How to Use Data Visualisation to Improve Marketing Reporting
As businesses continue to gather a large amount of data, the need for effective visualisation has become increasingly more important. Data visualisation helps businesses to analyse and understand complex data set quickly to help make strategic decisions. In the field of marketing, data visualisation plays a critical role in in analytics reports, enabling marketers to interpret and present data in a meaningful and compelling way. We use data visualisation at our core of decision making to help our clients identify and capitalise on key trends and insights. In this article, we’ll explore how data visualisation in marketing reporting has become essential, which common mistakes to avoid and what the best practices are.
Today we live in a world where data is everywhere. We rely on data analytics to make informed decisions to help our lives and businesses. Data analytics collects, analyses and interprets large amounts of data to gain insights and patterns that can help us optimise for efficiency and for businesses, ultimately profitability.
That said, data should be presented in a meaningful and easily understood way to make the most impact. This is where data visualisation comes into play. It helps stakeholders understand the data presented, allowing people to communicate complex data insights effectively and make decisions faster. In this article, we’re exploring the importance of data analytics and the various techniques that will help businesses present their data more effectively.
The Benefits of Data Visualisation
With large amounts of data presented to us, it can remain challenging to understand what meaningful insights it has to show us. Data visualisation helps to simplify complex data sets, making it easier for stakeholders to understand what it’s trying to tell us and derive a decision quicker. The use of charts, graphs and other visual tools can represent data in an easily accessible way that helps to spot trends, patterns and outliers faster. Overall data visualisation helps streamline decision-making processes.
There are various ways in which we can present our data, from dashboards to infographics. Dashboards help provide an instant overview of KPIs, enabling your business to see in an instance how it’s performing. Infographics are used to convey complex data insights in an easily digestible and visually appealing way. The tools can help make it understandable for a larger audience resulting in better business outcomes. There are many automation tools which can help you save time and effort by automatically generating reports, allowing your team to prioritise analysing the data instead of data entry.
Creating Effective Data Visualisations
The most common data visualisations include line charts showcasing trends over time such as website traffic. Bar charts are used to compare different values such as sales figures from last year. Pie charts are best used for percentages such as budget allocation and scatter plots show the relationship between two variables. This could be for example age and income. Lastly, heat maps are a great tool to show the distribution of data across a geographical map. In marketing, this could for example be website traffic by location.
When creating data visualisation, there are several tips to keep in mind to make sure the information is clearly displayed. Again, the point is to make the data easily digestible.
Use colour wisely: Colour can detract or draw attention to specific data points, so it is important to stick to a colour palette that is not overwhelming or confusing.
Use design principles: Naturally, the data needs to be easily read therefore balance, contrast and alignment are critical for data visualisation.
Create visual hierarchy: Visual hierarchy refers to arranging your elements of importance. This helps guide the viewer so that your overall message is conveyed more precisely.
Keep it simple: Avoid clutter and complex design. In data visualisation less is more.
Use the right graphs and charts: There is a big difference between bar charts and pie charts therefore make sure to understand what tool is best to express what you are trying to convey.
Provide context: Especially when the data is given to a wider audience, you do not always have the time to explain what the visuals mean. Therefore adding the appropriate labels, insights and annotations is crucial.
Test and refine: Just like with marketing strategies, test and refine which visuals help communicate your message more effectively. This could be done by asking for feedback from different departments and seeing how people interact with the data visualisation.
How Data Visualisation Enhances Business Intelligence
Data visualisation helps companies identify problem areas, monitor performance and track progress towards business goals. It helps empower people to make more strategic decisions, improve operational efficiency and drive business growth.
Ultimately, it helps identify patterns, trends and outliers that may not have been made immediately apparent from the raw data. The quick comparisons and assessments of different data sets can help further facilitate the interpretation process.
Using Data Visualisation in Marketing Reporting
Data can improve marketing reporting by:
Identifying trends and patterns to see which marketing campaigns are performing well and driving the most conversions;
Communicate complex data into understandable and accessible data that allows for easier investment decisions;
Compare performance across channels and campaigns in one single dashboard allowing companies to identify which are most effective and where they should focus their efforts on;
Monitor KPIs over time, allowing marketers to identify any changes in performance;
Forecast future performance by using historical data to make more accurate predictions.
At Tashi Hati, we use a customised dashboard per client, including real-time metrics, campaign performance data and KPIs to show all stakeholders a high-level overview of how the company is doing. We also use infographics to simplify large amounts of data. Lastly, we use data visualisation to track the performance of our A/B tests and social media management strategies which are taught in our training workshops so that your employees can leverage the power of data visualisation as well.
Common Mistakes in Data Visualisation
When creating data visualisations, it’s important to avoid the wrong type of visualisation leading to confusion or even misinterpretation. Cluttered data sets also make it difficult to gain a clear overview along with poor design choices. By implementing our tips above, you’ll be along the way to making more well-informed decisions about the direction of your company.
The Wrap Up
Data visualisation is essential for any business to make well-informed decisions. With large amounts of data presented to us continuously, we help to understand complex data sets, track metrics and make data-driven decisions which are at the core of what Tashi Hati does. Avoid common mistakes by using the right design principles and visuals to communicate your data clearly to enable meaningful insights and actionable outcomes to be derived. Data visualisation is a vital tool in today’s business success.