Marketing reporting is dead

Sometimes you have to take radical action to stay true to yourself and do the right thing. And sometimes that means burning it up and getting back to basics. 

I started Wit Digital in 2014 after learning how SEO worked at my mortgage firm. Back then, we were called Seequs. 

I was amazed how well SEO could work for local businesses. I wanted to build a business and a legacy based on SEO and that’s what I set out to do. 

After almost 10 years, a rebrand, and massive growth, a lot has changed but one thing hasn’t: 

Our clients still get the highest quantity and quality leads from SEO, and it’s still our bread and butter. 

We decided early on to focus on home service businesses because after dealing with a few of them, it was clear they were being underserved and getting screwed over by our industry.

That was an awesome choice and to this day, all of our clients (except for a few close friend’s businesses) are home service companies.

But on our path to growth, we lost our way.

Deviate from values, pay the price

Growing a business is all about the decisions you make on the daily.

You can’t stress wrong decisions you’ve made.

The best thing you can do is learn from the mistakes and keep moving forward right?

Not long after I started this company, reporting became a thing. A HUGE thing. 

It became the marketing industry standard to provide glossy, beautiful reports to clients. At first this was super exciting- what better way to serve our clients than to deliver professional reports that showcase everything?

People say marketers ruin everything

Soon, reports grew into freaking novels. 15 pages of green arrows, graphs, pie charts, breakdowns and honestly…

Quite a bit of bullshit.

Marketing companies started using these reports to bury info clients really wanted to see, but they were afraid to show. Or taking out useful data because they knew they’d be outed if the clients saw it.

We thought glossy reporting would help us stay competitive. 

We thought it would help our clients.

Don’t follow the pack- lead it

We noticed fancy reporting wasn’t helping anybody understand reality, and they weren’t helping our client relationships either.

If anything, they were confusing as hell- even when we tried our best to simplify them. 

I kept thinking: “How can we get this stuff down to just one page?”  And I wondered if that was even possible.

Turns out, we were dead wrong on following this industry standard, and it was time for us to call ourselves out on our own BS. 

I realized we had succumbed to the pressures of our industry and what everyone else was doing. We had lost our way and strayed from our values. 

Now I’m happy to let you know, I’m a killer.

I killed misleading data.

I killed bullshit green arrows with empty call boards.

I killed lack of accountability.

I killed smokescreens.

I killed reporting.

We realized we had gone astray on our true path. The one with accountability, transparency, and communication on it.

Doing what’s right is one of our company values, and to stay true to that, we had to get rid of reporting the way everyone else was doing it.

But don’t worry. We went back to basics, and everyone is freaking loving it.

We show clients their marketing data just like a monthly P&L. They get to see real results based on their data from their CRM, not data they don’t trust. 

In one glance:

• How marketing is affecting your bottom line (in real dollars)
• Marketing projections vs actuals- real time
• Actual # of calls delivered 
• KPIs YOU choose 

Reporting doesn’t have to be complicated. It can be dead simple and still massively grow your business.

I’m a report killer. And I’m damn proud of it,

Stephen