentation analysis
• Conjoint analysis
• Price sensitivity analysis
• TURF analysis

Present findings in a written report

It’s time to put your study together in a well-written market research analysis report that you will present to an audience of decision-makers. The goal is to make your findings come alive so that the audience understands your objectives and insights uncovered in the research. While data analysis could be complex, the final report should only point to the concrete actions and results. Ensure your college research report includes a title page, table of contents, executive summary, methodology, findings, and recommendations. In some cases, you can accompany your report with a slide presentation, charts, case summaries, and graphs.  

Cross-check

When you’re done with your market research report, take time to read through all the details to see if you’ve missed anything, have made mistakes, or if it has a good flow. Your first draft is never your final product. University students can get editing help from professional editing services, or online editing tools, or just ask a friend to double-check the report. Edit the report as many times as you want to make it clear and concise.

Act on your findings

Local and international businesses prepare market research reports for many reasons. Maybe they want to enter a new market or launch a new product. With a research report in hand, it’s time to act on the findings and the recommendations. This could involve commissioning the production of a product, setting up a social media framework, or taking actions to monitor customer loyalty. Still, stay alert to changes in trends that might require new research to be launched in the future.

Wrapping Up

When a busy business executive or professor grabs your market research report, they want to see something that will give them an idea of the research design, the results, and the big picture that addresses company goals. Follow the guide provided in this article to prepare a clear and actionable market research report.

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A Guide on How to Create a Market Research Report

A market research report provides valuable insights into consumer behaviors, market trends, competitive analysis, and the overall health of specific industries.

This document serves as a roadmap for businesses to strategize effectively, identify new opportunities, and mitigate risks.

In this article, we will walk you through the essential components of a market research report, the steps to create one, and best practices to ensure that your findings are actionable and accurate.

What is a Market Research Report?

A market research report is a comprehensive document that gathers data about market conditions, customer preferences, competition, and other factors affecting an industry or business. It synthesizes primary and secondary research to present an analysis that helps companies make strategic decisions. The report covers various aspects, from demographic data and consumer surveys to industry trends and competitive dynamics.

Types of Market Research Reports

Market research reports can vary based on the objectives and the scope of the study. Here are some common types:

• Consumer Analysis Reports: Focus on customer demographics, preferences, and behavior to tailor products and marketing strategies.
• Competitive Analysis Reports: Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of competitors within the market, offering insights into competitive advantages and potential opportunities.
• Industry Analysis Reports: Provide a broad overview of the industry, including trends, size, and growth forecasts.
• Product Testing Reports: Gather feedback from users about a new or existing product to inform product development and improvement.
• Brand Loyalty Reports: Analyze customer loyalty and satisfaction to help develop strategies to enhance customer retention.

What Does a Market Research Report Include?

A well-rounded market research report generally contains the following elements:

• Executive Summary: A concise overview of key findings and recommendations, allowing readers to quickly understand the report's essence.
• Introduction: Contextualizes the research, including objectives and questions that the report aims to address.
• Methodology: Describes the research methods used to collect data, whether through surveys, interviews, focus groups, or secondary data sources.
• Market Analysis: Detailed analysis of the market, including size, trends, growth patterns, and environmental factors.
• Competitive Landscape: Assessment of key players in the industry, their market share, strategies, and products.
• Customer Insights: Analysis of customer demographics, buying behaviors, preferences, and needs.
• Conclusions and Recommendations: Summarize the insights derived from the research and suggest actionable strategies based on the findings.

How to Create a Market Research Report in 5 Steps

Creating an effective market research report involves a structured approach:

• Define the Purpose: Clearly articulate what you want to achieve with the report. This will guide your research focus and methodology.
• Gather Information: Use both primary and secondary research to collect comprehensive data. Primary research could include surveys and interviews, while secondary research may involve reviewing existing studies, industry reports, and competitive data.
• Analyze Data: Interpret the data to identify patterns, insights, and correlations. Use statistical tools and software for accurate analysis.
• Draft the Report: Organize the findings in a structured format. Start with the executive summary, followed by the introduction, methodology, detailed findings, and conclusions.
• Review and Revise: Ensure the report is clear, accurate, and free from bias. It may be helpful to have peers or stakeholders review the document before finalizing it.

Best Practices for Creating a Market Research Report

To enhance the effectiveness of your market research report, consider these best practices:

• Stay Objective: Maintain impartiality to ensure the report is unbiased and reliable.
• Use Visuals: Incorporate charts, graphs, and infographics to make data easier to understand and more engaging.
• Keep It Concise: Be clear and concise, avoiding overly complex language or excessive detail that may distract from the key insights.
• Segment the Data: Provide segmented analysis to offer more detailed insights into different customer groups or market segments.
• Update Regularly: Market conditions change rapidly, so it’s important to update your reports periodically to keep them relevant.

Create a Market Research Report Using Tome

Presenting your market research effectively is key to influencing strategic decisions.

With Tome, you can effortlessly craft detailed, insightful presentations that communicate complex data in an understandable and engaging manner.

Start leveraging Tome today to enhance the impact of your market research reports and drive meaningful action.

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What is a Marketing Research Report and How to Write It

In essence, a market research report is a document that reveals the characteristics of your ideal customers, their buying habits, the value your product or service can bring to them, and the list of your top competitors.

The marketing research report paints a picture of what kinds of new products or services may be the most profitable in today’s highly competitive landscape. For products or services already available, a marketing research report can provide detailed insights as to whether they are meeting their consumers’ needs and expectations. It helps understand the reasons why consumers buy a particular product by studying consumer behavior, including how economic, cultural, societal, and personal factors influence that behavior.

Furthermore, the purpose of writing a marketing research report is to make calculated decisions about business ideas – whether they’re worth pursuing or not. This requires one primary skill which is observing the pattern which is hidden in the User Generated Content (UGC) written in different tones and perspectives on the social web.

Simply put, writing a market research report is a vital part of planning business activities and serves as a neat way to assimilate all the information about your target market and prospective customers.

Now, there are two key varieties of marketing research report formats – primary and secondary.

Primary vs. Secondary Market Research

Let’s take a look at the main recipes of how to make a market research report in detail:

Primary Research

This method of marketing research involves gathering firsthand information about your market and prospective clients. You study your customers directly by conducting:

• Interviews (either by telephone or face-to-face)
• Surveys and polls (online or by email)
• Questionnaires (online or by email)
• Focus groups discussions with a sample of potential customers and getting their direct feedback

Some crucial questions that you need to ask your prospective customers in your primary research are:

• What are the factors that motivate you to purchase this product or service?
• What do you like or dislike about this type of product or service already available on the market?
• Are there any areas you’d like to suggest for improvement?
• What according to you is the appropriate price for this product or service?

Primary research also involves analyzing competitors’ strategies, so you can find gaps and weaknesses that you can turn into your strengths.

Secondary Research

The second method of writing a marketing research report is all about analyzing the data that has already been published and using the available information on the web. That is, secondary research is done from reliable reports and statistics found on the websites of other organizations or authority blogs in your industry.

Sources can be:

• Public: This includes all the free sources like social media and forums, Google Trends, YouGov, and government sources such as the United States Census Bureau.
• Commercial: This includes industry insights compiled by research agencies like Pew, Gartner, Forrester, and so on. Typically, these are paid.
• Internal: This is the historical market data your organization already has in-house, such as the Net Promoter Score, customer churn rate, and so on.

Secondary data can help you identify competitors, establish benchmarks, and determine target customer segments or demographics – people who live a certain lifestyle, their income and buying patterns, age group, location, etc.

Market Research Reports Advantages and Disadvantages

Before we discuss how to write a marketing research report, let’s quickly take a look at market research report benefits and also some of the limitations in marketing research reports.

Advantages of Market Research Report

Here are the top reasons why you should invest in creating a market research report.

1. Gives a Better Understanding of Your Customers

The answers to questions like who will buy your product, what are the customers’ pain points, what motivates their buying behavior, and so on will be effectively answered with a market research report. Essentially, it will help you map out the full profile of your ideal customer and consequently, allow you to create tailored products and marketing campaigns.

2. Helps Spot Business Opportunities

As already mentioned, market research will give you insights about your competitors’ strategies, so you can find gaps in their offerings that you can turn into your product’s strengths. You may also find other business opportunities such as potential partnerships with brands that sell complementary products, or an opportunity to better upsell or cross-sell your products. For example, a keyword research report from a SaaS SEO agency provides an opportunity to acquire organic search ranking by creating in-depth, high-converting, and funnel-oriented content.

3. Minimizes Risks

Starting or running a business is synonymous with risk. In fact, nearly half of all small businesses with employees don’t survive for more than five years. Conducting proper market research frequently will allow you to stay on top of trends, and not waste your efforts and resources in things that would likely be fruitless.

For instance, before you launch a new product, conducting market research gives you a much better idea of the demand for your product. Or if an existing product is seeing a big drop in sales, market research helps you determine the root cause of the issue.

4. Facilitates Data-Driven Decision Making

When it comes to business decisions – data over guesswork, always. So, based on your market research results, you can make more informed decisions regarding the pricing, distribution channels, and marketing budget of your products.

Disadvantages of Market Research Report

As with anything, there are a couple of downsides to conducting marketing research as well.

1. Could Be an Expensive Activity

Conducting a comprehensive, in-depth research is usually a costly activity in terms of both time and money. To research the right audience with the right questions requires you to invest a lot of time. If you wish to use data by commercial market research agencies or get help from one such agency in conducting primary research, be prepared to spend a substantial amount.

2. Insights Gathered Could Be Inadequate or Even Inaccurate

Another problem often faced in marketing research is a lack of respondents. While you can figure out who is your target audience, getting them to fill out surveys and questionnaires can indeed be challenging. Plus, you’re using data you collected for drawing conclusions, which may be unreliable.

For example, by the time you act on the data you collected, it may have become outdated. This translates into poor decision making and the whole process may become counterproductive.

How to Prepare Market Research Report

Now, here are some concrete steps and guidelines for writing a marketing research report.

Step 1: Cluster the Data

First off, compile all the relevant data you’ve accumulated from your primary and/or secondary research efforts. Survey results, interview answers, statistics from third-party sources – bring it all together and then analyze the information to sketch out the profile of your target market.

Step 2: Prepare an Outline

Next, create a skeleton of the report so that you understand what information will go where. An outline with sections and subsections will help you structure your marketing research report properly. A typical report includes an introduction, background and methodology, executive summary, results, and a conclusion with links to all references.

With an outline in front of you, start by writing the front matter of your report – an introduction that provides a brief overview of your business and the reason you conducted the market research. Include a summary of the market research process and the results you have analyzed. For instance, you might have been gauging the feasibility of a new product, so summarize that your market research report is for a new product launch.

Step 3: Mention the Research Methods

An important next step is to clearly mention the methods used to conduct the research. That is, if you conducted polls, specify the number of polls, the percentage of responses, the types of people or businesses targeted, and the questions included in the poll. Tag all the resources for demographic information, such as census data.

Step 4: Include Visuals With Narrative Explanation

Visuals such as charts and graphs are an important part of any research paper. They make sure that the findings are easy to comprehend.

So, create tables, graphs, and/or charts illustrating the results of the research. Accompany it with a narrative explanation of the visual data. Highlight the inferences you made based on this data.

Step 5: Conclude the Report With Recommendations

Finally, conclude your report with a section that lists actionable recommendations based on the research results to facilitate decision making. For example, all the numbers may point to the conclusion that your customers desire a particular feature that no other product on the market is currently offering. In this case, it is clear that it’s a good idea to invest your resources in providing that feature and gain a competitive edge.

At the very end of the report, include reference links to all the sources and an appendix for supplementary materials and further reading.

Marketing Research Report Templates

Before you go, check out some templates and samples you can use to better understand the marketing research report structure, and maybe even use them to kickstart your report instead of preparing one from scratch.

• Market Research Report for New Product Launch
• Market Research Report for Restaurant (competitor analysis)
• Social Media Market Research Report

Writing a marketing research report is a tried-and-true way to gain a solid understanding of your target audience and competitors while enabling you to make more informed decisions and minimize investment risks. Sure, it may take considerable time, effort, and even money to conduct thorough research and prepare a report, but when done well, the ROI of it all is well worth it.

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Writing a market research report is a tough skill to master. Read our 5 top tips to get you started for writing a successful market research report.

While data collection and results analysis can be highly in-depth and time-consuming processes to complete, they still only mark the beginning of your market research project. The next step is writing a market research report, which is a tough skill to master. The report must effectively communicate your research findings such as consumer trends, market trends, and competitor behaviour surrounding your target audience .

A market research report is a summary of research findings and insights uncovered during the data collection and analysis processes. Research reports usually contain information about a company’s competition, industry trends/opportunities, and recommendations for next steps based on the research questions being addressed.

A good research report helps guide decision-making and highlight market opportunities. You should be clear and concise but also detailed and comprehensive, keeping in mind that stakeholders must be able to interpret your findings with ease. This is no easy task, which is why we have listed our 5 top tips to get you started for writing a successful market research report.

Use language stakeholders can understand

Your market research report will be presented to many stakeholders, not all of which will have a strong understanding of market research terms, so it is important that you write in clear, simple language.

Do not assume stakeholders will understand without explanation, for example, all diagrams should be clearly labelled and accurately describe what they are displaying. It is helpful to imagine you are writing the research report for a reader who has no prior knowledge on the topic to ensure you are explaining your findings comprehensively.

Report on insights through storytelling

Writing a seamless research report is not only easier to read but also ensures you have covered all necessary elements. Work chronologically to unpack your research — What is it about? What did you discover? What should you do next? Your research report should build upon your “story” the further it reads and further support your final recommendations .

Share insights through visual reporting

Visual elements such as diagrams and charts deliver numerical information more clearly than writing. They also help to break up text and keep the reader engaged with the research report and can be easily referenced during presentations. Similarly, images and icons can be used to draw attention to certain findings and make formatting more presentable.

Turn data into actionable insights

Data is meaningless to stakeholders unless it is interpreted and presented with a set of actions or “next steps”. Your goal is to explain how the data you have collected can drive smart business decisions and why these decisions are the best course of action. Outline step-by-step connections to ensure all readers can clearly understand the relationship between data and action.

Avoid vague reporting

It is important to keep your research report brief, including only the most substantial points you want to communicate. All reporting must be supplemented with firm evidence and written in an assertive tone to convey certainty of your findings. Keep recommendations clear and concise, without straying too far from your main points — writing that goes off on tangents can distract from your main points.

Read these articles next:

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How to Develop Effective Likert Scale Questions?

Learn to write and develop effective Likert scale questions for your market research using tips from this best practice guide, especially useful for concept validation.

How to get the most out of video interviewing in surveys?

Video Response questions help you gather authentic and rich insights, through empowering people to talk. Learn how to get the most out of video interviewing in surveys.

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5 Things to Remember When Writing a Market Research Report

Filed Under: Best Practices , Market Research , Reporting , Tools & Techniques , Quantitative Research

Lynne Bartos

Vice President and Marketing Content Strategist, Marketing

There is nothing more embarrassing for a researcher than to hear a client say “…this doesn’t really address the business questions that we set out to answer.” This is more common an occurrence in research reporting than most of us would care to admit. But unfortunately, much report writing these days falls short of expectations for those on the client side. This is likely due to more emphasis on methodology or analytic technique at the expense of clear graphics, creative story-telling and actionable direction.

What often happens during the report-writing process is that market researchers have their direct research client in mind. They neglect the fact that their direct contact must present these findings to the ultimate stakeholder in the process — someone in senior management or the head of marketing who does not function in the research realm.

We need to take conscious steps to break out of our little bubble to avoid some of the lingo that is prevalent in research circles. You know what I mean if you’ve ever found yourself presenting your findings to marketing folks. While peppering them with terms such as “mean,” “monadic,” “DK/NS,” “latent class,” and the like, you suddenly notice the deer-in-the-headlights reaction. Worse yet, your audience’s eyes glaze over completely. These terms are foreign to many marketers and, frankly, most of them couldn’t care less about such things. They simply want a viable solution to the particular business need they set out to address.

So, when writing a research report for my clients it helps me to keep a few things in mind….

Speak to Marketers in Their Language

Focus on what marketers care most about — getting customers, keeping customers, and increasing their share of the customer’s wallet. So tell them what is meaningful to them….

• How to position their brand
• How best to price it
• Who their best prospects are and how to reach them
• What message should they be communicating
• Who are their most loyal and valuable customers
• How do they keep them loyal to their service or brand

Net, net — put some Marketing-Speak into your report, and leave out the Research-speak.

Tell a good story

A good report tells a good story. So, how do you tell a compelling story? Start by getting organized!

• Develop an analytic plan that focuses on business issues and objectives — the questions that need to be answered.
• Outline how the questions will be.
• Once the data is in, all team members should know how the data relates to those question, and they can craft the best story together.

Remember, every page in the report should contribute to the story! If something doesn’t contour well with your story, stick it in the Appendix. How many hundred-page reports have you been subjected to where the charts are all in the same order as the questionnaire? Where is the story?

It’s also important to stick closely to your analytic plan when crafting your story. The analytic plan is what helps to keep everyone focused on why the research was conducted in the first place.

Insightful Headlines and Bullets

What I also find helpful in getting my arms around the story is to write effective bullets and headlines for the data presented. Too many people think an insight is reiterating the numbers that are in the charts. Remember, anyone can read the numbers on a chart – our job, as researchers, is to pull the deeper insights from seemingly obvious data.

Be Creative and Have a Llittle Fun

Creativity also comes into play! Package the story in a creative way. No one wants to see rows and rows of data. Make the report visually appealing so you don’t intimidate those who are going to be using the findings to help drive strategy. Avoid too much text and too many numbers.

And, don’t be afraid to insert some humor here and there. It reminds your clients that you are human and helps to lighten the tone and keep things relaxed.

Get to the Heart of It

And finally, probably the hardest part of the report process for any researcher is to get straight to the heart of it… what is the story – conclusions, implications, and recommendations. Go to the next step to tell them what the data MEANS, and what they might consider doing to maximize their investment.

And there is nothing sweeter to a market researcher’s ears than to hear a client voice saying, “Thanks, this really addresses the business questions that we set out to answer!”

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Market Research: A How-To Guide and Template

Discover the different types of market research, how to conduct your own market research, and use a free template to help you along the way.

MARKET RESEARCH KIT

5 Research and Planning Templates + a Free Guide on How to Use Them in Your Market Research

Published: 02/21/24

Today's consumers have a lot of power. As a business, you must have a deep understanding of who your buyers are and what influences their purchase decisions.

Enter: Market Research.

Whether you're new to market research or not, I created this guide to help you conduct a thorough study of your market, target audience, competition, and more. Let’s dive in.

Table of Contents

What is market research?

Primary vs. secondary research, types of market research, how to do market research, market research report template, market research examples.

Market research is the process of gathering information about your target market and customers to verify the success of a new product, help your team iterate on an existing product, or understand brand perception to ensure your team is effectively communicating your company's value effectively.

Market research can answer various questions about the state of an industry. But if you ask me, it's hardly a crystal ball that marketers can rely on for insights on their customers.

Market researchers investigate several areas of the market, and it can take weeks or even months to paint an accurate picture of the business landscape.

However, researching just one of those areas can make you more intuitive to who your buyers are and how to deliver value that no other business is offering them right now.

How? Consider these two things:

• Your competitors also have experienced individuals in the industry and a customer base. It‘s very possible that your immediate resources are, in many ways, equal to those of your competition’s immediate resources. Seeking a larger sample size for answers can provide a better edge.
• Your customers don't represent the attitudes of an entire market. They represent the attitudes of the part of the market that is already drawn to your brand.

The market research services market is growing rapidly, which signifies a strong interest in market research as we enter 2024. The market is expected to grow from roughly $75 billion in 2021 to $90.79 billion in 2025 .

Free Market Research Kit

• SWOT Analysis Template
• Survey Template
• Focus Group Template

Download Free

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You're all set!

Click this link to access this resource at any time.

Why do market research?

Market research allows you to meet your buyer where they are.

As our world becomes louder and demands more of our attention, this proves invaluable.

By understanding your buyer's problems, pain points, and desired solutions, you can aptly craft your product or service to naturally appeal to them.

Market research also provides insight into the following:

• Where your target audience and current customers conduct their product or service research
• Which of your competitors your target audience looks to for information, options, or purchases
• What's trending in your industry and in the eyes of your buyer
• Who makes up your market and what their challenges are
• What influences purchases and conversions among your target audience
• Consumer attitudes about a particular topic, pain, product, or brand
• Whether there‘s demand for the business initiatives you’re investing in
• Unaddressed or underserved customer needs that can be flipped into selling opportunity
• Attitudes about pricing for a particular product or service

Ultimately, market research allows you to get information from a larger sample size of your target audience, eliminating bias and assumptions so that you can get to the heart of consumer attitudes.

As a result, you can make better business decisions.

To give you an idea of how extensive market research can get , consider that it can either be qualitative or quantitative in nature — depending on the studies you conduct and what you're trying to learn about your industry.

Qualitative research is concerned with public opinion, and explores how the market feels about the products currently available in that market.

Quantitative research is concerned with data, and looks for relevant trends in the information that's gathered from public records.

That said, there are two main types of market research that your business can conduct to collect actionable information on your products: primary research and secondary research.

Primary Research

Primary research is the pursuit of first-hand information about your market and the customers within your market.

It's useful when segmenting your market and establishing your buyer personas.

Primary market research tends to fall into one of two buckets:

• Exploratory Primary Research: This kind of primary market research normally takes place as a first step — before any specific research has been performed — and may involve open-ended interviews or surveys with small numbers of people.
• Specific Primary Research: This type of research often follows exploratory research. In specific research, you take a smaller or more precise segment of your audience and ask questions aimed at solving a suspected problem.

Secondary Research

Secondary research is all the data and public records you have at your disposal to draw conclusions from (e.g. trend reports, market statistics, industry content, and sales data you already have on your business).

Secondary research is particularly useful for analyzing your competitors . The main buckets your secondary market research will fall into include:

• Public Sources: These sources are your first and most-accessible layer of material when conducting secondary market research. They're often free to find and review — like government statistics (e.g., from the U.S. Census Bureau ).
• Commercial Sources: These sources often come in the form of pay-to-access market reports, consisting of industry insight compiled by a research agency like Pew , Gartner , or Forrester .
• Internal Sources: This is the market data your organization already has like average revenue per sale, customer retention rates, and other historical data that can help you draw conclusions on buyer needs.
• Focus Groups
• Product/ Service Use Research
• Observation-Based Research
• Buyer Persona Research
• Market Segmentation Research
• Pricing Research
• Competitive Analysis Research
• Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty Research
• Brand Awareness Research
• Campaign Research

1. Interviews

Interviews allow for face-to-face discussions so you can allow for a natural flow of conversation. Your interviewees can answer questions about themselves to help you design your buyer personas and shape your entire marketing strategy.

2. Focus Groups

Focus groups provide you with a handful of carefully-selected people that can test out your product and provide feedback. This type of market research can give you ideas for product differentiation.

3. Product/Service Use Research

Product or service use research offers insight into how and why your audience uses your product or service. This type of market research also gives you an idea of the product or service's usability for your target audience.

4. Observation-Based Research

Observation-based research allows you to sit back and watch the ways in which your target audience members go about using your product or service, what works well in terms of UX , and which aspects of it could be improved.

5. Buyer Persona Research

Buyer persona research gives you a realistic look at who makes up your target audience, what their challenges are, why they want your product or service, and what they need from your business or brand.

6. Market Segmentation Research

Market segmentation research allows you to categorize your target audience into different groups (or segments) based on specific and defining characteristics. This way, you can determine effective ways to meet their needs.

7. Pricing Research

Pricing research helps you define your pricing strategy . It gives you an idea of what similar products or services in your market sell for and what your target audience is willing to pay.

8. Competitive Analysis

Competitive analyses give you a deep understanding of the competition in your market and industry. You can learn about what's doing well in your industry and how you can separate yourself from the competition .

9. Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty Research

Customer satisfaction and loyalty research gives you a look into how you can get current customers to return for more business and what will motivate them to do so (e.g., loyalty programs , rewards, remarkable customer service).

10. Brand Awareness Research

Brand awareness research tells you what your target audience knows about and recognizes from your brand. It tells you about the associations people make when they think about your business.

11. Campaign Research

Campaign research entails looking into your past campaigns and analyzing their success among your target audience and current customers. The goal is to use these learnings to inform future campaigns.

• Define your buyer persona.
• Identify a persona group to engage.
• Prepare research questions for your market research participants.
• List your primary competitors.
• Summarize your findings.

1. Define your buyer persona.

You have to understand who your customers are and how customers in your industry make buying decisions.

This is where your buyer personas come in handy. Buyer personas — sometimes referred to as marketing personas — are fictional, generalized representations of your ideal customers.

Use a free tool to create a buyer persona that your entire company can use to market, sell, and serve better.

What is a Competitive Analysis — and How Do You Conduct One?

9 Best Marketing Research Methods to Know Your Buyer Better [+ Examples]

SWOT Analysis: How To Do One [With Template & Examples]

28 Tools & Resources for Conducting Market Research

TAM, SAM & SOM: What Do They Mean & How Do You Calculate Them?

How to Run a Competitor Analysis [Free Guide]

5 Challenges Marketers Face in Understanding Audiences [New Data + Market Researcher Tips]

Causal Research: The Complete Guide

Total Addressable Market (TAM): What It Is & How You Can Calculate It

Free Guide & Templates to Help Your Market Research

Marketing software that helps you drive revenue, save time and resources, and measure and optimize your investments — all on one easy-to-use platform

A Complete Guide to Market Research: Methods, Templates, How to do it and a lot more

Johnny Tong

Jan 19, 2021

Table of Contents

What is Market Research?

Why is market research so important, market research methods, focus groups, observation, types of market research, market segmentation, brand awareness and reach, pricing research, how to do market research, market research report & analysis templates, swot analysis template, market survey template, 15 common and effective market survey questions, demographic questions, psychographic questions, questions about your product/service., 10 best market research software.

• 1. Surveybot
• 2. Google analytics
• 3. Question Pro
• 4. Make My Persona
• 5. SurveyMonkey

Dos and Don’ts of Market Research

Do focus on your purpose, do use multiple tools, do make necessary changes according to the reports, do use user-friendly survey, do define a budget, don’t stop doing it again, don’t rely on internet information alone, don’t go for professional respondents, market research faqs.

• What is market research?
• Why is market research so important?
• Types of market research
• How to do market research?
• 5 best market research software
• Dos and don’ts of market research
• Market research FAQs

• Keep a definite purpose
• Identify the target audience
• Relationship status
• Education level
• Study your industry
• Prepare survey questions
• Record and analyze your findings

• How old are you?
• What is your gender?
• What is your employment status?
• What do you do?
• What are your hobbies, interests, attitudes?
• What are your challenges, goals?
• How satisfied are you with our product?
• Would you recommend our product to a friend?
• How appealing is our website/store?
• Do you think our prices are high?
• How satisfied are you with our customer service?
• Was it easy to find the right product from our store/website?
• How did you know about our product?
• What attracted you to our brand?
• How often do you come across our advertisements online?

1.  Surveybot

2.  google analytics, 3.  question pro, 4.  make my persona, 5.  surveymonkey.

• How long will it take to carry out market research?
• How to choose the best market research software for my business?
• How many questions should be there in my survey?
• Can I trust the research results to make business decisions?

Chief Human @ Surveybot

How to Do Market Research: The Complete Guide

Learn how to do market research with this step-by-step guide, complete with templates, tools and real-world examples.

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Market research is the systematic process of gathering, analyzing and interpreting information about a specific market or industry.

What are your customers’ needs? How does your product compare to the competition? What are the emerging trends and opportunities in your industry? If these questions keep you up at night, it’s time to conduct market research.

Market research plays a pivotal role in your ability to stay competitive and relevant, helping you anticipate shifts in consumer behavior and industry dynamics. It involves gathering these insights using a wide range of techniques, from surveys and interviews to data analysis and observational studies.

In this guide, we’ll explore why market research is crucial, the various types of market research, the methods used in data collection, and how to effectively conduct market research to drive informed decision-making and success.

What is market research?

The purpose of market research is to offer valuable insight into the preferences and behaviors of your target audience, and anticipate shifts in market trends and the competitive landscape. This information helps you make data-driven decisions, develop effective strategies for your business, and maximize your chances of long-term growth.

Why is market research important? 

By understanding the significance of market research, you can make sure you’re asking the right questions and using the process to your advantage. Some of the benefits of market research include:

• Informed decision-making: Market research provides you with the data and insights you need to make smart decisions for your business. It helps you identify opportunities, assess risks and tailor your strategies to meet the demands of the market. Without market research, decisions are often based on assumptions or guesswork, leading to costly mistakes.
• Customer-centric approach: A cornerstone of market research involves developing a deep understanding of customer needs and preferences. This gives you valuable insights into your target audience, helping you develop products, services and marketing campaigns that resonate with your customers.
• Competitive advantage: By conducting market research, you’ll gain a competitive edge. You’ll be able to identify gaps in the market, analyze competitor strengths and weaknesses, and position your business strategically. This enables you to create unique value propositions, differentiate yourself from competitors, and seize opportunities that others may overlook.
• Risk mitigation: Market research helps you anticipate market shifts and potential challenges. By identifying threats early, you can proactively adjust their strategies to mitigate risks and respond effectively to changing circumstances. This proactive approach is particularly valuable in volatile industries.
• Resource optimization: Conducting market research allows organizations to allocate their time, money and resources more efficiently. It ensures that investments are made in areas with the highest potential return on investment, reducing wasted resources and improving overall business performance.
• Adaptation to market trends: Markets evolve rapidly, driven by technological advancements, cultural shifts and changing consumer attitudes. Market research ensures that you stay ahead of these trends and adapt your offerings accordingly so you can avoid becoming obsolete. 

As you can see, market research empowers businesses to make data-driven decisions, cater to customer needs, outperform competitors, mitigate risks, optimize resources and stay agile in a dynamic marketplace. These benefits make it a huge industry; the global market research services market is expected to grow from $76.37 billion in 2021 to $108.57 billion in 2026 . Now, let’s dig into the different types of market research that can help you achieve these benefits.

Types of market research 

• Qualitative research
• Quantitative research
• Exploratory research
• Descriptive research
• Causal research
• Cross-sectional research
• Longitudinal research

Despite its advantages, 23% of organizations don’t have a clear market research strategy. Part of developing a strategy involves choosing the right type of market research for your business goals. The most commonly used approaches include:

1. Qualitative research

Qualitative research focuses on understanding the underlying motivations, attitudes and perceptions of individuals or groups. It is typically conducted through techniques like in-depth interviews, focus groups and content analysis — methods we’ll discuss further in the sections below. Qualitative research provides rich, nuanced insights that can inform product development, marketing strategies and brand positioning.

2. Quantitative research

Quantitative research, in contrast to qualitative research, involves the collection and analysis of numerical data, often through surveys, experiments and structured questionnaires. This approach allows for statistical analysis and the measurement of trends, making it suitable for large-scale market studies and hypothesis testing. While it’s worthwhile using a mix of qualitative and quantitative research, most businesses prioritize the latter because it is scientific, measurable and easily replicated across different experiments.

3. Exploratory research

Whether you’re conducting qualitative or quantitative research or a mix of both, exploratory research is often the first step. Its primary goal is to help you understand a market or problem so you can gain insights and identify potential issues or opportunities. This type of market research is less structured and is typically conducted through open-ended interviews, focus groups or secondary data analysis. Exploratory research is valuable when entering new markets or exploring new product ideas.

4. Descriptive research

As its name implies, descriptive research seeks to describe a market, population or phenomenon in detail. It involves collecting and summarizing data to answer questions about audience demographics and behaviors, market size, and current trends. Surveys, observational studies and content analysis are common methods used in descriptive research. 

5. Causal research

Causal research aims to establish cause-and-effect relationships between variables. It investigates whether changes in one variable result in changes in another. Experimental designs, A/B testing and regression analysis are common causal research methods. This sheds light on how specific marketing strategies or product changes impact consumer behavior.

6. Cross-sectional research

Cross-sectional market research involves collecting data from a sample of the population at a single point in time. It is used to analyze differences, relationships or trends among various groups within a population. Cross-sectional studies are helpful for market segmentation, identifying target audiences and assessing market trends at a specific moment.

7. Longitudinal research

Longitudinal research, in contrast to cross-sectional research, collects data from the same subjects over an extended period. This allows for the analysis of trends, changes and developments over time. Longitudinal studies are useful for tracking long-term developments in consumer preferences, brand loyalty and market dynamics.

Each type of market research has its strengths and weaknesses, and the method you choose depends on your specific research goals and the depth of understanding you’re aiming to achieve. In the following sections, we’ll delve into primary and secondary research approaches and specific research methods.

Primary vs. secondary market research

Market research of all types can be broadly categorized into two main approaches: primary research and secondary research. By understanding the differences between these approaches, you can better determine the most appropriate research method for your specific goals.

Primary market research 

Primary research involves the collection of original data straight from the source. Typically, this involves communicating directly with your target audience — through surveys, interviews, focus groups and more — to gather information. Here are some key attributes of primary market research:

• Customized data: Primary research provides data that is tailored to your research needs. You design a custom research study and gather information specific to your goals.
• Up-to-date insights: Because primary research involves communicating with customers, the data you collect reflects the most current market conditions and consumer behaviors.
• Time-consuming and resource-intensive: Despite its advantages, primary research can be labor-intensive and costly, especially when dealing with large sample sizes or complex study designs. Whether you hire a market research consultant, agency or use an in-house team, primary research studies consume a large amount of resources and time.

Secondary market research 

Secondary research, on the other hand, involves analyzing data that has already been compiled by third-party sources, such as online research tools, databases, news sites, industry reports and academic studies.

Here are the main characteristics of secondary market research:

• Cost-effective: Secondary research is generally more cost-effective than primary research since it doesn’t require building a research plan from scratch. You and your team can look at databases, websites and publications on an ongoing basis, without needing to design a custom experiment or hire a consultant. 
• Leverages multiple sources: Data tools and software extract data from multiple places across the web, and then consolidate that information within a single platform. This means you’ll get a greater amount of data and a wider scope from secondary research.
• Quick to access: You can access a wide range of information rapidly — often in seconds — if you’re using online research tools and databases. Because of this, you can act on insights sooner, rather than taking the time to develop an experiment. 

So, when should you use primary vs. secondary research? In practice, many market research projects incorporate both primary and secondary research to take advantage of the strengths of each approach.

One rule of thumb is to focus on secondary research to obtain background information, market trends or industry benchmarks. It is especially valuable for conducting preliminary research, competitor analysis, or when time and budget constraints are tight. Then, if you still have knowledge gaps or need to answer specific questions unique to your business model, use primary research to create a custom experiment. 

Market research methods

• Surveys and questionnaires
• Focus groups
• Observational research
• Online research tools
• Experiments
• Content analysis
• Ethnographic research

How do primary and secondary research approaches translate into specific research methods? Let’s take a look at the different ways you can gather data: 

1. Surveys and questionnaires

Surveys and questionnaires are popular methods for collecting structured data from a large number of respondents. They involve a set of predetermined questions that participants answer. Surveys can be conducted through various channels, including online tools, telephone interviews and in-person or online questionnaires. They are useful for gathering quantitative data and assessing customer demographics, opinions, preferences and needs. On average, customer surveys have a 33% response rate , so keep that in mind as you consider your sample size.

2. Interviews

Interviews are in-depth conversations with individuals or groups to gather qualitative insights. They can be structured (with predefined questions) or unstructured (with open-ended discussions). Interviews are valuable for exploring complex topics, uncovering motivations and obtaining detailed feedback. 

3. Focus groups

The most common primary research methods are in-depth webcam interviews and focus groups. Focus groups are a small gathering of participants who discuss a specific topic or product under the guidance of a moderator. These discussions are valuable for primary market research because they reveal insights into consumer attitudes, perceptions and emotions. Focus groups are especially useful for idea generation, concept testing and understanding group dynamics within your target audience.

4. Observational research

Observational research involves observing and recording participant behavior in a natural setting. This method is particularly valuable when studying consumer behavior in physical spaces, such as retail stores or public places. In some types of observational research, participants are aware you’re watching them; in other cases, you discreetly watch consumers without their knowledge, as they use your product. Either way, observational research provides firsthand insights into how people interact with products or environments.

5. Online research tools

You and your team can do your own secondary market research using online tools. These tools include data prospecting platforms and databases, as well as online surveys, social media listening, web analytics and sentiment analysis platforms. They help you gather data from online sources, monitor industry trends, track competitors, understand consumer preferences and keep tabs on online behavior. We’ll talk more about choosing the right market research tools in the sections that follow.

6. Experiments

Market research experiments are controlled tests of variables to determine causal relationships. While experiments are often associated with scientific research, they are also used in market research to assess the impact of specific marketing strategies, product features, or pricing and packaging changes.

7. Content analysis

Content analysis involves the systematic examination of textual, visual or audio content to identify patterns, themes and trends. It’s commonly applied to customer reviews, social media posts and other forms of online content to analyze consumer opinions and sentiments.

8. Ethnographic research

Ethnographic research immerses researchers into the daily lives of consumers to understand their behavior and culture. This method is particularly valuable when studying niche markets or exploring the cultural context of consumer choices.

How to do market research

• Set clear objectives
• Identify your target audience
• Choose your research methods
• Use the right market research tools
• Collect data
• Analyze data 
• Interpret your findings
• Identify opportunities and challenges
• Make informed business decisions
• Monitor and adapt

Now that you have gained insights into the various market research methods at your disposal, let’s delve into the practical aspects of how to conduct market research effectively. Here’s a quick step-by-step overview, from defining objectives to monitoring market shifts.

1. Set clear objectives

When you set clear and specific goals, you’re essentially creating a compass to guide your research questions and methodology. Start by precisely defining what you want to achieve. Are you launching a new product and want to understand its viability in the market? Are you evaluating customer satisfaction with a product redesign? 

Start by creating SMART goals — objectives that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound. Not only will this clarify your research focus from the outset, but it will also help you track progress and benchmark your success throughout the process. 

You should also consult with key stakeholders and team members to ensure alignment on your research objectives before diving into data collecting. This will help you gain diverse perspectives and insights that will shape your research approach.

2. Identify your target audience

Next, you’ll need to pinpoint your target audience to determine who should be included in your research. Begin by creating detailed buyer personas or stakeholder profiles. Consider demographic factors like age, gender, income and location, but also delve into psychographics, such as interests, values and pain points.

The more specific your target audience, the more accurate and actionable your research will be. Additionally, segment your audience if your research objectives involve studying different groups, such as current customers and potential leads.

If you already have existing customers, you can also hold conversations with them to better understand your target market. From there, you can refine your buyer personas and tailor your research methods accordingly.

3. Choose your research methods

Selecting the right research methods is crucial for gathering high-quality data. Start by considering the nature of your research objectives. If you’re exploring consumer preferences, surveys and interviews can provide valuable insights. For in-depth understanding, focus groups or observational research might be suitable. Consider using a mix of quantitative and qualitative methods to gain a well-rounded perspective. 

You’ll also need to consider your budget. Think about what you can realistically achieve using the time and resources available to you. If you have a fairly generous budget, you may want to try a mix of primary and secondary research approaches. If you’re doing market research for a startup , on the other hand, chances are your budget is somewhat limited. If that’s the case, try addressing your goals with secondary research tools before investing time and effort in a primary research study. 

4. Use the right market research tools

Whether you’re conducting primary or secondary research, you’ll need to choose the right tools. These can help you do anything from sending surveys to customers to monitoring trends and analyzing data. Here are some examples of popular market research tools:

• Market research software: Crunchbase is a platform that provides best-in-class company data, making it valuable for market research on growing companies and industries. You can use Crunchbase to access trusted, first-party funding data, revenue data, news and firmographics, enabling you to monitor industry trends and understand customer needs.

• Survey and questionnaire tools: SurveyMonkey is a widely used online survey platform that allows you to create, distribute and analyze surveys. Google Forms is a free tool that lets you create surveys and collect responses through Google Drive.
• Data analysis software: Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets are useful for conducting statistical analyses. SPSS is a powerful statistical analysis software used for data processing, analysis and reporting.
• Social listening tools: Brandwatch is a social listening and analytics platform that helps you monitor social media conversations, track sentiment and analyze trends. Mention is a media monitoring tool that allows you to track mentions of your brand, competitors and keywords across various online sources.
• Data visualization platforms: Tableau is a data visualization tool that helps you create interactive and shareable dashboards and reports. Power BI by Microsoft is a business analytics tool for creating interactive visualizations and reports.

5. Collect data

There’s an infinite amount of data you could be collecting using these tools, so you’ll need to be intentional about going after the data that aligns with your research goals. Implement your chosen research methods, whether it’s distributing surveys, conducting interviews or pulling from secondary research platforms. Pay close attention to data quality and accuracy, and stick to a standardized process to streamline data capture and reduce errors. 

6. Analyze data

Once data is collected, you’ll need to analyze it systematically. Use statistical software or analysis tools to identify patterns, trends and correlations. For qualitative data, employ thematic analysis to extract common themes and insights. Visualize your findings with charts, graphs and tables to make complex data more understandable.

If you’re not proficient in data analysis, consider outsourcing or collaborating with a data analyst who can assist in processing and interpreting your data accurately.

7. Interpret your findings

Interpreting your market research findings involves understanding what the data means in the context of your objectives. Are there significant trends that uncover the answers to your initial research questions? Consider the implications of your findings on your business strategy. It’s essential to move beyond raw data and extract actionable insights that inform decision-making.

Hold a cross-functional meeting or workshop with relevant team members to collectively interpret the findings. Different perspectives can lead to more comprehensive insights and innovative solutions.

8. Identify opportunities and challenges

Use your research findings to identify potential growth opportunities and challenges within your market. What segments of your audience are underserved or overlooked? Are there emerging trends you can capitalize on? Conversely, what obstacles or competitors could hinder your progress?

Lay out this information in a clear and organized way by conducting a SWOT analysis, which stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Jot down notes for each of these areas to provide a structured overview of gaps and hurdles in the market.

9. Make informed business decisions

Market research is only valuable if it leads to informed decisions for your company. Based on your insights, devise actionable strategies and initiatives that align with your research objectives. Whether it’s refining your product, targeting new customer segments or adjusting pricing, ensure your decisions are rooted in the data.

At this point, it’s also crucial to keep your team aligned and accountable. Create an action plan that outlines specific steps, responsibilities and timelines for implementing the recommendations derived from your research. 

10. Monitor and adapt

Market research isn’t a one-time activity; it’s an ongoing process. Continuously monitor market conditions, customer behaviors and industry trends. Set up mechanisms to collect real-time data and feedback. As you gather new information, be prepared to adapt your strategies and tactics accordingly. Regularly revisiting your research ensures your business remains agile and reflects changing market dynamics and consumer preferences.

Online market research sources

As you go through the steps above, you’ll want to turn to trusted, reputable sources to gather your data. Here’s a list to get you started:

• Crunchbase: As mentioned above, Crunchbase is an online platform with an extensive dataset, allowing you to access in-depth insights on market trends, consumer behavior and competitive analysis. You can also customize your search options to tailor your research to specific industries, geographic regions or customer personas.

• Academic databases: Academic databases, such as ProQuest and JSTOR , are treasure troves of scholarly research papers, studies and academic journals. They offer in-depth analyses of various subjects, including market trends, consumer preferences and industry-specific insights. Researchers can access a wealth of peer-reviewed publications to gain a deeper understanding of their research topics.
• Government and NGO databases: Government agencies, nongovernmental organizations and other institutions frequently maintain databases containing valuable economic, demographic and industry-related data. These sources offer credible statistics and reports on a wide range of topics, making them essential for market researchers. Examples include the U.S. Census Bureau , the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Pew Research Center .
• Industry reports: Industry reports and market studies are comprehensive documents prepared by research firms, industry associations and consulting companies. They provide in-depth insights into specific markets, including market size, trends, competitive analysis and consumer behavior. You can find this information by looking at relevant industry association databases; examples include the American Marketing Association and the National Retail Federation .
• Social media and online communities: Social media platforms like LinkedIn or Twitter (X) , forums such as Reddit and Quora , and review platforms such as G2 can provide real-time insights into consumer sentiment, opinions and trends. 

Market research examples

At this point, you have market research tools and data sources — but how do you act on the data you gather? Let’s go over some real-world examples that illustrate the practical application of market research across various industries. These examples showcase how market research can lead to smart decision-making and successful business decisions.

Example 1: Apple’s iPhone launch

Apple ’s iconic iPhone launch in 2007 serves as a prime example of market research driving product innovation in tech. Before the iPhone’s release, Apple conducted extensive market research to understand consumer preferences, pain points and unmet needs in the mobile phone industry. This research led to the development of a touchscreen smartphone with a user-friendly interface, addressing consumer demands for a more intuitive and versatile device. The result was a revolutionary product that disrupted the market and redefined the smartphone industry.

Example 2: McDonald’s global expansion

McDonald’s successful global expansion strategy demonstrates the importance of market research when expanding into new territories. Before entering a new market, McDonald’s conducts thorough research to understand local tastes, preferences and cultural nuances. This research informs menu customization, marketing strategies and store design. For instance, in India, McDonald’s offers a menu tailored to local preferences, including vegetarian options. This market-specific approach has enabled McDonald’s to adapt and thrive in diverse global markets.

Example 3: Organic and sustainable farming

The shift toward organic and sustainable farming practices in the food industry is driven by market research that indicates increased consumer demand for healthier and environmentally friendly food options. As a result, food producers and retailers invest in sustainable sourcing and organic product lines — such as with these sustainable seafood startups — to align with this shift in consumer values. 

The bottom line? Market research has multiple use cases and is a critical practice for any industry. Whether it’s launching groundbreaking products, entering new markets or responding to changing consumer preferences, you can use market research to shape successful strategies and outcomes.

Market research templates

You finally have a strong understanding of how to do market research and apply it in the real world. Before we wrap up, here are some market research templates that you can use as a starting point for your projects:

• Smartsheet competitive analysis templates : These spreadsheets can serve as a framework for gathering information about the competitive landscape and obtaining valuable lessons to apply to your business strategy.
• SurveyMonkey product survey template : Customize the questions on this survey based on what you want to learn from your target customers.
• HubSpot templates : HubSpot offers a wide range of free templates you can use for market research, business planning and more.
• SCORE templates : SCORE is a nonprofit organization that provides templates for business plans, market analysis and financial projections.
• SBA.gov : The U.S. Small Business Administration offers templates for every aspect of your business, including market research, and is particularly valuable for new startups. 

Strengthen your business with market research

When conducted effectively, market research is like a guiding star. Equipped with the right tools and techniques, you can uncover valuable insights, stay competitive, foster innovation and navigate the complexities of your industry.

Throughout this guide, we’ve discussed the definition of market research, different research methods, and how to conduct it effectively. We’ve also explored various types of market research and shared practical insights and templates for getting started. 

Now, it’s time to start the research process. Trust in data, listen to the market and make informed decisions that guide your company toward lasting success.

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Marketing Reports 101: How to Create One + Templates

Written by: Unenabasi Ekeruke

You certainly can't rely on guesswork or gut feeling to answer these questions or make informed decisions. This is where marketing reports come into play.

Marketing reports provide the data you need to monitor activities, assess performance and make smarter decisions that bring better results. According to Think with Google , marketers who leverage tools to analyze, measure and report their marketing programs are 39% more likely to perform better.

If you are sold on creating high-quality marketing reports that captivate your audience, we've got you covered.

In this article, we'll teach you everything you need to know about marketing reports, how to create them and marketing report templates you can use straight away.

Table of Contents

What is a marketing report, the benefits of marketing reporting.

• How to Create a Marketing Report

Marketing Report Best Practices

Marketing report templates, level up your marketing reports with visme.

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A marketing report is a collection of data from different sources to evaluate the progress and performance of your marketing efforts and inform future marketing decisions. Businesses of all sizes create marketing reports to glean valuable into their:

• Overall marketing strategy
• Marketing goals
• Key performance indicators (KPIs)
• Marketing activities like research, promotions, content, ads, email, social media and more
• Expected outcomes and actual results

Not all marketing reports are created equal. The scope of your marketing reports can vary depending on the data you want to track and the number of marketing channels. The common types of marketing reports include:

• General marketing reports
• Social media marketing reports
• SEO marketing reports
• PPC marketing reports
• Email marketing reports

When used effectively, marketing reporting puts you on top of your marketing activities and metrics across all marketing channels. At a glance, you'll get a bird's eye view of which marketing campaigns and channels are delivering the best results.

You're probably wondering why you should create reports, especially when key stakeholders aren't compelling you to present them. Or why add another challenging task to your itinerary when you've got customers and other business activities to attend to.

Here are the major perks of creating a detailed marketing report.

Visualize Customer Purchase Journey

There's no better way to understand the customer journey than by using a marketing report. From your marketing report, you can quickly identify:

• Critical touch points
• Lead magnets or contents that are driving the most impact
• Where your prospects are on their journey
• Prospects who are willing to spend and when they plan to make a purchase
• What steps you should take to speed up the sales process and much more
• How to optimize your sales and marketing funnel to convert better

Measure and Analyze Marketing Efforts

After investing a significant amount of time and money in marketing, how do you know if your efforts are worthwhile? This is precisely where marketing reports come in.

Whether you're looking to generate leads, turn prospects into customers or increase revenue, your marketing reports will show you whether or not your campaigns are achieving the desired results. You'll quickly figure out which strategies will help you maximize return on investment and get more bang for your marketing buck.

Every marketer and data analyst understands that the struggle with reporting is real. But Visme makes writing a report super-easy regardless of your skill level. It doesn't matter what type of data you want to capture. Visme has thousands of compelling report templates , stock images, visual aids and design elements to make your reports pack a punch.

Make Informed Business Decisions

In today's hyper-competitive business environment, you can't rely on wild guesses and gut feelings to make important marketing decisions. If you want to call the right shots or get your decisions spot on, you need rich and quality data.

We're not just talking about gathering a bunch of isolated numbers for the sake of it. Relevant and actionable data shows how your marketing campaigns have fared and impacted your bottom line.

Moreover, be sure this data is digestible and deeply connected to your business outcomes. A detailed marketing report like the one below gives you all of your granular and enriching marketing data in one place.

Keeps Everyone on the Same Page

Misalignments between sales and marketing teams are a struggle for most businesses. It stifles business growth and costs companies more than $1 trillion yearly .

For this alignment to happen, data needs to flow across departments. And marketing reports are often the missing piece of the puzzle. They provide the data that sales and marketing teams need to:

• Optimize marketing content to increase emotional appeal and close more sales
• Achieve their sales and marketing goals
• Nurture leads through each stage of the sales funnel
• Increase conversions and drive revenue over the top

How To Create a Marketing Report

Now you know why you need a marketing report. The next big question is how do you create a comprehensive and useful marketing report?

We'll go over how to create marketing reports to help you make better decisions and benefit your audience.

1. Outline the Purpose of Your Marketing Report

Without a clear-cut purpose, your marketing report is just a bunch of isolated numbers without meaning. Before gathering data and creating a report, ask yourself these questions.

• What is the purpose of this report?
• What message do we want to share and how do we convey it?
• What are we looking to learn from this report?

Are you looking to measure the effectiveness of marketing campaigns? Do you want to justify marketing expenses or study marketing trends over a period of time?

Let's face it; you can't possibly fit every single piece of data into your marketing report. Answering these questions will help you focus on data that shape your marketing strategy, inform your decisions and help you perform better.

2. Know Your Audience

With a ton of marketing activities going on, you probably have a heap of data that's getting bigger by the hour.

All of this information may be relevant to you. But you want to ask yourself, is it relevant to the management team or people in other departments?

For example, the VP of marketing may be interested in which marketing campaigns bring in more leads, conversions and positive ROI. In contrast, the chief financial officer will want to see how marketing expense translates to sales and impacts the bottom line.

Before writing your marketing report, find out your target audience and what they want to know. This viewpoint will help you decide what data to provide. Plus, your marketing report must reflect the needs of your target audience.

Be sure to make your reports contain valuable information that's easy to understand. Your audience should be able to view the report and have clear direction on the next steps rather than scratching their heads in confusion.

3. Gather Your Data

Once you're clear on your target audience, the next important step is to gather, filter and analyze your data.

As your business grows, keeping tabs on granular data and tracking performance can be daunting. It's always helpful to keep an updated document of relevant documents and spreadsheets showing key metrics.

Using analytics tools like Google Analytics , Mixpanel , Hotjar , SEMRush and more to capture key marketing data can make your job a lot easier. You can also use change data capture (CDC) to track changes in your data warehouse, which will help you see the impact that new features have on the way people interact with your website.

Depending on your reporting process, you can do a daily, monthly or weekly dump and then use the data to build your report.

While gathering your data, you may be tempted to report everything, which isn't a good idea. Remember, your audience is typically only interested in the most critical metrics. Please resist the urge to drown them in a sea of meaningful information and lengthy reports.

Start by defining the period you want to focus on. Is it a weekly , monthly , quarterly or annual report ?

If you want a clear picture of your marketing performance over a period, it's better to draw comparisons between two different periods—current vs. previous. Also, be sure the metrics align with the goals you shared earlier.

4. Write Your Report

You've got reliable data to build your sales report at this stage. Now it's time to craft your report in a digestible, understandable and actionable format.

First, you want to choose a report writing format that captures the critical information and keeps your audience engaged. The next step is to identify what you should include in your report.

Let's look at your marketing report structure and what you should include in your report.

Marketing Report Structure

Marketing report structures aren't one size fits all. They may vary based on the purpose and content of your report, but the most common sections include the following:

Title or Cover Page

This page should be concise and clearly state what your report is analyzing. The cover page should include:

• Report title
• Reporting period and the date it was written

Executive Summary

This section usually comes last. It should summarize the key points of the entire report, highlight successes and failures and discuss future plans.

Introduction

In this section, you want to talk about what your report is about, who it's addressed to, what they'll find it and why they should care.

The body is usually the longest section of your report. Here you'll plug in all the marketing data you collected earlier. Again, make sure to use bullet points and visualizations to enhance readability and visual appeal.

Summarize your marketing report with key takeaways and a clear call to action. Remember to make recommendations and highlight the next steps.

What To Include in Your Report

A well-written marketing report should detail key areas and the performance of your marketing activities. While the level of details may vary based on your strategy or how complex your operations are, you should aim to capture the following critical information.

Overview of your marketing strategy

Here you should discuss your marketing goals, target audience and what channels you're using to reach your prospects. It should also highlight the specific action you're taking to execute your strategy.

Campaigns/Areas of Focus

This section should take a deep dive into your recent marketing efforts, including:

• Projects or campaigns you've run
• Pending, completed and upcoming task

You should aim to capture your win, losses, lessons learned and plans for the next phase.

Metrics and Analytics

This section should capture critical figures that show progress, performance and marketing effectiveness. It should reflect how well your campaigns are edging towards your set goals and key performance indicators.

5. Visualize Your Data

Data-heavy reports can be exhausting, especially when you're slamming your audience with large walls of text and numbers. To keep your audience engaged, visualize your marketing reports with eye-catching charts , graphs , infographics , images, videos and other visual aids .

Using visual aids will make it easier for your audience to digest your report and retain important information. You can create data visualizations such as graphs, charts and maps with the help of Visme's graph maker .

Watch the video below to learn how to create beautiful charts and graphs that make your marketing report effective.

Read this article to learn more about creating charts and other visual aids. Watch the video below to discover how to use data visualization for reporting and business intelligence.

6. Pay Attention to Design

Your marketing report design doesn't have to be dull and uninteresting. Instead, use these design tips to make your report engaging and attractive.

• Enrich and add personality to your marketing reports with images, videos and GIFs
• Use a consistent color scheme and color contrast for your report
• Customize your report using brand elements like colors, logos, fonts and layout
• Make your marketing report more engaging by incorporating animation and interactivity
• To make your report cleaner and easier to read, use headers or page transitions to divide it into sections
• Add notes, callouts and comments to bring context to critical metrics and KPIs

Fortunately, you don't need to be a professional graphic designer to create stunning and interactive marketing report designs that impress your audience. All you need is intuitive software like Visme packed with tons of design tools and templates that make your report shine.

7. Leverage Ready-to-Use Marketing Report Templates

Whether you're a novice or seasoned marketer, report templates are a great starting point. These preset templates help you choose the right data and show you where and how to place them.

Beyond saving you time and effort, they ensure your content and design elements are consistent. In the end, you're sure to have a beautiful and organized marketing report.

Visme offers thousands of fully customizable and user-friendly marketing report templates, layouts and features to suit your specific needs. All you need to do is pick a professionally-designed template and customize it to your taste. And boom, your marketing report is ready to go.

Even if you have little or no design experience, you can fast-track your next marketing report with our stunning, easy-to-use template below.

Writing a useful report requires planning, thoughtful consideration and follow-up. Let's go over some best practices to keep in mind when reporting on your marketing and sales efforts.

1. Schedule Your Reports

If you want to get timely reports for decision-making and ensure that teams are aligned, you need to schedule your reports to run periodically.

One way to ensure you're getting reports at the right time is to set a reminder to compile a report or set it to run automatically. Scheduling your report ahead of time leaves you with enough time to clean your data and reduces the risk of human error.

2. Put Your Most Valuable Data First

Whether you're creating reports to share with your team or top management, you certainly want your audience to read till the end.

Nobody wants to read an entire report only to get the key points on the last page. Make sure to place the most useful information early on. Right off the bat, your content should:

• Educate your audience,
• Highlight compelling figures and interesting insights
• Draw readers' attention to urgent and critical issues
• Provide information for decision-making

Use bullet points, callout quotes and sidebars to effectively grab the reader's attention while breaking up unappealing blocks of text. If you need to capture numbers, you can embed sheets into your documents .

3. Tell a Story

Lumping your reports with endless numbers and charts without context gives limited insight into what your report is all about. Instead, you want to walk your audience through the story behind the report, giving them the information and context they need at every level. This might also call for some interactive marketing techniques as well.

In a nutshell, your story should add more meaning to your data or answer critical questions like:

• What's responsible for the metrics, patterns or trends in your marketing data?
• What marketing tactics are you implementing that would cause the numbers to skyrocket or decline?

While telling your story, keep it succinct and add personality to make it enjoyable to read. Watch the video below to get more tips on telling compelling stories with data.

4. Gather Feedback From Your Audience

After you've presented your marketing reports and engaged your audience, remember to ask for feedback. You can ask for feedback via email or provide a short survey form for them to fill out.

Getting feedback from those using your marketing reports will help you determine whether it's useful or captures everything they need to know and what you can do to improve your marketing report in the future.

Are you ready to create attractive marketing reports that add value to your business? Look no further; you've hit the jackpot.

Here's a selection of professionally designed templates crafted to provide value and actionable insight into your marketing performance.

Template #1: Weekly Marketing Report

If you want to capture your marketing team's performance every week, this template is set up to make your work easier.

This template features a rich blend of bright colors with strong visual contrast. It also uses design elements that draw attention to KPIs and metrics like web analytics, campaigns and social media engagement.

Template #2: Monthly Marketing Report

A monthly marketing report template like this one is a perfect way to show your audience what your marketing team has been up to in the past month.

The template has a simplistic cover design and layout that accommodates key marketing performance highlights, metrics, line graphs and timelines that make your report shine.

You can add compelling images, videos and animations to make your report engaging and interactive. Customize this template with your logo, color and fonts to match your brand identity.

Template #3: Social Media Marketing Report

Assigning tasks to teams and tracking the progress of each task can be daunting, especially when you're dealing with multiple social media channels. But a single-paged report template like this example simplifies the process for your marketing team and brings everyone on the same page.

It has a rich blue and white color combination and a clean, spaced-out design. At a glance, you can capture a wealth of data, instant feedback and comments.

Simply plug in your marketing data, change the font, typography and color to match your brand and you're ready to go.

Template #4: Content Marketing Report

Do you want to share your content marketing plans and see if your efforts are paying off? Then, using this simple, clear and concise weekly report template is your best bet.

You can share your content ideas, competitor analysis and keyword search results. Then, fill in the placeholders with your data and descriptive content and make your data more visually appealing by using color-coded vector icons , shapes, charts and more.

Template #5: Quarterly Email Analytics Report

Keeping track of quarterly email analytics lets you know how your subscribers engage with your emails. With a template like this one, you can track metrics that directly link to your business goals and put your email marketing strategy and performance into perspective.

Visme gives you the creative freedom to make this template your own. Unleash your creativity and level up your email analytics report by incorporating Visme's graphic vector icons and shapes.

Explore our extensive collection of colorful, isometric, flat and outline graphics to find your perfect match and make your report stand out.

Template #6: Promotional Sales Report

This template is a perfect fit for sharing insights into your promotion campaign efforts, results and expected outcomes.

The cover page features a stunning image of the store and a powerful theme that leaves an impression on your readers.

This template moves further away from traditional neutral and corporate blue. However, the bright and bold yellow color scheme is catchy enough to draw readers into the content and show your brand's personality. The report template has four key sections and uses more text and numbers to get the message across.

Template #7: Social Media Analytics Report

This multi-page template has a sophisticated design, modern layout and dynamic elements that grab the audience's attention. It's designed to provide a high-level overview of your overall social media performance.

The template breaks down your report into four sections and beams more light on metrics such as social media reach, interaction and customer gain across multiple social media platforms.

Feel free to tweak colors, gradients, fonts to reflect your brand identity. You can also use charts, images, illustrations, characters, gestures and visualizations to bring your report to life.

Template #8: Promotional Campaign Report

This promotional campaign report template is perfect for businesses of all sizes. You can use it to share updates, progress and results of advertisements and other marketing activities.

The template has an appealing design layout and artistic theme with stylized content blocks, colorful borders, background photos and vector icons, all sourced from Visme's rich design and asset library. The colorful line graph makes the financial data compelling and memorable.

Feel free to cut, copy, paste and adjust anything you like until it fits your unique needs.

Template #9: Retail Weekly Promotional Campaign Report

If you want to ignite new interest in your company's ongoing promotional campaign, this stylish and attractive report template fits the bill.

The template uses a mix of stunning visualizations, color schemes and a uniquely crafted layout to make your information stand out. You can easily customize the template, present information in a compelling way and create an engaging experience for your audience.

Template #10: Annual Marketing Report Template

What overarching theme would you use to highlight marketing performance in the past year? Our final pick is an annual marketing report template that's sure to leave an impression on your audience.

The template caters to any business regardless of size, niche and scope. Likewise, it covers everything key stakeholders need to know, including your marketing efforts, strategy, achievements and plans for the coming years. Make your report stand out with a variety of stylish fonts, high-quality images and stock photos and visual aids from Visme.

This trendy and modern template features a rich combination of two vibrant color schemes: purple and blue. Each of the following pages features colors from the original palette to maintain a consistent appearance.

Marketing reports indicate where your marketing efforts are successful and need to be optimized to yield better results. However, marketing data is enormous and marketing reporting is an ongoing business process. That's why you need a tool like Visme's report maker that makes it super easy for you to create and share marketing reports in seconds.

Visme provides an incredible array of templates, high-quality images, design and data visualization tools to make your report impactful. With the dynamic field feature , you can ensure your reports are always accurate.

Once done, you can share your marketing report online using a link, embed it on your website, or download it for offline use in multiple formats, like PDF and HTML5. You can track how people are engaging with your report from your analytics tab .

Congratulations and happy reporting!

Put together compelling marketing reports in minutes without prior design skills

Trusted by leading brands

Recommended content for you:

Create Stunning Content!

Design visual brand experiences for your business whether you are a seasoned designer or a total novice.

About the Author

Unenabasi is a content expert with many years of experience in digital marketing, business development, and strategy. He loves to help brands tell stories that drive engagement, growth, and competitive advantage. He’s adept at creating compelling content on lifestyle, marketing, business, e-commerce, and technology. When he’s not taking the content world by storm, Unenabasi enjoys playing or watching soccer.

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How to Write a Marketing Report

Last Updated: March 21, 2024 References

This article was co-authored by Michelle Arbeau . Michelle Arbeau is a Numerologist & Life Strategist, and the CEO of Authentic You Media and Eleven Eleven Productions. She’s based in West Hollywood, California. With over 20 years of experience, she specializes in numerology, mediumship, and business advice. In 2015, Best Businesses named her the Best of West Hollywood Celebrity Numerologist, and she’s been hailed as the #1 Numerologist in the World and the #1 Celebrity Numerologist. There are 10 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been viewed 305,289 times.

Your business may spend a large amount of time and money on marketing. A smart business owner needs to assess how well their marketing plans are working. Specifically, your marketing efforts should get the attention of prospects. Eventually, a percentage of those prospects should become clients. You can perform market research to ask your clients about the effectiveness of your marketing message. Companies summarize the results of their research in a marketing report. Use the results of the report to make improvements in your business.

Evaluating Your Marketing Efforts

• Market research is the process of evaluating how well your marketing efforts are working. Specifically, does your marketing get the attention and interest of prospects? Are you converting enough of those prospects into clients?

• The more specific you can be about the identity of your customer, the better you can address their needs. Ask yourself, "Who am I targeting with this product?" and "What do they want?"
• Look at your current customers. What's the average age? Gender? Education level? Personality? Lifestyle? Hobby? Occupation? Marriage status? Values? [3] X Research source
• It is also important to know where your customers are coming from. Sources include search engines, social media, backlinks, referral traffic, and subscriber lists.

• For example, based on customer surveys and your industry knowledge, you uncover a customer problem. In this case, customers are losing time working or studying when their cell phone dies. If they forget their charger, they may lose hours of productivity.

• For example, to solve the problem of dying cell phones, you create a phone charger built into a backpack. Your customers use backpacks to store computers and other work or school items. As a result, the worker or student can always charge their phone.

• Over time, more customers buy your backpack and like using the built-in phone charger. These clients also believe that your product is different and better than competing products. You are building brand equity with your customers. To find out more about brand equity, see how to build brand equity.

• You continually add blog posts, articles and other content to your website. Adding content drives traffic to your site. Your content also keeps a percentage of your audience coming back for new content.
• Your site offers an opt-in button for readers to subscribe to additional content that is emailed to them. This group gets a weekly email from you with new content links.
• You have an attractive home page that includes a picture of someone using your backpack phone charger. The site allows the user to easily navigate to your content page and to web pages with product information.
• You provide an e-commerce option for customers. Clients can buy your product online and receive their backpack in just 2-3 business days.
• This should also include information about the sales channels used, like online, bricks & mortar, types of retailers, etc. Analyze how well your product is doing in each of these channels.

• Note your market share compared to competitors and market share trends. Are you gaining market share, losing it, or holding your own?
• For more on market share, see how to calculate market share.
• Keeping a close eye on your ROI is essential in order to stay abreast of how much you’re spending on marketing versus your return on that investment. Comparing what you’re spending on marketing versus your return on that investment is paramount to a good report.

• Your report should include such items as definition of the market size, competitors and their marketing size, as well as estimates of market share.
• You can use the market report to make changes to your marketing process. These changes can help you get more business from the time and money you spend on marketing.

Writing Your Executive Summary

• The summary should include specific, numeric details from the rest of your report. These details should be condensed into bullet points and made prominent on the report. [8] X Research source

• For example, if your backpack charging company had plans to expand into purse chargers or another similar product line, include these plans in your summary.
• This should also include the sales channels being used by your business, as well as competitors and their sales channels. Are you different? Why? If not, do you have a competitive advantage that can be exploited in your marketing and sales efforts?

• For example, you could be examining how well advertisements for your backpack are reaching college students, as they would be a likely audience for your product. If your ads are primarily reaching adults, who don't generally carry backpacks, this would be an issue to raise in your evaluation.

• For example, if only 1 in 20 of your site's visitors actually buy one of your backpacks, you may want to reconsider the design of your websites, the ease of purchase, or the price of your product.

Completing Your Marketing Report

• You should also consider the fact that other competitors will arise if you are successful. Significant returns attract more competition, so if you don't have direct competitors now, rest assured that you will in the future. Have a plan in place to sustain your competitive advantage in spite of new entrants to the market.
• For example, perhaps you perceive that college students may be carrying backpacks less often as they switch to an all-digital education. You could remark on how this will hurt your business and explain how you will respond to it.

• To get the most out of your focus group, carefully plan the exact series of questions you want to ask. Your marketing report should include the questions you ask and why those questions are important to you.
• In your survey or focus group, ask people how they first heard about your product. If you’re the backpack company, you might determine that most customers find you when they read a blog post or article that is posted to your site.
• Document the results of both your surveys and your focus groups. Your report should provide both questions and responses. Give the reader the percentage of each type of response. For example, maybe 40% of respondents first learned about the backpack company by finding a blog post or article that was posted on the website.
• Your qualitative research (survey and focus group questions) may be 5 to 10 pages of your report. The responses to those questions will also be 5 to 10 pages of material.

• Evaluate the extent to which your customers view your product as different and better than the competition. If they don’t see a difference, dig into their responses and find out why.
• Say, for example, that most clients see you backpack and built-in phone charger as about the same as a competitor’s product. In fact, your phone charger includes a reinforced case that makes your charger much more durable.
• Decide on some conclusions. You conclude, for example, that your website needs to emphasize that your phone charger case is much more durable than the competition.
• You decide to make changes to your website and your other marketing communication pieces. After a period of time, you can assess these changes to see how they have impacted your market share. Perform more market research to evaluate the impact of your changes.

Expert Q&A

You Might Also Like

• ↑ http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/217345
• ↑ http://articles.bplans.com/how-to-write-a-market-analysis/
• ↑ https://www.inc.com/guides/2010/06/defining-your-target-markets.html
• ↑ http://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelskok/2013/06/14/4-steps-to-building-a-compelling-value-proposition/
• ↑ http://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/competitive_advantage.asp
• ↑ https://www.shopify.com/blog/13444793-how-to-evaluate-market-demand-for-your-new-product-idea
• ↑ http://www.marketingmo.com/strategic-planning/how-to-write-an-executive-summary/
• ↑ https://www.ironistic.com/good-marketing-report/
• ↑ http://www.tdbank.com/small_business/workshops/IdentifyYourTargetMarket/texttarget_market.htm
• ↑ https://neilpatel.com/blog/10-ways-to-make-customers-fall-in-love-with-your-business/

About This Article

To write a marketing report, start by creating a 1-2 page executive summary that provides a description of the company’s goals. Next, detail the objective of your research and evaluate how well the company is reaching their intended audience. Then, include figures that represent how many visitors to your website purchased the company's product. Additionally, report on the returns the company is getting from its marketing dollars so you can tell if the money was well-spent. To learn more from our Business co-author, like how to use the marketing report to make improvements, read on! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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9.2: Elements of a market research report

The market research report marks the culmination of the project, but it also marks the beginning of the recommendations’ implementation and action phase. Having established the decision problem, chosen a research method, identified a target population sample, collected and analyzed data accurately, and, hopefully, produced sound findings, the next step is to prepare the report and possibly present it to a group of decision makers. Usually, this involves writing a report and, occasionally, creating a slide show based on the report.

The six fundamental components of a research report are as follows:

• Title Page: This section provides an overview of the report, including its purpose, who requested it, when and how it was conducted.
• Table of Contents: This section lists all of the major sections of the report along with any graphs or charts, along with the page numbers where they are located.
• Executive Summary: This section provides a brief summary of all the details in the report, suitable for both executives and nonexecutives who may not have the time to read the entire document.
• Methodology and Limitations: The methodology section of the report explains the technical details of how the research was designed and conducted. The section explains, for example, how the data was collected and by whom, the size of the sample, how it was chosen, and whom or what it consisted of (e.g., the number of women versus men or children versus adults). It also includes information about the statistical techniques used to analyze the data. Every study has errors—sampling errors, interviewer errors, and so forth. The methodology section should explain these details, so decision makers can consider their overall impact. The margin of error is the overall tendency of the study to be off kilter—that is, how far it could have gone wrong in either direction. Remember how newscasters present polls before an election? They always say, “This candidate is ahead 48 to 44 percent, plus or minus 2 percent.” That “plus or minus” is the margin of error. The larger the margin of error is, the less likely the results of the study are accurate. The margin of error needs to be included in the methodology section.
• Findings: If there is additional research or secondary data that supports the study’s conclusions, it can be included in the findings section to help demonstrate that the study accomplished its goals. The findings section is an expanded, more detailed version of the executive summary that provides additional information about the statistics that the research uncovered and that support the study’s conclusions.
• Recommendations. The recommendations section should include a description of the course of action you believe should be followed in light of the research’s findings as well as the project’s objectives. Examples

Staff members have the most knowledge about the organization or business, so they will know what should and should not be included in the final research report and presentation. When preparing the report, it is important to keep the readership in mind. Avoid using technical jargon that decision makers and other readers will not understand; if you must use technical terms, explain them. Additionally, proofread the document to catch any typos or grammatical errors; ask a couple of people to proofread behind you to catch any mistakes you might have missed. Lastly, since many research reports are presented using slideshows, avoid trying to include every detail of the report on the slides. People attending the presentation will not have the time to go through the lengthy and boring material, and even if they do, it is unlikely that they will be paying attention to the presenter.

During or after the presentation, attendees can review the longer, paper version of the report so they can read the details at a convenient time, if they choose to. Instead of including all the information from the study on the slides, condense each section of the report down to key points and add some “talking points” only the presenter will see.

Albrecht, M. G., Green, M., & Hoffman, L. (2023).  Principles of Marketing . OpenStax, Rice University. CC BY 4.0

Author removed at request of original publisher. (2022). Principles of Marketing – H5P Edition . BC Campus Open Education. CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

Introduction to Market Research Copyright © by Julie Fossitt is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Marketing Report Essentials: How To Create Perfect Reports And Impress Clients

• February 10, 2020
• 16 minutes read

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Marketing reports are at the core of any marketing strategy.

And while some marketers only think of reporting as a sales pitch, it’s actually much more than that. 

While it’s important to prove the value of the work you provide to your clients or your superiors, it’s even more important to develop an unbiased reporting framework for yourself.

You need to know if your marketing strategy is working in order to make smart decisions.

That said, nobody has hours and hours to put marketing reports together. Efficiency is key.

In this guide, we’ll teach you how to create a powerful and thorough marketing report that’ll blow away your clients.

What is Marketing Reporting?

Marketing reporting is the process of evaluating the progress and performance of your marketing campaigns against a predetermined set of goals and key performance indicators (KPIs). 

The goal of marketing reporting is to use data and analytics to inform decision-making on your future marketing endeavors.

What Marketing Reporting is Not

Let’s make a clear distinction: marketing reporting is not a data dump.

Something like a marketing dashboard is not a report on its own—although it may play a key role in your reporting.

The differentiator between a report and a dashboard is that its main purpose is to provide takeaways from the data—not just a bare presentation of the data itself.

The Benefits of Marketing Reporting

You only have so much time in a day. Why should you spend your valuable time producing a report?

Prove Your Worth

Even though quality marketing consistently leads to growth for any business, it’s more often thought of as a risky expense than as a necessary investment. If budgets need to be cut, it’s much harder to cut the operations that generate revenue than the promotion of those operations. 

Creating a compelling marketing report proves the return on investment of your strategy to the decision makers in your organization (or your client’s organization), and justifies future strategies you want to undertake.

Ground Your Strategy

It’s easy for your clients to forget why you’re writing blog posts, or why you’re hiring Instagram influencers . By tying your tactics back to objective business goals like lead generation and revenue growth, you can reinforce the purpose of your actions.

Make Data-Driven Decisions

Even if you’re the world’s best marketer, your intuition and experience will only get you so far. Theories and strategies backed by cold hard data are far more worth pursuing.

How Often Should You Do Marketing Reports?

While you should be checking in on your marketing dashboards and campaign metrics on a consistent basis, full digital marketing reports should be reserved for key decision-making time periods.

For example, you may look at your website traffic, PPC campaigns, and social media metrics nearly every day. If you don’t, you risk missing glaring issues.

By checking these campaigns every day, you may be able to note small wins that you wouldn’t be able to remember three months from now.

However, you should not be providing reports at a high frequency to your clients.

First of all, you risk burning out your client. If your reporting becomes too routine, they won’t have the opportunity to truly digest the information, ask questions, or provide meaningful feedback.

And honestly, they probably just won’t read them.

You’re also risking evaluating your campaigns on too small a sample size. Making big, long term decisions based on day-to-day fluctuations in your data is just as bad as ignoring the data altogether.

And remember: Marketing reports should be period evaluations of success to drive key decision making .

So ask yourself: for the campaign(s) you’re running, what is a reasonable timeframe to truly evaluate your success?

In most cases, marketing reports should take place monthly, quarterly, and annually. 

Monthly Reporting

Monthly marketing reports are best suited for tracking progress and looking at month-over-month or year-over-year improvements.

Campaigns with tighter timelines like PPC and social campaigns can be reported on monthly, but only if you truly have enough time to ask “is this working?”

If you are reporting monthly, remember to take seasonal trends into account. 

For example, you’d expect an eCommerce brand to pick up around Black Friday, so it wouldn’t make sense to compare November metrics to October. In that case, it’s better to compare to the previous year.

Quarterly Reporting

In most cases, quarterly reporting is a long enough timeframe to evaluate your big-picture goals.

Has revenue grown? Is our website traffic up? Did our ad campaign result in more searches for our brand?

Quarterly reporting also provides the chance to reset and evaluate your goals before the next three months of hard work.

Annual Reporting

If you’re an in-house marketing team or you have a big account that renews annually, you should also provide an annual marketing report.

A review of the entire year’s initiatives is a great way to demonstrate your impact, and most organizations will require a report on ROI when factoring their marketing spend into next year’s budget.

Tips for Preparing the Perfect Marketing Report

Creating the report itself is only half the battle. 

Here are some important steps to take in advance to make sure that your marketing reports result in educated discussions with your team, superiors, or clients.

Tip #1 – Determine Why You’re Creating the Report

Are you reporting on the success or failure of a campaign that you’ve just completed?

Are you reporting on the progress of a campaign?

Or are you reporting on performance of a past campaign—such as benchmarking, for example.

By starting by answering why you’re creating the report, the rest of the report will flow much more easily.

Tip #2 – State Your Purpose

Because the goal of your marketing report is to help make a decision, the next step is to write down the goal of your report: what question are you trying to answer?

Your purpose should be tied back to a key business goal .

For example, your purpose may be “What type of social media content drives the most clicks to our website?” or “Did our Instagram hashtag campaign result in our target follower growth?”

Do not report data for the sake of reporting data. You need a clear purpose.

Your marketing report could report on the success of:

• Social media campaigns
• SEO efforts
• Content marketing
• Paid search and social ads
• Lead generation
• Revenue growth

You may choose to report on the success or failure of using one channel, or a comparison of which channels have proven most fruitful so far.

Tip #3 – Determine Your Reporting Audience

Think about who the report is for. As in, who will be the key decision-makers you’re presenting to?

Make sure you consider the goals and motivations of that audience, and give them the information they need.

And this isn’t just about emotional appeal. It’s about arming every decision-maker with the information they require to succeed in their role.

For example, if you’re reporting to your team, their motivation may be “what could I have done differently?” and you may want to tie specific tactics to specific results. 

But if you’re reporting to your client, their motivation may be “is this investment resulting in revenue growth?” In that case, the breakdown of individual tactics may be less important to them.

Make a list of who the report is for, what motivations each person may have based on their role, and what metrics or facts you need to include to make the report meaningful to them.

If you’re presenting to multiple audiences, and their motivations don’t significantly overlap, consider making different reports for each audience.

Tip #4 – Choose a Reporting Period in Advance

Choose a reporting period that’s most relevant to your goal. 

Bigger-picture decisions will require longer timeframes, but smaller tasks and goals may only need a few weeks or a month.

For more on reporting frequency, you can jump ahead to “How often should you do marketing reports?”

Tip #5 – Set a Reporting Schedule (and stick to it!)

Every marketer in the world has an infinite to-do list, which makes it easy to put aside or completely forget about recurring reports.

If you’re aiming for weekly, monthly, quarterly, or annual reports, set calendar reminders for yourself. 

And make sure to set the reminders early enough to have the report done by its intended presentation date.

Tip #6 – Choose Your Metrics & Reporting Tools

This is often forgotten at the beginning of a marketing campaign.

Always plan how you’re going to collect your data before starting an initiative.

In fact, if you want to test the effectiveness of a campaign vs. baseline performance, you may need to start tracking well in advance of the campaign.

So which reporting tool is right for you? That will once again depend on your goals.

Here are a few considerations to keep in mind when choosing your reporting tools:

• Automation: Your data collection and reporting process should be as automated as possible to avoid spending hours copy and pasting data from spreadsheet to spreadsheet. Favor a tool that automates as much as possible.
• Ease of access: Are you able to easily export data to a spreadsheet or PDF, or link to another tool through an API? Consider how you will access the data.
• Feature set: Depending on your goals, you may want a tool that combines as many different data channels into one platform, or you may want a tool that gives you a deep dive into one channel.
• Price: Of course, your budget will always be your limiting factor, but you should factor in your own time when considering the cost of a tool that makes your life easier.

If you’re focused on website traffic or engagement metrics, you’ll almost certainly use Google Analytics . Similarly, if you’re focused on PPC campaign performance, you’ll use the native data reporting capabilities of Google Ads.

If you’re reporting on the effectiveness of your social media campaigns, you’ll want to use a social listening tool like Keyhole .

But to choose the right tool, it’s clear we’ll have to choose our key metrics first. 

What Metrics Should You Include in a Marketing Report?

The most important aspect of any marketing report is the data.

But you can’t simply include any data. You have to choose metrics that are meaningful to the purpose of your report.

Based on the purpose of your report, choose your true key performance indicators (KPIs) .

What are KPIs?

These are the metrics that actually show if you’ve accomplished your goal or not, or the metrics that correlate best with your goals.

Here are the main metric categories that you may want to include:

Reach & Impression Metrics

If your goal is brand awareness, you will likely be most interested in how many eyeballs your content has reached. 

In that case, you’ll want to report on:

• Social media reach
• Social media impressions
• Subscribers
• Search engine impressions
• Video views

For example, if you ran a campaign with a branded hashtag , you’ll want to report on hashtag analytics , such as Instagram impressions.

READ MORE: Reach vs. Impressions. What’s the Difference?

Traffic & SEO Metrics

If you’re interested in visitors to your website, you will report on metrics like:

• User sessions
• New vs. returning sessions

You’ll get the most use out of these metrics if you compare things like channel sources, your most popular content, user devices, user geography, or other dimensions that matter to your business. Heatmaps can be a valuable tool for visualizing and analyzing these metrics, allowing you to see patterns and variations in user engagement, content popularity, or geographic distribution.

Engagement Metrics

Perhaps you know you already have strong traffic, but your goal was to make more engaging content that results in more time spent on your website.

• Time on page
• Time on site
• Bounce rate
• Click-Through Rate

These metrics will help you identify your most successful content and highlight where there’s room for improvement. Metrics such as the bounce rate, which can be decreased by employing an  email verification tool  to clean invalid addresses from lists, will help identify highly engaging content while also showing areas that need further optimization.

Conversion & Ad Metrics

Most digital campaigns are about driving conversions, so it’s likely you’ll need to report on revenue-driving metrics like leads and ad spend.

• Form submissions
• Advertising spend
• Conversion rate
• Cost per acquisition

Business Impact Metrics

These are the metrics that really tie back to the business’s goals: 

• Sales-qualified leads (SQLs)
• Opportunities
• Deals/contracts
• eCommerce sales

The more closely you can attribute revenue and deals to a specific marketing channel, the more compelling a case you can make for that channel’s success.

How to Create a Marketing Report

If you’ve chosen a clear goal, you’ve identified the key metrics, and you’re using the right tool, the creation of the report itself should be a breeze.

Here’s how to create the perfect report:

Step 1 – Choose Your Format

How you present your report will greatly influence its effectiveness.

For example, a quick email with a few notes and numbers won’t do the job.

In most cases, we’d recommend creating a slideshow with free slide templates using Google Slides or Powerpoint as you can provide a good mix of data and notes.

Most analytics tools will let you export your data into a report, but even in those cases, it’s best to present this data into bite-sized slides as not to overwhelm your audience with tons of data points at once.

Step 2 – Start with Spoilers

Put everything good at the beginning of your report. Don’t save anything for the end.

You should start off by clearly stating your report’s purpose and goals. It should be clear to everyone what they are expected to take away from the report before they’ve even heard it. It’s all about creating the right context.

Include any relevant history that’s necessary to understand the report, including previous campaigns and what business problem or challenge led to the creation of the report.

If your report is really long, you may also want to jump straight to the point and state all of your key takeaways.

In this introduction section, you should also state your reporting period. If it’s your first time preparing that report, you may also want to include justification for why that reporting period is significant.

Step 3 – Review Each Goal & Relevant KPIs

This is the meat of your report.

For each goal (it’s possible you may have only one), include

• KPIs: What was your measure of success for the goal? Did you achieve it?
• Successes & Challenges: Provide a bullet point summary of what worked and what didn’t
• Metrics & Data: Include a summary of the data, including a visual component like a graph or chart
• Takeaways: What should we conclude from the data?
• Decision Points: Based on the data, are there any decisions to be made by the audience of the report?

The key here is to provide a data-backed review of each goal, but with enough narrative support that your audience doesn’t have to make conclusions for themselves.

To make things really fast for yourself, you’ll want to build a marketing dashboard. More on that below!

Step 4 – Conclude Your Report

Remember: the point of your report is to help drive decision making.

At the end of your report, restate your successes, challenges, and takeaways that you gleaned from the data.

Summarize any decisions that need to be made, because that’s the reason we’re here!

In most cases, you’ll want to include your recommendations for the decisions directly in your report, so that you’re not forcing your superiors or clients to make decisions on the spot.

How to Build a Marketing Dashboard

While we’ve made it clear from the start that there’s a major difference between creating a full-blown marketing report and building a marketing dashboard, having an easily accessible data dashboard will make creating your reports much easier.

A marketing dashboard allows you to see all of your data in one place so that you can periodically check in on a daily or weekly basis.

A clean dashboard will also let you easily take screenshots when it comes time to build your report, saving you tons of time.

Website & Ad Performance Dashboards

For website traffic and ad performance, tools like Google Analytics and Google Ads have built-in dashboards that summarize the most commonly used metrics. 

If you want to change these dashboards, they also offer the ability to customize which metrics appear on the main dashboard.

If you want to get more sophisticated, Google Data Studio lets you import data from multiple sources into one visual dashboard.

Social Media Analytics Dashboards

For social media metrics, Keyhole aggregates all of the most important social media analytics into one place. 

While Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter all have dashboards of their own, you’ll save tons of time by aggregating them all in one place.

Keyhole will summarize:

• Campaign & event tracking data
• Influencer performance
• Brand visibility metrics
• Competitor data

And not only does it get you the data you need, it’s presentation-ready too.

Start Your Keyhole Trial Now

Creating reports doesn’t have to be a cumbersome experience. If you’ve determined clear objectives, then it’s all about having the right tools.

Start your free Keyhole trial today for fast, beautiful social media analytics reports.

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How to Write a Market Research Report

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Characteristics of a Good Business Report

What is an r&d report, how to write an executive summary on a marketing plan.

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Your blood is pumping. A new opportunity has emerged on your business radar, and it could propel your business in a captivating and profitable direction. It could be a new product or service line, a group of untapped consumers or even – keep your voice down now – a potential merger with a smaller competitor.

Before you get too far ahead of yourself, you know that it's smart to thoroughly vet this opportunity by commissioning a market research report . At some point -- probably after your staff has finished gathering the necessary quantitative and qualitative data – you must lay out your expectations for the written report. How you approach this task should get their blood pumping, too.

Issue Three Dictates

If your marketing team is new to the task, they're probably going to love your top three directives:

• Tell a story. Tell a visual story, with lots of charts and graphs. Keep it brief.

They may not think they heard you right; after all, you did say you want a market research report, didn't you? And aren't most reports long, voluminous and yes, sometimes dull products?

Tell them to make no mistake: you expect a comprehensive effort that assesses every angle of this new business opportunity. You want the report, as they say, to “see around corners.” But there are valid reasons that drive your directives.

Tell a Story

The most compelling market research reports pivot on a story – about why that new product or service line holds such promise, why that group of untapped consumers could benefit from your offerings or why that merger would be a wise investment.

Like all good stories, this one might start with an anecdote or focus on one person – the “main character” – who could serve as your ideal customer. Telling the story of your research through his or her eyes, and with plenty of dynamic quotes, should flow directly into how pursuing this new opportunity would advance your business objectives. This is a crucial part of the story, too, since the opportunity wouldn't even be worth considering if it didn't conform with your business plan.

At this point, you might wish to share with your staff the experience of a well-known manufacturer of a men's fragrance that was ready to embark on a marketing campaign – targeted to men. Then the market research revealed that women, not men, make most of these purchases, and the finding transformed the campaign. Now there was an entirely different story to tell because the main characters shifted to women – who they are, what they do for a living, when they purchase men's fragrances and how they persuade the men in their lives to acquiesce to wearing a fragrance in the first place.

Tell a Visual Story

As much of the quantitative data as possible should be consigned to charts and graphs in the market research repor t, not the actual written content. Numbers are easier to read, and evaluate, when they're displayed in a graph rather than tucked into a dense paragraph, where the reader may struggle to interpret their meaning.

This point underscores another reality about market research reports: you may think it's being written for your benefit and that of your staff. And for now, it may be. Your audience may also include your business attorney and accountant. But some day, if it's appropriate, new stakeholders may read the report, too, and charts and graphs will make it easier for them to digest.

Of course, you can always overdo a good thing. Only relevant charts and graphs – or those that advance the fundamental story – should be included in the body of the market research report. Ancillary information should be relegated to the appendix – that document repository that comes at the end of a report.

Keep it Brief

By focusing on a compelling story and relying on visuals, your staff should find it easier to address your third cardinal rule. They should know that you will judge the value of their effort on its quality, not the number of pages. (It's up to you if you wish to tell them that many market research reports run from between 10 and 50 pages.) It will also help if they:

• Use bullet points when they can.* Read each other's work and “peer edit” for clarity and concision.
• Challenge each paragraph to the relevancy test. In other words, if a paragraph doesn't advance the basic story, strike it.

Heed Two Other Tips

You may hesitate to call it an “outline,” but you should convey to your staff that the true value of their report will depend on its organization. So if they don't like the sound of establishing a step-by-step progression of the report, then turn them loose on PowerPoint, which will force the issue (in a good way). In the end, they may decide that this format – and not a paper report – is the best one for their findings.

As liberating as this may be, most market research reports hew to tradition, and necessity, by including:

• A table of contents. A section on the research objectives. A section on the research methods. An executive summary. Detailed findings and, perhaps, the implications. Told in a dynamic manner, the fascinating finish should get everyone's blood pumping.
• InfoSurv: 10 Tips for Marketing Research Reports That Get Read
• C+R Research: 5 Things to Remember When Writing a Market Research Report

Mary Wroblewski earned a master's degree with high honors in communications and has worked as a reporter and editor in two Chicago newsrooms. Then she launched her own small business, which specialized in assisting small business owners with “all things marketing” – from drafting a marketing plan and writing website copy to crafting media plans and developing email campaigns. Mary writes extensively about small business issues and especially “all things marketing.”

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10 examples of great marketing research reports from 2022

Find inspiration for your next marketing survey report. See how industry-leading brands design, develop, + promote proprietary data reports.

By Katherine Boyarsky • Dec 28, 2022

B2B SaaS brands, and any other business that has a vested interest in helping their customers succeed, need the latest benchmark data to do so. And according to Google’s Helpful Content Update guidelines , “people-first content” should be created for a specific intended audience, and include the latest information. 

Today, brands are taking proprietary research, data analysis, and industry trends report creation into their own hands. Why? It gives them the ability to tailor the research to help their audience, and creates a steady flow of traffic, which improves brand awareness.  

Looking for content marketing support for your brand? We can help. Let’s Talk

The even more recent Google Helpful Content Update on the E-A-T content marketing strategy adds an extra “E” for experience, making it the E-E-A-T strategy now. That means that people who have firsthand experience with the topic they’re writing about will be prioritized. This is where I explain that I am the CMO of a creative content marketing agency ( CXD Studio ) that helps create or reports like the annual HubSpot State of Marketing Trends report, among others. Our team has been doing the content strategy, copywriting, data analysis, design, data visualization, and promotion for marketing research reports for almost a decade, and our reports have reached millions of readers. 

Here are the basics on how to produce an industry trends report campaign and inspirational reports from 2022. 

Reminder — creating any sized research report takes significant time, effort, expertise, and resources. Don’t try to take it on yourself, and plan enough time for each phase in the production process. There will be delays — build those into your timelines. 

Who creates marketing industry trends reports? 

Marketing research reports typically fall under the responsibility of the content marketing team within the marketing department. However, they might be owned by demand generation, sales enablement, a research/analytics team, or outsourced to a specialized agency or freelancer. Here’s who typically leads and executes marketing research campaigns:

• Market research companies
• Creative agencies
• Advertising agencies
• Freelancers
• In-house content teams

Types of marketing research reports brands can create

• Industry trends reports
• Benchmark reports
• Brand awareness surveys
• Analyses of product data
• Executive/decision-maker surveys
• User experience reports

10 examples of great industry trends reports from B2B brands from 2022

Use these marketing research report examples to spark your creativity from outline, to promotion, to format.

• HubSpot’s State of Marketing Trends Report
• Owl Labs’ State of Remote Work Report
• ConvertKit’s State of the Creator Economy Report
• DoorDash’s Restaurant Online Ordering Trends Report
• TINT’s State of User-Generated Content 2022 Report
• Spotify’s Culture Next Report
• HubSpot’s Building Winning Regional Marketing Teams Report
• Semrush’s State of Content Marketing Report
• Chicory’s Annual Recipe Usage Report
• Lightcast’s Workers Wanted Worldwide Report

How do you create an industry trends research report? 

Let’s break down the marketing research report process.

Phase 1: Background research, marketing strategy, and survey design

Identify your target audience, the goals of the report, and your survey questions. Try to ask a minimum of 10-20 questions, and don’t ask too many or you’ll fatigue your respondents. If you’ll be pulling product data, map out the questions that you want to answer from the data. 

Phase 2: Survey administration and data collection

Use a platform like Pollfish or Survey Monkey Audience to collect responses from a certain demographic, or collect data from your own audience using a basic survey tool. Alternatively, some companies choose to pull product data to learn about their audience.

Phase 3: Data analysis and key themes

Examine the data using pivot tables or more advanced statistical modeling programs. Look for statistically significant themes and patterns, and analyze them in the context of the past few years. 

Phase 4: Report outline and copywriting

Include key themes as chapters, and plan for calls-to-action (CTAs) throughout where it makes sense to include them. Pull out actionable tips for your audience so they can make the most out of the data. Use your brand’s copywriting guidelines to match the right tone for the audience.

Phase 5: Data visualization and report design

Design the charts, statistics, and data visualizations using your brand identity, and create shareable images for social media. Design the report as a web page or downloadable PDF using brand fonts, colors, imagery, iconography, and overall style.

Phase 6: Promotion and distribution

Plan for a launch blog post with key findings, emails to your audience, social media posts, paid advertising, and individual posts from your team, employees, or influencers. If you work with a PR team or individual freelancer, get them involved early, and have them share the key findings when they’re finalized. Source quotes from experts on the early side, too.

Phase 7: Campaign analysis

Analyze the performance of the campaign after the first week, month, and then a year or two out. Large-scale campaigns like annual or bi-annual reports can have a long tail, so measure influenced contacts, net new contacts, and influenced revenue after a bit of time.

Marketing survey promotion ideas

• Share interesting stats and data points using data visualizations on social media, using both organic posts and paid ads. Try static and animated ads and compare the results.
• Create a compelling landing page with key insights from the report and a preview of what’s inside.
• Incorporate leadership insights from partners or thought leaders with similar audiences, then ask them to promote the report when it comes out.
• Partner with similar brands and pool your resources, then promote to all of your audiences.

Need help creating an industry trends report, from start to finish? Let’s chat.

We’ve got a small but experienced team that handles project management, survey design and data acquisition, data analysis, copywriting, content strategy, data visualization, design, and promotional assets. And we work quickly, as a seamless extension of your team. Let’s talk through your marketing research report creation needs . 

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How to Write a Market Research Analysis Report

Estimated Reading Time : 5 mins

How well do you know your market? The answer can have a huge impact on your business success.

However, even doing market research has value only if you analyze and report on findings so that they can drive decisions and prompt action. Otherwise, you’re wasting resources. So to make sure you’re making the most of your market research, you might want to follow these best practices for writing a market research analysis report that will have momentum. With tips like these, you can reap the benefits of your efforts to understand market trends and buyer behaviors.

So, what exactly is a market research analysis report? In short, it is a summary of new insights and takeaways from market research. A market research analysis report should clarify the business market and help you better understand your audience. It refines your perspective based on qualitative or quantitative data to avoid your business making decisions based on “gut feeling” and “instinct” alone.

Essential elements of a market research report

Presenting a spreadsheet or making a slide deck visualizing the findings from market research is common. Many tools online make it easy to create market research dashboards, too. However, the market research analysis report digs deeper into the results to explore the “why” behind all those bar graphs and pie charts.

The analytical report uses data from the market research to glean important information and presents it in easily digestible ways. The report writer examines the customer survey responses, as well as social, economic, and geographical data, in order to learn more about:

• Brand awareness
• Brand identity
• Brand influence
• Customer satisfaction
• Product development
• Pricing decisions
• Potential product changes
• Customer intent
• Customer likes and dislikes
• Market readiness

A typical market research report begins with a summary, then is followed by a more detailed introduction. After describing the participants and outlining the methodology of the market research, a mix of text, graphs, and charts summarizes the findings. Finally, you’ll discuss the conclusions drawn, explain the justifications for those conclusions, and make recommendations.

To gain a deeper understanding of how effective market research can transform a business, consider exploring business growth case studies that highlight successful strategies and the impactful role of comprehensive analysis.

The market research analysis becomes a valuable tool for making your business more efficient, driving innovation, meeting the target audience’s needs, and accelerating commercial success.

Best practices for writing a market research analysis report

There are many ways to approach writing your report. However, these best practices can help you to focus the information you provide and encourage broader integration of the market research results.

Tell a story

Sure, a good bar graph can say a lot. But a story that gives your reader a deeper understanding of the findings is important, too. In market research analysis, your role is to unearth the hidden insights and trends to help shape business action.

The best approach to your storytelling is to go back to the goals of the market research. What did you aim to accomplish? Let those objectives provide an outline for your approach to sharing outcomes with your audience.

Synthesize your results

As the writers over at DataPine note, “Any market analysis report example worth its salt will allow everyone to get a firm grip on their results and discoveries on a single page, with ease.”

As the writer of a research report, it’s your job to focus in on the most relevant information for your reader. Make it easier to digest with an executive summary at the front. Also, use headers and bulleted lists to allow busy readers to quickly scan for the information they need when they want it.

Provide a global view

This may seem contradictory to the previous advice, but your analysis needs to consider several indicators in conjunction before making any broad statements. For customer satisfaction, for instance, you would want to analyze response data related to quality, pricing, design, and service to get the big picture.

Identify key stakeholders

You’ve worked hard to make an effective and concise report of results. Now you need to present the reporting to the right people. Consider who will benefit most from the information you’ve gathered. Also, look for people who can provide valuable feedback , as that can help shape your next market research effort.

Simplify your visuals

Just as you want your text to be easy to read and understand, you should ensure the visuals are easily comprehensible, too. Consistency can help . For example:

• Use the same scale on all graphs
• Maintain the same color palate throughout
• Include the exact question asked with the images
• Communicate the base size for each graph or table

Take advantage of appendices

In sharing market research results, you don’t want to distract readers from the important findings. Still, there may be more data or details that can be shared. You might also want to provide tables for every survey question or provide all the questions asked. You could also use the appendix to collect discussion guides and data collection forms.

This is not an opportunity to just dump everything else you couldn’t include in the body of the report at the end of the document. Rather, you can collate added information that relates to the main themes you discuss in the body of the report.

Edit your report carefully

Make sure you review your report before sharing it. Try to take an objective eye to your writing. Ask yourself:

• Is this making sense to the reader?
• Have I provided evidence to support my points?
• Did I organize the text and visuals in a logical way?
• Have I left any important questions unaddressed?
• Could I say anything more simply?
• Are there any grammar or mechanical mistakes?

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Research Reports: Definition and How to Write Them

Reports are usually spread across a vast horizon of topics but are focused on communicating information about a particular topic and a niche target market. The primary motive of research reports is to convey integral details about a study for marketers to consider while designing new strategies.

Certain events, facts, and other information based on incidents need to be relayed to the people in charge, and creating research reports is the most effective communication tool. Ideal research reports are extremely accurate in the offered information with a clear objective and conclusion. These reports should have a clean and structured format to relay information effectively.

What are Research Reports?

Research reports are recorded data prepared by researchers or statisticians after analyzing the information gathered by conducting organized research, typically in the form of surveys or qualitative methods .

A research report is a reliable source to recount details about a conducted research. It is most often considered to be a true testimony of all the work done to garner specificities of research.

The various sections of a research report are:

• Background/Introduction
• Implemented Methods
• Results based on Analysis
• Deliberation

Learn more: Quantitative Research

Components of Research Reports

Research is imperative for launching a new product/service or a new feature. The markets today are extremely volatile and competitive due to new entrants every day who may or may not provide effective products. An organization needs to make the right decisions at the right time to be relevant in such a market with updated products that suffice customer demands.

The details of a research report may change with the purpose of research but the main components of a report will remain constant. The research approach of the market researcher also influences the style of writing reports. Here are seven main components of a productive research report:

• Research Report Summary: The entire objective along with the overview of research are to be included in a summary which is a couple of paragraphs in length. All the multiple components of the research are explained in brief under the report summary.  It should be interesting enough to capture all the key elements of the report.
• Research Introduction: There always is a primary goal that the researcher is trying to achieve through a report. In the introduction section, he/she can cover answers related to this goal and establish a thesis which will be included to strive and answer it in detail.  This section should answer an integral question: “What is the current situation of the goal?”.  After the research design was conducted, did the organization conclude the goal successfully or they are still a work in progress –  provide such details in the introduction part of the research report.
• Research Methodology: This is the most important section of the report where all the important information lies. The readers can gain data for the topic along with analyzing the quality of provided content and the research can also be approved by other market researchers . Thus, this section needs to be highly informative with each aspect of research discussed in detail.  Information needs to be expressed in chronological order according to its priority and importance. Researchers should include references in case they gained information from existing techniques.
• Research Results: A short description of the results along with calculations conducted to achieve the goal will form this section of results. Usually, the exposition after data analysis is carried out in the discussion part of the report.

Learn more: Quantitative Data

• Research Discussion: The results are discussed in extreme detail in this section along with a comparative analysis of reports that could probably exist in the same domain. Any abnormality uncovered during research will be deliberated in the discussion section.  While writing research reports, the researcher will have to connect the dots on how the results will be applicable in the real world.
• Research References and Conclusion: Conclude all the research findings along with mentioning each and every author, article or any content piece from where references were taken.

Learn more: Qualitative Observation

15 Tips for Writing Research Reports

Writing research reports in the manner can lead to all the efforts going down the drain. Here are 15 tips for writing impactful research reports:

• Prepare the context before starting to write and start from the basics:  This was always taught to us in school – be well-prepared before taking a plunge into new topics. The order of survey questions might not be the ideal or most effective order for writing research reports. The idea is to start with a broader topic and work towards a more specific one and focus on a conclusion or support, which a research should support with the facts.  The most difficult thing to do in reporting, without a doubt is to start. Start with the title, the introduction, then document the first discoveries and continue from that. Once the marketers have the information well documented, they can write a general conclusion.
• Keep the target audience in mind while selecting a format that is clear, logical and obvious to them:  Will the research reports be presented to decision makers or other researchers? What are the general perceptions around that topic? This requires more care and diligence. A researcher will need a significant amount of information to start writing the research report. Be consistent with the wording, the numbering of the annexes and so on. Follow the approved format of the company for the delivery of research reports and demonstrate the integrity of the project with the objectives of the company.
• Have a clear research objective: A researcher should read the entire proposal again, and make sure that the data they provide contributes to the objectives that were raised from the beginning. Remember that speculations are for conversations, not for research reports, if a researcher speculates, they directly question their own research.
• Establish a working model:  Each study must have an internal logic, which will have to be established in the report and in the evidence. The researchers’ worst nightmare is to be required to write research reports and realize that key questions were not included.

Learn more: Quantitative Observation

• Gather all the information about the research topic. Who are the competitors of our customers? Talk to other researchers who have studied the subject of research, know the language of the industry. Misuse of the terms can discourage the readers of research reports from reading further.
• Read aloud while writing. While reading the report, if the researcher hears something inappropriate, for example, if they stumble over the words when reading them, surely the reader will too. If the researcher can’t put an idea in a single sentence, then it is very long and they must change it so that the idea is clear to everyone.
• Check grammar and spelling. Without a doubt, good practices help to understand the report. Use verbs in the present tense. Consider using the present tense, which makes the results sound more immediate. Find new words and other ways of saying things. Have fun with the language whenever possible.
• Discuss only the discoveries that are significant. If some data are not really significant, do not mention them. Remember that not everything is truly important or essential within research reports.

Learn more: Qualitative Data

• Try and stick to the survey questions. For example, do not say that the people surveyed “were worried” about an research issue , when there are different degrees of concern.
• The graphs must be clear enough so that they understand themselves. Do not let graphs lead the reader to make mistakes: give them a title, include the indications, the size of the sample, and the correct wording of the question.
• Be clear with messages. A researcher should always write every section of the report with an accuracy of details and language.
• Be creative with titles – Particularly in segmentation studies choose names “that give life to research”. Such names can survive for a long time after the initial investigation.
• Create an effective conclusion: The conclusion in the research reports is the most difficult to write, but it is an incredible opportunity to excel. Make a precise summary. Sometimes it helps to start the conclusion with something specific, then it describes the most important part of the study, and finally, it provides the implications of the conclusions.
• Get a couple more pair of eyes to read the report. Writers have trouble detecting their own mistakes. But they are responsible for what is presented. Ensure it has been approved by colleagues or friends before sending the find draft out.

Learn more: Market Research and Analysis

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Home • Knowledge hub • How to write a market research report for a new product launch

How to write a market research report for a new product launch

When launching a new product to market, it’s imperative to be prepared with relevant information. You need a deep understanding of your market, how your products will benefit that market, the potential challenges you might run into, and much more.

This is why it’s so important to write an in-depth, professional, and relevant market research report. Not only to gather and display all the right information but also so that you can share that information clearly and easily with people within and outside your organization. This is important for a wide range of different reasons.

In this article, we’ll look at why market research reports for product launches are so important and show you how to do it as effectively as possible.

Why market research reports are important

Conducting a detailed and relevant market research report before you launch your new product is a good idea for all kinds of reasons. Here are some of the main ones:

• Get buy-in from senior decision-makers . When launching any product, you’ll always want the full support of the top decision-makers at your organization. This can be a tricky thing to acquire, especially if your team is relatively unproven. A detailed and informative market research report can be the deciding factor in winning their support, convincing them that your product is well-placed to succeed, and making it much easier to achieve your goals.
• Learn more about your customers and target audience . One of the main reasons to conduct market research is to understand your prospective customers in more detail. The work you do to compile a report will give you a clear and detailed understanding of what your customers want, what they already like, where they conduct their own research, and much more. This will arm you with the insights and knowledge you need to launch your product confidently and successfully.

Discover ideas for new products and how to improve existing ones . When you research your target market, you’ll likely stumble upon inspiration for new products in addition to the one you’re planning to launch. The feedback you get from your research will also be laced with ideas for improving and tweaking existing products

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How to write a market research report effectively

In the rest of this guide, we’ll show you what you need to do to ensure your market research report is as detailed, relevant, and valuable as it possibly can be. Let’s start with the type of information you need to include.

What you need to include:

Buyer personas.

This is a crucial part of getting to know your customers and the different groups they fall into. You should start by researching your target market members as much as possible through a range of channels — interviews, social media research, email surveys, and more. Then, divide them into demographics and create a detailed persona to represent each one.

This is an incredibly valuable step because it allows you to break down your market and make broad predictions about each group’s preferences, pain points, habits, and desires. If done right, this helps you target your future marketing much more accurately and effectively.

Understand your competitors

Getting to know your competitors is a key element of market research. It allows you to understand what you will be up against when launching your product and what segments of your market might be easier or more difficult to sway from their loyalty to your competitors.

Your research report should contain detailed information about each of your competitors and what they offer. What do their products lack that yours can provide? Why do your customers go to them? How dominant are they in your market? What kind of loyalty do they command? What are some of the keys to their success? All this will help you understand what you’re up against and strengthen your chances of success.

Who did you talk to?

Much of your market research will involve talking to various people and groups of people in situations like focus groups, interviews, and surveys. It’s important to document this side of your research carefully and include it in your market research report. Be sure to break down the people you spoke to into demographics and be as specific as possible — try to align this with your buyer personas.

This will help you understand what different demographics want, identify any areas you may have missed, and see any opportunities for segmentation or expansion, as well as providing clear visibility into your research process and allowing you to justify your findings and decisions to other company members carefully.

Clearly show what will happen next — how will you use your findings? 

When you present your market research report to decision-makers in your organization, their primary concern will be what you want to do with it. Research is only valuable if it has a practical application, which should be a key element of your report.

It’s best to be specific — create plans and roadmaps for campaigns, build strategies, and include timelines and carefully researched cost estimates. If you can present a clear and viable plan for your product launch, it will be much easier to gain the support and buy-in of the higher-ups in your company. Be ready to defend and justify these plans.

Primary vs Secondary Market Research

There are two main types of research you’ll need to do when preparing your market research report: primary and secondary. Here is the difference:

• Primary research . This refers to the first-hand information you have gathered during your research — straight from the primary source. Examples include interviews with individuals, focus groups, surveys, and information from sales teams. It helps add a human touch to your research, incorporating real people’s distinct voices and opinions.
• Secondary research. This is data that your company didn’t personally collect but is available in the form of things like public records, trend reports, and market statistics. While it lacks the specific human element of primary research, it’s a great way to gain valuable overall insights about your target market without having to conduct huge research projects yourself.

Convincing company decision-makers with your market research report

One of the most essential functions of a market research report is to convince your company’s key stakeholders that you are prepared for a product launch and have everything in place to begin the process successfully.

When creating your report, you should always have this goal in mind. Here are some ways to do that:

• Always clearly tie your research for business outcomes. For every conclusion your report reaches, explain what this means for the business and what concrete actions you will take as a result.
• Use as many stats and as much hard data as possible. Clearly express this data in the form of graphs and other visual aids. Show where your data came from, how you collected it, and how your findings will impact your product launch.
• Consider using Porter’s 5 Forces Model . This business model is aimed at understanding and explaining the fundamental market forces at work in any given industry. It can be illuminating to tie your research into this model.

A well-researched and detailed market research report is an essential part of a successful product launch strategy. It allows you to clearly understand your market, formulate concrete plans and strategies, and gain the support of your organization’s decision-makers.

Without one, you’ll be plunged into the dark, facing the monumentally challenging task of launching a product without the support of extensive research and data. To find out more about how Kadence can help you prepare a market research report and launch your product with confidence, contact us .

Helping brands uncover valuable insights

We’ve been working with Kadence on a couple of strategic projects, which influenced our product roadmap roll-out within the region. Their work has been exceptional in providing me the insights that I need. Senior Marketing Executive Arla Foods

Kadence’s reports give us the insight, conclusion and recommended execution needed to give us a different perspective, which provided us with an opportunity to relook at our go to market strategy in a different direction which we are now reaping the benefits from. Sales & Marketing Bridgestone

Kadence helped us not only conduct a thorough and insightful piece of research, its interpretation of the data provided many useful and unexpected good-news stories that we were able to use in our communications and interactions with government bodies. General Manager PR -Internal Communications & Government Affairs Mitsubishi

Kadence team is more like a partner to us. We have run a number of projects together and … the pro-activeness, out of the box thinking and delivering in spite of tight deadlines are some of the key reasons we always reach out to them. Vital Strategies

Kadence were an excellent partner on this project; they took time to really understand our business challenges, and developed a research approach that would tackle the exam question from all directions.  The impact of the work is still being felt now, several years later. Customer Intelligence Director Wall Street Journal

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10 tips for writing a market research report.

Every market researcher’s biggest nightmare is for a client to say, “this doesn’t address our business issues.”  

However, this type of issue is prevalent; even if we pretend it doesn’t occur. Most reports don’t reach the expectations of clients – this is due to the wrong writing techniques being used.  

Rather than a focus on clear information and direct storytelling, market researchers will focus on methodology or analytics.  

The main issue lies with the fact that market researches only consider the direct research client. They fail to realize that this research will later be presented to stakeholders or senior management.  

What is a market research report? 

It’s essential to understand what precisely a market research report is. The definition seems to get confused sometimes.  

Your market research report should include all market data, that’s relevant to your client. This could be trends, consumer behavior, and competitive analysis.  

The report should be presented in a way that allows businesses to identify their opportunities – giving them a clear idea of the real world, and how they can be improving.  

These reports are written every single day in the marketing industry, and so making sure yours stands out and is genuinely useful is crucial.  

Market reports have multiple benefits.  These include validating internal research and gather industry information quickly.  

When writing a research report for your clients, you should keep the following things in mind.  

1. Always research  

It’s called a “research” report after all. However, so many marketers fail to do exceptional research.  

Before you can even begin writing your report, you need to know as much as you possibly can. It’s not something that you should research and write as you go along.  

Make sure you look into the market that you’re analyzing and find out specific information. This will make your report valuable and exciting.  

This is also the step that you calculate the cost of performing the research, yourself. The research can be compiled from tools, platforms or internal data.  

2. Understand the objectives  

Has your client given you a specific reason/objective for the research report?  If they have, every single aspect of your report should point towards reaching those objectives.  

Once you’re aware of your objectives, researching and writing the report will become much clearer.  

If you don’t aim towards reaching objectives, the report could be completely useless.  

3. Create an outline  

Once you’ve researched and understood the objectives, you can start to prepare our report. Many people make the mistake of diving right into writing, which isn’t the best way.  

You should create an outline – so that you can make your way through seamlessly. This helps to eliminate the chance of you repeating yourself, or missing important parts out.  

Once you have the outline, just fill it in. It’s the best way to begin writing your outline and is a common writing technique for journalists and authors.  

Here’s an example of an outline that you can use: 

• Title  
• Table of Contents 
• Introduction  
• Methodology and background  
• Executive summary  
• Conclusion  
• Appendix  

Obviously, add other sections in wherever necessary. This outline should guide you through your entire market report. Every single section is unique to your report.  

4. Speak their language  

We’re not specifically talking about their original language – although that’s also a big must. We’re talking about marketer’s language. Give them the information that they really want to hear. Otherwise, they won’t find the report beneficial.  

Things like pricing, best prospects, and valuable customers all sparks interest in marketers.  

“You should find the perfect balance between valuable research and marketing language. This will ensure that your report is useful to all those reading it.” — Diana Adjadj, Copywriter at Trust My Paper . 

5. Perfect your storytelling skill 

Storytelling is crucial when it comes to a market report. A good report also tells a good story.  

Every single page in your report should contribute to some form of a story. If it doesn’t add to it, cut it out, or place it in the Appendix.  

If you don’t find your storytelling skills, you will just be left with a report that has no structure and little excitement.  

Storytelling is something that many marketers are leading into. In fact,  92% of consumers want brands to make ads that feel like a story. In the same way, you should create a report that works in the same way. Create a linear and expressive narrative.  

6. Split it up  

Your report will probably contain extensive research. When you try to present this all in one, it can be difficult to follow.  

Use headlines and bullet points to make everything a little easier to digest. As a researcher, it’s your job to pick out the deeper insights from obvious data – presenting this simply is key.  

7. Inject in creativity  

Your report won’t read well if you’re not creative with it. Writing it is only one aspect of market research reports – making it fun and interesting is the final hurdle.  

Read over your report, evaluate if you’ve creatively presented your findings.  

8. Use charts and graphs  

Charts and graphs add credibility to your report. They are absolutely essential to every report.  

Not only do they present valuable data clearly and concisely, but they also make the report much easier to understand.  

You could also consider using images if they are relevant. A picture speaks a thousand words, after all.  

9. Get to the point  

Probably your hardest task – getting straight to the point of your report. What does all the data that you’ve compiled together really mean?  

“Ultimately, you want to show the marketers and executives what they can do with your data, how they can invest, and how to maximize their sales.” — Melanie Sovann, Sales Copywriter at Studicus.com . 

If you do your report well, you’ll get only positive replies at the end. They will be able to use it effectively and make the most out of all your hard work.  

So, look into all aspects of your report. The implications, conclusions, and recommendations should all lead to one point. Obviously, this is also linked to the objective, too.  

10. Don’t forget to include an Appendix  

Every report needs an appendix. However, this should also be used as a way to include any information, that didn’t add enough to the story.  

For instance, if you have a point that isn’t directly related to an objective, but can provide extra information, place it in the Appendix.  

“Including an appendix is a great way to keep your main text streamlined and concise, without missing out any information that may be needed.” — Estelle Leotard, Technical Writer at Grab My Essay .

Once you’ve finished your report, ask somebody else to read it. From here, see if you’ve missed anything out, you’ve made any mistakes, or if it’s easy to follow.  

You can edit your report as many times as you want – your first draft will, more than likely, not be your final product. Just keep going, and keep finding ways to make it more concise and clear – if you need to take out points and add them to the Appendix, don’t be afraid to do so.  

You can also use various tools and platforms to help you write your market report,  Google Analytic reports help with marketing  immensely.  

For personalized Market Research guidance, request a Fuel Cycle demo today.

Marie Fincher is a content writer with a background in marketing, technology, and business intelligence. She frequently writes about Data Science, BI, new marketing trends and branding strategies. Marie gradually changed her focus from working in marketing to writing about it. She is currently a full-time writer at Best Essay.Education and an editor at WoWGrade.net .

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Market research templates: what they are and how to use them.

18 min read Interested in market research but need some templates to start with? In this guide, we unpack market research, survey planning best practice and share some of our best templates for brand, customer, product and employee research.

What is a market research template?

While you’re no doubt familiar with the concept of market research and how it can help you to reach your target audiences and improve your product or service , the real challenge is designing a market research plan that is conducive to excellent results.

All of this starts with the right market research template(s) to help you analyze specific target audiences, collect the right data and uncover insights that can drive actionable change.

In this article, we’re going to:

• talk about market research and its use cases,
• provide you with a standard template that allows you to plan your research,
• and share several other templates to help you with specific types of market research

You can also check out our free template library.

But first, let’s revisit market research.

What is market research?

Market research is the process of determining the viability of a new service or product through surveys and questionnaires with prospects and/or customers. It involves gathering information about market needs and prospect/customer preferences .

Through market research, you can discover and/or refine your target market, get opinions and feedback on what you provide to them and uncover further prospect/customer pain points and expectations of your service or product .

Market research can be conducted in-house, either by you and your research team, or through a third-party company that specializes in it (they will typically have their own research panels or be capable of creating a research panel to suit your requirements).

The four common types of market research

There are lots of different ways to conduct market research to collect customer data and feedback , test product concepts , and do brand research, but the four most common are:

The most commonly used form of market research, surveys are a form of qualitative research that asks respondents a series of open or closed-ended questions , delivered either as an on-screen questionnaire or email.

Surveys are incredibly popular because they’re cheap, easy to produce, and can capture data very quickly, leading to faster insights.

2) Focus groups

Why not bring together a carefully selected group of people in your target market using focus groups? Though more expensive and complex than surveys and interviews, focus groups can offer deeper insight into prospect and customer behavior – from how users experience your products and services to what marketing messages really resonate with them.

Of course, as a market research method that’s reliant on a moderator to steer conversation, it can be subject to bias (as different moderators might have preferred questions or be more forceful) and if you cut corners (not asking all the necessary questions or making assumptions based on responses), the data could get skewed.

3) Observation

As if you were a fly-on-the-wall, the observation market research method can be incredibly powerful. Rather than interviewing or surveying users, you simply take notes while someone from your target market/target audience engages with your product . How are they using it? What are they struggling with? Do they look as though they have concerns?

Observing your target audience/target market in this fashion is a great alternative to the other more traditional methods on this list. It’s less expensive and far more natural as it isn’t guided by a moderator or a predefined set of questions. The only issue is that you can’t get feedback directly from the mouth of the user, so it’s worth combining this type of research with interviews, surveys, and/or focus groups.

4) Interviews

Interviews allow for face-to-face discussions (both in-person and virtually), allowing for more natural conversations with participants.

For gleaning deeper insights (especially with non-verbal cues giving greater weight to opinions), there’s nothing better than face-to-face interviews. Any kind of interview will provide excellent information, helping you to better understand your prospects and target audience/target market.

Use cases for market research

When you want to understand your prospects and/or customers, but have no existing data to set a benchmark – or want to improve your products and services quickly – market research is often the go-to.

Market research (as mentioned above), helps you to discover how prospects and customers feel about your products and services, as well as what they would like to see .

But there are more use cases and benefits to market research than the above.

Reduce risk of product and business failure

With any new venture, there’s no guarantee that the new idea will be successful. As such, it’s up to you to establish the market’s appetite for your product or service. The easiest way to do this is through market research – you can understand the challenges prospects face and quickly identify where you can help. With the data from your market survey, you can then create a solution that addresses the needs and expectations of would-be customers.

Forecast future trends

Market research doesn’t just help you to understand the current market – it also helps you to forecast future needs. As you conduct your research and analyze the findings, you can identify trends – for example, how brands and businesses are adopting new technology to improve customer experiences or how sustainability is becoming a core focus for packaging. Whatever it is you’re looking to understand about the future of business in your market, comprehensive market research can help you to identify it.

Stay ahead of the competition

Understanding your market and what prospects and customers want from you will help to keep you ahead of the competition . The fact is that the top businesses frequently invest in market research to get an edge, and those that don’t tap into the insights of their audience are missing low-hanging fruit.

As well as helping you to stay in front, you can also use market research to identify gaps in the market, e.g. your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses . Just have participants answer questions about competitor products/services – or even use the products/services – and work out how you can refine your offerings to address these issues.

Plan more strategically

What’s the foundation of your business strategy? If it’s based on evidence, e.g. what people expect of your products and services, it’ll be much easier to deliver something that works. Rather than making assumptions about what you should do, market research gives you a clear, concrete understanding of what people want to see.

Check out our guide to market research for a more comprehensive breakdown.

How do you write a market research plan/template?

A market research plan is very similar to a brief in that it documents the most vital information and steps about your project. Consider it a blueprint that outlines your main objective (summary), key questions and outcomes, target audience and size, your timeline, budget, and other key variables.

Let’s talk about them in more detail.

Elements of a great market research plan

1) overview or summary.

Use the first section of your market research plan to outline the background to the problem that you are attempting to solve (this is usually your problem statement or problem question). Include background information on the study’s purpose and the business to provide context to those who would read the report, as well as the need for the research. Keep the overview simple and concise; focus on the most salient elements.

2) Objectives

What is it that you hope to achieve with this survey? Your objectives are the most important part of the survey. Make sure to list 3-5 of the decisions or initiatives that the research will influence.

For example:

Understand the most-used channels for customer engagement and purchasing to decide where to prioritize marketing and sales budget in Q1 2022. Determine what’s causing customer churn at the later stages of the buyer journey and implement a new retention and sales strategy to address it.

Your objectives should be smart, that is: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely.

3) Deliverables (or outcomes)

This section should focus on what you expect to have at the end of the project. How many responses are you looking for? How will the data be presented? Who will the data be shared with? (Stakeholders, executives) What are your next steps? Make sure you state how you will collect and analyze the data once it’s available.

Products such as Qualtrics CoreXM make this process fast and incredibly easy to do, drastically reducing the time to insights so you can make more meaningful changes, faster.

4) Target audience

Not to be confused with your market research sample, your target audience represents who you want to research. Of course, your sample may include ideal buyers from your target audience. Here you want to define the main variables or factors of your audience: demographic , age, location , product interaction, experience, and so on. It’s worth building out your buyer personas (if you haven’t already) and including a quick breakdown of them here.

5) Sample plan

How many participants do you want to research and what kind of groups do you want to reach? Depending on these two variables, you may have to use qualitative, quantitative , or multi-method approaches.

6) Research methods

What methods will you use in your market research project? The insights (and the granularity of those insights) will depend on the methods and tools you choose. For example, and as mentioned earlier, surveys are often the go-to for many organizations as they’re affordable and straightforward, but if you want to get more personal views from your respondents, one-to-one interviews might be more applicable. You might even want to take a hands-off approach and simply observe participants as they use your products, or try a combination of research methods. Make sure to outline what methods you will use as part of your research plan.

7) Timeline

How long will your research project run? It’s worth putting together a Gantt chart to highlight key milestones in the project, along with dependencies, and to break down tasks as much as possible. Schedule in contingency time in case some tasks or research runs over – or you need more responses.

Set a budget for the overall program and list it in your plan. Though this might be the most difficult aspect of any research plan, it helps you to be more strategic about tasks and hold people accountable at each stage of the process. If costs go over, that’s good to know for future market research. If costs are lower than anticipated, you then have the opportunity to do further research or prop up other areas of the study.

9) Ethical concerns or conflicts of interest

One of the most important parts of your market research plan, you should highlight any ethical concerns. To begin with, it’s your duty to state whether or not responses will be kept confidential and anonymous as part of the study. It’s also important to allow participants to remain anonymous and ensure you protect their privacy at all times.

Another issue to consider is stereotyping. Any analysis of real populations needs to make approximations and place individuals into groups, but if conducted irresponsibly, stereotyping can lead to undesirable results.

Lastly, conflicts of interest – it may be that researchers have interests in the outcome of the project that lead to a personal advantage that might compromise the integrity of your market research project. You should clearly state in your market research report that any potential conflicts of interest are highlighted and addressed before continuing.

But I want a faster solution!

Well, there’s a quicker and far easier way to do all of the above and get the data you need – just use a market research survey template. In our next section, we’re going to share a whole list of templates that you can use.

Free market research survey templates

No matter what kind of research you want to conduct, we have templates that will remove the complexity of the task and empower you to get more from your data. Below we’ve compiled a list of templates for four key experience areas: Brand , Customer , Employee , and Product .

All of our research templates are free. All you need to do is sign up for a free Qualtrics account to access them.

Brand experience market research templates:

• Logo testing : Collect feedback to help you evaluate and iterate on your logo designs and concepts
• Brand awareness : Track the level of brand awareness in your target market, including current and potential future customers
• Ad testing : Evaluate your consumers’ reaction to an advertisement so you know which campaigns to deploy before you invest
• A/B testing : Quickly and easily compare to versions or options in a study, whether it’s a design, headline, color palette or a mock-up of your latest ad campaign

Customer experience market research templates

• Student satisfaction : Gather feedback on how your institution is delivering on the student experience
• Net promoter score (NPS) : Measure customer loyalty and understand how they feel about your product or service using one of the world’s best-recognized metrics
• Customer satisfaction : Evaluate how satisfied your customers are with your company, including the products and services you provide, and how they are treated when they buy from you
• Customer service : Gain insights into the contact center experience, so you can achieve and maintain optimum levels of customer experience (CX) performance
• Event feedback : Measure the effectiveness of your events and how well they meet attendee expectations so that you can continuously improve your offering
• IT help desk : Understand how satisfied your employees and customers are with your IT help desk experience
• Website suggestion box : Collect visitor feedback on how your website can be improved
• Website satisfaction : Find out how satisfied visitors are with your website’s design, usability, and performance
• Store purchase feedback : Capture customer experience data at the point of purchase to help you improve the in-store experience
• Online purchase feedback : Find out how well your online shopping experience performs against customer needs and expectations

Employee experience market research templates

• Employee satisfaction : Get an overview of your current employee experience
• Manager feedback : Improve your skills as a leader with valuable feedback from your team
• Employee engagement : Find out how employees find the current experience at your workplace with this entry-level engagement survey
• Employee exit interview : Understand why your employees are leaving and how they’ll speak about your company once they’re gone with this survey template
• Employee onboarding : Improve your onboarding program by understanding what’s working and what’s not
• Team event planning : Collect inputs from employees to plan a team event that works for everyone
• Meeting feedback : Check-in with team members after a meeting to see how well your company is running and what improvements can be made
• Interview feedback : Improve your candidate experience by gathering actionable insights about the interview process
• Employee suggestion box : Gather anonymous data to help address concerns and improve the employee experience in your organization
• Candidate experience : Improve your candidate experience to increase brand perception, offer acceptance rates, and hiring process efficiency with this single-touchpoint survey template
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But if you want help putting together complex market research and scaling your in-house research team to get agile insights, check out our guide to building an agile research function.

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Three months down 2019 and you still think your marketing strategy can do better. Just like any other company, you’re hoping that this year would be your year. Performing a market research will help you learn more about your target market before spending effort and valuable time in planning and building strategies that you’re not sure will work. Getting the results or information documented in a report would then pave the way to a tangible marketing plan .

Step 1: Think Of Your Reader

Step 2: gather data, step 3: write the front matter, step 4: include methods used, step 5: create relevant visuals, step 6: write your recommendations, step 7: close with a call to action.

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• Content Marketing How To Write a Content Marketing Report and Evaluate Your Campaign

How To Write a Content Marketing Report and Evaluate Your Campaign

• Abbey is a digital marketer, copywriter, and lead editor. She has worked on over 200 client campaigns and WebFX, and she specializes in marketing strategy analysis and industry-specific digital marketing plans. Outside of writing and editing, you’ll likely find her taking pictures of her cat, making a new playlist, or tending to her houseplants.

If you have a content marketing strategy , tracking your progress is crucial for making it as effective as possible. And, when it comes to tracking your strategy, a content marketing report is one of the best ways to make sure you’re on track or meeting your goals.

So, how do you write a content marketing report? Great question!

This page will break down how to write a content marketing report. We’ve even got a free content marketing report template to help you with yours.

Here’s what we’ll cover:

What to include in a content marketing report

How to write a content marketing report.

• Our content marketing report template

Read on to learn more!

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Enter your email to access the full template

The first step to writing a content marketing report is knowing what to include. Your report should have the following parts to give a complete picture of your content marketing campaign:

• The timeline of the report: You should specify when the data in your report was collected to give a complete picture. For example, if you’re pulling figures from content published last quarter, be sure to specify that.
• Your key performance metrics: Some performance metrics you can look at include page views, backlinks , keyword rankings , page position in the results, and more. If you already measure certain metrics, be sure to include them.
• Areas for improvement: While you evaluate your report, take time to look at what metrics are lower and where you can improve. Include this as part of your report to show where your team should look next.
• Any key events or takeaways: If you have any key events, like publishing dates, product launches, or anything else that might affect your content strategy, include them. And be sure to mention any overall takeaways from the report outright.

Remember that this report is custom-made for your business’s campaign, so it might not be the same for everyone. However, these general guidelines will help you build your report and ensure that you include all the important details.

Now that you know what to include in your content marketing report, let’s look at a few steps to help you get started.

• Outline your content strategy and key metrics
• Gather your data
• Compile your data into visuals
• Add content examples
• Offer next steps
• Collect feedback on your report

Learn more below!

1. Outline your goals and key metrics

The first thing to establish is what you want to learn or show with your content report. This step will determine how you set up your report and what you need to gather to write it.

Some examples of goals include:

• Understand customer behavior
• Improve your content
• Tighten up your audience targeting
• Find and fix problem areas in your campaign

Once you outline your goals, you can choose the ideal metrics to track. The metrics you choose should reflect what you want to see out of your report. For example, if you want to track customer behavior, you can look at traffic, engagement, and conversions.

2. Gather your data

Now that you know what you want to show through your report, you can pull the data you need from your marketing channels and tools.

You should be tracking your content marketing data through different content management systems (CMS) or data trackers. Google Analytics is popular for many companies, and it makes it easy to export your data or view it as a graph for your report.

You can collect the metrics that speak to the goals you established before.

3. Compile your data into visuals

Next, you can work on turning those figures into appealing visuals. Graphs, charts, and tables are all easy ways to show your campaign’s success at first glance. They also make it easy to simplify complex information, especially for those who don’t know every aspect of your campaign.

You want a healthy mix of text and visuals that show and tell the data you’ve collected. Be sure to explain the content within the graphs to avoid any confusion or questions.

4. Add content examples

If you have specific content examples that stand out in your data, include them.

For example, if you have a particular post that did well or a series of emails that converted multiple leads, include snippets or summaries. These real-life examples can impact future content approaches and influence reports.

5. Offer next steps

Analyze the information in the report to determine your content marketing team’s next steps. With the data you’ve collected, you should look for ways to improve your results and change your campaign if necessary.

Be sure to list any suggestions in their own section as a call for what to do next.

6. Collect feedback on your report

After you present or send out your report, make sure you ask for feedback on your findings. You can ask for feedback through the following questions:

• Did you find it easy to connect with the material?
• How would you rate the visuals throughout the report?
• Was the report engaging?

Consider the feedback you get and implement it in your next report. Whether you’re sharing your results with clients, department heads, or your team, having extra eyes on your work can help you improve it and get more out of your approach.

Bonus: Our content marketing report template

We’ve created a downloadable content marketing report template to help you organize your first report. Check it out below!

Still have questions about content marketing reports? Check out our FAQ below!

What is a content marketing report?

A content marketing report showcases key performance metrics for content marketing strategies and shows results in a clear, structured format.

When do you need a content marketing report?

If you have an established content marketing strategy, you should be compiling reports every so often. Creating a content report is key for measuring your performance, sharing your progress with company leaders, and building team awareness about your approach.

You can also use reports to find areas for improvement. The changes you make will appear in the next report you write!

How often should you make content marketing reports?

Content marketing reports should be assembled regularly to evaluate and share the results of your campaign. For example, you might write monthly or quarterly reports to evaluate your standings and make changes for the future.

You don’t want to report too frequently, as you must give your content marketing techniques time to be effective. Every quarter is a good benchmark, and you can adjust if needed.

A world-class digital marketing agency with thousands of reviews applauding our transparency.

Evaluate your content marketing approach with WebFX

Content marketing reports are nothing without revenue-driving content. That’s where WebFX comes in!

Our content marketing services are here to give you branded content that converts. We handle the research, writing, and publishing, while you enjoy more leads and conversions coming to your business.

You can also access ContentAnalyticsFX, our performance tracker on the content we create for your business. As part of MarketingCloudFX (MCFX), you can use ContentAnalyticsFX to track your content performance and simplify reporting.

Consider us your comprehensive content tool — you get content created for you, and MCFX will track your content performance to provide insight on traffic, top-performing content types, and more.

Ready to learn more? Contact us online today!

WebFX is a full-service marketing agency with 1,100+ client reviews and a 4.9-star rating on Clutch! Find out how our expert team and revenue-accelerating tech can drive results for you! Learn more

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Table of Contents

• Enter Your Email to Access the Full Template
• What to Include in a Content Marketing Report
• How to Write a Content Marketing Report
• Bonus: Our Content Marketing Report Template
• Evaluate Your Content Marketing Approach with WebFX

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References provide the information necessary for readers to identify and retrieve each work cited in the text .

Check each reference carefully against the original publication to ensure information is accurate and complete. Accurately prepared references help establish your credibility as a careful researcher and writer.

Consistency in reference formatting allows readers to focus on the content of your reference list, discerning both the types of works you consulted and the important reference elements (who, when, what, and where) with ease. When you present each reference in a consistent fashion, readers do not need to spend time determining how you organized the information. And when searching the literature yourself, you also save time and effort when reading reference lists in the works of others that are written in APA Style.

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Money blog: Stamp duty hike on way; 'worrying' increase in energy bills this year

Welcome to the Money blog, a hub for personal finance and consumer news and tips. Today's posts include reaction to Ofgem announcing an energy price cap increase, as well as a warning over stamp duty. Listen to Ed Conway's analysis of UK borrowing and potential tax rises as you scroll.

Friday 23 August 2024 21:14, UK

• Price cap increase 'worrying', energy secretary says
• Warning £2,500 will be added to stamp duty 'overnight' in March
• Nationwide trumps rivals to offer new lowest mortgage rate

Essential reads

• Savings account that could put your child on strong financial footing at 18
• 'I cook with air fryer in living room after kitchen win went wrong'
• Ed Conway : Are tax rises inevitable - or is chancellor considering another way?
• Listen to Conway on the Daily above and  tap here to follow wherever you enjoy podcasts

Tips and advice

• How to get money back when purchase over £100 goes wrong
• What's the best way to buy travel insurance if I have a medical condition?
• Cheap Eats : Top Yorkshire chef shares Yorkshire pudding secrets

Ask a question or make a comment

By Jimmy Rice, Money blog editor

A lot of people have been scratching their chins and wondering whether the new government might be overstating the economic mess left by the previous regime.

The accusation, from the right, is that a narrative is being built to justify tax rises motivated not by necessity but ideology.

Data that's trickled in over the weeks since Rachel Reeves stepped into Number 11 - GDP growth, inflation remaining low - hasn't always helped the Labour story.

But this week, in the words of data and economics editor Ed Conway , "we had the latest public finances numbers and here the picture is considerably closer to the Reeves version than those other bits of data".

Government borrowing for July overshot expectations - and the consequences for public services and the tax burden in the October budget now look "grim", Conway wrote .

He discussed all of this in an episode of the Daily podcast, which you can listen to here or wherever you enjoy podcasts ...

Despite warning about the budget, Conway's sources suggest another route is still being considered by the chancellor, one that involves changing how the public finances are measured and judged. You can read about this here...

We also learned this week of the timeline for new EU visa rules.

UK citizens will need to pay a €7 visa-waiver charge to travel to Europe from next year. The additional charge, which is similar to the US ESTA, is part of a series of new border checks and entry requirements the EU is bringing in.

They'll apply when entering the Schengen area, which includes EU member states, plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland. 

People under 18 or over 70 will be exempt from the charge - as will those travelling to Ireland or Cyprus.

The waiver will last for three years or until your passport expires.

Its official title is the European Travel Information and Authorisation System (ETIAS), and its implementation will follow the introduction of the EU Entry/Exit System (EES). The latter will require people to have their fingerprints registered and their pictures taken on arrival to airports.

Addressing the rollout, EU home affairs commissioner Ylva Johansson said the EES will enter into operation on ­10 November while the ETIAS will follow shortly after that in 2025 - likely May.

However, it is thought there could be a six-month grace period before the visas become compulsory - taking it to November next year.

On Friday morning, it was confirmed that the energy price cap would rise in October, with another hike expected in January.

"Unfortunately, a volatile wholesale market, and a country heavily reliant on imported energy has created a perfect storm for fluctuating household bills," said Dr Craig Lowrey, principal consultant at Cornwall Insight.

He argued that there may be a case for re-examining the price cap system given it's not protecting households from global energy trends.

A typical annual bill will now be £1,717 from the autumn, with £45 forecast to be added to that in the new year.

Here in Money, we examined football shirt prices as the new Premier League season got under way...

For a fuller understanding of this story, watch this explainer put together by our digital video team...

Three more essential reads from Money that are worth checking out are...

We're signing out of regular updates now until after the bank holiday weekend - but do check out our weekend read from 8am on Saturday. This week we're examining whether the Nike trainers bubble has burst.

Lots of stories we've covered in Money over the last week or so prompted a flurry of comments. We'll start with the multiple updates we've done on Gail's...

Some readers were on board with the backlash but more couldn't see what the fuss was about...

Surprised the faux posh in Walthamstow 'village' would baulk at pricey offerings from Gail's. They already seem quite happy to pay up market prices at their existing Spar store without complaint. Pack of sausages with la-de-da ingredients nearly 6-quid. I ask you! Keith

Most places would be thrilled to have Gail's opening. Their food and bread is excellent as is their coffee, they have very attractive décor and bring a touch of class to any high street. Petalin

We also had a fair few who wondered why we were covering this story at all...

Who or what is Gail? Alangillie

When did Walthamstow become a 'leafy suburb'. Thought it was home to East17? And why does this constitute national news? Shops open and close all the time in areas all over the country. Does one of your editors live there and opposes it? I don't see how this is news at all. City boy

Sometimes our posts prompt questions rather than comments - such as the one below following our feature on Section 75 consumer rights...

I want to buy a car for £7,000 from a dealership. Have I got credit card consumer protection if I pay half cash and half on a credit card? Clive Blackpool

The answer is that, yes, you would be protected - even if you just pay 1p of it on credit card. Everything you need to know is here...

Lots of you got in touch following our Saturday feature on how couples split their finances...

Readers shared how they and their partners split things...

We divide all bills more or less equally. He earns a lot more than I do and keeps his money/savings to himself after 50 years of being together. I have absolutely no idea how much in savings he has and he won't share anything. Yes you are reading this correctly! CP

100% all money going into one account for bills, disposable income etc - we manage it all on one spreadsheet! Never had a disagreement ever after 13 years and we're only 30! Can't ever imagine going for dinner and someone saying 'I'll get this' - how do people do it? abbie s

My partner and I are discussing purchasing a property together. Our rule will be 50% of the mortgage each regardless of income as we are both 50% owners of the asset. Other bills we'll just decide based on income. Adam

I earn a lot more than my partner, so once our relationship was mature enough I put the difference into shared savings. Since having a child all money goes into a joint account except for a small allowance each. Financial equality is so important for a happy relationship. Linda

It's simple. I do not know what my wife earns, she does not know what I earn, we have separate [accounts]. We buy what we need and want, when we go out she pays one time I pay next, we do not even look at the bill. That way you have no problems. Cozy Powell

My partner earns around £60k more than me per year and we split our bills down the middle, however, he buys all the food for us and the pets and generally pays when we go out. I couldn’t ask him for extra, I manage just fine with the current arrangement. LHam

All outgoing were paid from a joint bank account which we paid into from our personal accounts, salary split at the start was roughly 60/40 so I would pay 60% of the total and my wife 40% (plus 10%), any money left in our individual accounts was our own. 58mprl

The post that led to the most consternation this week concerned the hiking of fines for parents taking kids out of school...

You said...

Why are the government not looking at the travel agents? My partner and I both work in a school. We have no children at school but we have to pay extortionate prices for our time away as we have to go in school holidays. Tony

If I choose to take my children out of school to go on holiday, because let's face it parents can save a lot of money when the holiday season is over. I am a single parent with two kids, I'm holding down two jobs. Andy Henderson

As a teacher, I understand the frustration many parents feel about the extortionate prices of holidays. It's disheartening to see families AND teaching staff not being able to afford a holiday. I also understand how difficult it is for a child to catch up on missed work. Mikki

Highly disagree with the term time holiday penalty. There are countries where parents can authorise up to five days of leave per year. A long weekend here and there, or a week-long trip once a year is not going to hinder a child's prospect! TermTimeTravel

Starbucks' incoming chief executive, Brian Niccol, is under fire over the company's offer for him to commute around 1,000 miles by private jet.

Social media users were quick to criticise the world's biggest coffee shop chain over the move in light of its sustainability efforts elsewhere, such as banning plastic straws.

Mr Niccol's job offer said he will not have to relocate to the company's headquarters in Seattle, Washington, from his family home in Newport Beach, California, when he takes up his new role on 9 September.

Read more here...

Storm Lilian is causing disruption to travellers and festival-goers ahead of the bank holiday weekend.

Two stages at Leeds Festival have closed for the day, the BBC Radio 1 Stage and Aux Stage.

British Airways has cancelled 14 flights from Heathrow and delayed others, while two flights from Leeds Bradford Airport were cancelled and three morning arrivals diverted to Liverpool.

The energy price cap increase has led to renewed calls for a winter fuel payment U-turn.

The government plans to means test the payment for pensioners, making it available only to those receiving pension credit.

But Caroline Abrahams, charity director at Age UK, said this was "reckless and wrong" and "spells disaster for pensioners on low and modest incomes" after the latest bad news for energy costs.

Shein found two cases of child labour in its supply chain last year, the fast fashion retailer has said.

The company's 2023 sustainability report, published yesterday, said it suspended orders from the suppliers that had employed children under 16.

Both cases had been "resolved swiftly", it said, with remediation steps including ending underage employees' contracts, arranging medical check-ups, and facilitating repatriation to parents or guardians as necessary.

"We remain vigilant in guarding against such violations going forward, and in line with current policies, will terminate any non-compliant suppliers," Shein said in the report.

Shein has stepped up audits of manufacturers in China to assuage criticisms of its low-cost business model ahead of a planned flotation.

It tightened its supplier policy last October after the child labour cases were found, so that any severe breaches - called "Immediate Termination Violations" - would result in ending the relationship with the supplier immediately.

Previously, suppliers such as those that employed minors had 30 days to resolve the issue, failing which Shein would cut ties.

It's time to check if you have any Tesco Clubcard vouchers close to expiring, as £14m worth are due to run out on Saturday.

Vouchers are only valid for two years from the date they were issued, so it's worth making sure you don't have any hidden away in your account.

To check online, go to the Tesco Clubcard website and select "Clubcard account" and then "Vouchers". 

 You should then be able to see a table listing your available vouchers and their expiry dates.

If you're using the Tesco app, open it up, go to "Clubcard" and then to the "Vouchers" section.

What to do with your vouchers?

You can spend your hard-earned vouchers either online or in person. 

Alternatively, you can double the value of your vouchers by spending them at Tesco's reward partners , including Disney+, RAC and Zizzi.

By James Sillars , business reporter

It's a tentative start to the day's trading on financial markets with the focus firmly on the United States. Jackson Hole in Wyoming, to be exact.

That is where the chair of the US central bank will make an eagerly anticipated speech in which he is widely expected to signal that the first interest rate cut by the Federal Reserve will come next month.

Jay Powell is, however, expected to temper market expectations for several rate cuts by the end of the year.

That could hamper recent progress against the US currency by the pound, which is currently trading at one-year highs versus the dollar at $1.31.

It could also hurt a rate-sensitive stock market, which is desperate for lower borrowing costs.

As such, the FTSE 100 is trading 0.2% up in early deals at 8,304.

Miners and energy stocks are leading the way on upticks in prices.

Brent crude oil stands at $77 a barrel.

The energy price cap limits what utility companies can charge customers for a daily standing charge and each kilowatt-hour of gas and electricity they use.

Regulator Ofgem releases the cap quarterly and estimates how much the average household would typically pay over a year at the new unit price.

This figure, £1,717, assumes a household with 2.4 people living in it consuming 2,700 kWh for electricity and 11,500 kWh for gas.

The real annual cost per customer will be different depending on how much energy you actually use. If you use more gas and electric than £1,717 buys, you will pay more.

With prices fluctuating significantly at each quarterly release over the last four years, the use of a yearly figure is also quite an imperfect basis for medium-term household budgeting.

Here's what is actually capped: 

• Each unit of electricity: 24.5p per kWh (up from 22.36p)
• Each unit of gas: 6.24p per kWh (up from 5.48p)
• Electric standing charge: 60.99p (up from 60.12p)
• Gas standing charge: 31.66p (up from 31.41p)

Ofgem's price cap only applies to people in England, Scotland and Wales on standard variable or default tariffs.

This is most households, whether you pay by direct debit or a prepayment meter.

It doesn't apply to the small numbers of people still on fixed-rate tariffs.

Another quarter, another energy price fluctuation to contend with - another change to make to your household budget.

But there are fixed deals available cheaper than the new price cap, according to Uswitch.

The average household can save £125 against October's price cap with the cheapest 12-month fixed tariff, said Richard Neudegg, director of regulation at Uswitch.

At £1,592 typically per anum, it would also stave off another small increase expected in January, he said. 

It is worth pointing out that it is in Uswitch's favour for people to move, and a fixed tariff could always end up costing you more if the price cap were to drop below that fixed rate in April and June next year.

"Customers staring down the barrel of winter might question whether the current price cap system is really the best way to put real pricing pressure on suppliers," said Mr Neudegg.

"It's important for households looking for certainty to run a comparison to see what's available to them and see personalised prices based on how much energy they are likely to use."

Here are the top 10 fixed energy-only tariffs that could help you beat the price rise, according to Uswitch:

Pensioners are being urged to check if they are eligible for the winter fuel allowance after universal payments were scrapped by new Chancellor Rachel Reeves last month.

Previously, the money was available to everyone above state pension age, but now it will be limited to people over state pension age who are receiving pension credit or other means-tested support.

It means the number of people entitled to the money will drop from 11.4 million to just 1.5 million.

The payment is £200 for households where the recipients are all under 80, and £300 where they are over 80.

While around 1.4 million pensioners are already receiving pension credit, there are up to an estimated 880,000 households eligible for the support who are yet to claim, the Department for Work and Pensions says.

The government's awareness drive will help identify households not claiming the benefit, and encourage pensioners to apply by 21 December - the last date for making a backdated claim for pension credit in order to receive the Winter Fuel Payment.

It will focus on "myths" that may stop people applying, such as how having savings, a pension or owning a home are not necessarily barriers to receiving pension credit.

More information on applying for pension credit can be found on the  government's How to Claim page .

Stockbroker AJ Bell says a price rise at the start of colder months is the "exact scenario" British households hoped was behind them - particularly pensioners.

Combined with the effects of two years of high inflation, residents are set to spend another winter watching "thermostats like a hawk", said head of financial analysis Danni Hewson.

Many pensioners, in particular, have already tried all the tricks available to keep bills down and will be left merely hoping temperatures stay mild, she added.

"For many people having to find an extra £149 a year will be akin to pouring fresh salt on healing wounds," Ms Hewson said.

"For around 10 million older people who are also faced with having to make do without their winter fuel payments, it adds insult to injury. 

"Some pensioners will be able to manage, but others will find the winter months particularly tough."

Energy costs will be £117 below those last Autumn, but will still be £675 higher than October 2020.

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