A Practical Guide to Reporting Marketing to Boards
Presenting marketing performance to boards and senior leadership.
Samir Haddad
The key figures
- Business framing
- boards care about revenue, pipeline and efficiency
- Consistency
- metric definitions must not change between meetings
- Context
- market conditions shape interpretation
- Forecasts
- boards need forward view, not only history
Why this is worth getting right
Board reporting needs business framing, not channel metrics, and the translation is where most reports fail.
Do this, not that
Do
- Lead with business outcomes
- Keep definitions stable between reports
- Explain external factors affecting results
- Include forward view and risks
- Keep detail available but out of the main report
Don’t
- Channel metrics as the headline
- Definitions changed between meetings
- History with no forward view
- Twenty slides of platform screenshots
When to bring in help
Our advice Bring in help when marketing reporting loses the room.
Where this comes from
- U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission — Investor publications
- U.S. Small Business Administration — Marketing and sales
The figures and practices above come from the sources listed.
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Where to go next
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