Market research involves a lot of data and details. It’s the job of your reporting to synthesize all of that into actionable stories. To reliably connect the dots, it’s important for reporting deliverables to meet your end user where they are.

Reporting isn’t just about the facts but about making the findings approachable to your audience. Understanding who is using the report, what they’re trying to accomplish with the research and how they’re going to use it can help determine the best kind of deliverable(s). What a researcher needs out of a report vs. a CEO vs. an ad agency can vary widely. Reporting that helps socialize findings can be quite different than reporting that you might want for detailed decision-making. The how of the matter is just as important as getting the audiences and their motivations right. Knowing whether deliverables are going to be shared electronically or in-person can have a great impact on building the right report.

Managing your audience's attention span is key to communicating the whole story in a world increasingly measured in messaging’s number of characters and concerns of scrolling fatigue. Knowing when to say “enough” on how much you show in your deliverables can help you connect your findings and audience in a more meaningful way. More is not always more.

Showing only what is important to meet the objectives instead of everything can provide clarity. If there are multiple audiences with differing needs then having multiple, tailored, deliverables can be far more effective than trying to make one report that is everything to everyone. Identifying your audience and the decisions and actions they are hoping to accomplish can help choose deliverables that provide the right level of detail to engage them in overall strategy to tactical execution.

Once you know what you need to show and to whom, you can determine the format your deliverable(s) should take. Not all file types are created equally. Complex charting, very visual infographics, and video reporting all come in their optimum file types and sizes. Knowing the limitations of the different file formats can help you build reporting that works from concept to delivery.

When deliberating about the right deliverable for you, consider these factors when choosing the type and format deliverable to meet your audience’s expectations:

Finding the right fit for the function can contribute as much to the success of your reporting as the content that you share. Having the conversation about how and what you report early can help a project reach all of its goals.