7 Reasons to Start Report Automation

Jul 17, 2020 ● 5 min read

Whether you operate as an international entity with worldwide product distribution or a digital, SAAS brand, generating and analyzing performance reports is extremely important. Reports which help identify pros and cons in your marketing strategy are necessary in order to better utilize the resources available at your disposal.

However, day-to-day workload, customer servicing, marketing, and product development rarely leave room for such report creation – which is what makes automation a genuine solution. 

According to 99 Firms, 55.6% of businesses don’t use automation due to a lack of expertise. With dedicated marketing and social media report tools such as Whatagraph, such solutions can be integrated into a business model in a matter of minutes. Additionally, over 75% of marketers see positive ROI within a year of delving into automation both in terms of marketing and subsequent report creation. 

This showcases a clear indication that reporting automation (and automation as a whole) can have beneficial effects on your company’s performance going further into 2020. That being said, let’s take a look at concrete reasons to do just that and start report automation within your own business going forward.

Higher Focus on Primary Workflow

One of the reasons why report automation is beneficial is because it leaves a lot of room to focus on what matters the most. In practice, this translates to content marketing, customer servicing, SEO, and other forms of maintaining your business at peak performance. According to HubSpot, 70% of companies report that an important benefit of automation is better-targeted customer communication, with 68% already using it in some capacity.

Once a report automation tool is implemented, your team will have more room to improve their primary workflow and deliver better services to customers. Scheduled reports can be generated based on your requirements, frequency, and channels of communication, making it easier to distribute said reports once they are created. All the while, your coworkers will have more free time to devote to business-related tasks rather than to often write marketing reports by hand.

Report Format Standardization

In order to make your reports as legible as possible, standardization should apply – which makes automated reports all the more useful in the long run. Automated marketing report tools allow for seamless standardization of generated data based on individual business’ needs. 

Once you’ve chosen which report automation features you require, you can also add visual styling elements to the template in order to brand subsequent documents. Also, writing platforms such as Trust My Paper, Evernote, Grab My Essay, and Canva for visuals can be used to further differentiate your automated reports. Data can then be manually sorted and extrapolated based on a specific marketing or business needs – based on standardized reports the process will be much smoother.

Access to In-Depth Data

No matter how experienced you may be with data analytics and marketing, you cannot make up for the sheer processing power of dedicated report software. Thus, implementing a report automation tool will instantly give you access to a wide range of data parameters that were previously inaccessible to your team. 

The minutia of calculating values based on custom parameters dating back as far as months or years, combined with custom filters is physically impossible. With a tool specifically designed to do just that, you will quickly gain insight into unexplored performance metrics and data extrapolations for your company’s benefit.

Early Bottleneck Identification

Minimizing the margin for error in your marketing and customer service sectors can become a reality thanks to reporting automation. But, an automated report tool can help you identify said bottlenecks as soon as they appear, leaving plenty of room to explore possible solutions. 

There is no denying that pitfalls and mistakes in judgment can happen when conducting business long-term. Detecting problematic marketing decisions, poor performance or customer satisfaction early will have highly positive effects on your business’ long-term wellbeing.

Streamlined Report Storage & Indexing

In the case of manual report generation, it’s quite easy to lose track of where you stored relevant data, or how to find what you need. Given that report automation tools are primarily cloud-based, you can safely store and index your reports based on different criteria without the worry of misplacement. Created reports are safely stored as soon as they are generated and you can collect as much data as you require given your business’ needs. 

Haley Simone, Data Analyst and Content Writer at Best Essays Education spoke on the topic: “You can never anticipate which piece of data you may need for an upcoming campaign. With short deadlines and high audience expectations on your shoulders, you should aim to create an intuitive data storage system, especially for performance reports. This will facilitate better decision making, lower your risk factors, and enable you to grow constantly as a marketer, content creator, and brand in general.”

Nullify Human Fallacy

The expertise of marketing specialists, writers, and content creators lies in creativity and ideation – not necessarily in manual data analysis and extrapolation. A slight dip in focus or subjectivity in judgment can make a marketing report inappropriate for further reference or genuine representation of a business’s performance. 

By integrating an automated marketing report tool into your workflow, you will effectively eliminate human fallacy from the process and facilitate a completely objective process. This allows for a more informed performance overview and leaves the creative data analysis part of the process up to human marketing experts. Such a division of duties between human and machine-based marketing reports will gradually lead to better ROI outcomes.

Gain a Competitive Edge

When it comes to positioning your brand against others in the industry, you should use every tool at your disposal to outrank the competition. Thus, marketing report automation, with its ability to speed up everyday workflow and increase ROI, is just the solution for you. 

Whether your competition uses automation or not, you should adopt it sooner rather than later to gain a competitive edge. With AI technologies, automation, and streamlined decision-making becoming industry norms, don’t wait for dips in brand performance before you decide to upgrade your business’ pipeline.

Key Takeaways

No matter the scale at which you operate or your current marketing goals, report automation can elevate your brand’s performance to new heights. The reasons to implement such a toolset into your workflow are numerous, ranging from more efficient time management to better competitive positioning on the market. 

Integrating report automation can bring new life to your marketing strategy and enable you to service customers in a more informed and meaningful manner. Give report automation a shot before dismissing it as a passing trend – which it undoubtedly is not, as many international companies already use it daily. Before you know it, your business model will have transformed for the better thanks to automated reports.

Written by Whatagraph team

The Whatagraph blog team produces high-quality content on all things marketing: industry updates, how-to guides, and case studies.