From Spotify Wrapped to this week’s Strava Year in Sport Trend Report, 2023 recaps and 2024 predictions have dominated marketing for the past month or so.

But what are the benefits to these recaps? Should your brand do one? And how do you do it?

How reports build your brand authority

Show market leadership – By releasing an annual report, you mark your brand out as a thought leader in your niche. If done well, it can become a reference point that publications look for each year. Within two days of being released, Strava’s report has coverage from all of the major publications in its space. Runner’s World, GCN, Cycling Weekly. These are publications that will have journalists waiting to write about the contents of Strava’s report, because they know people are interested.

Shareability – People love being able to share their activities from the previous year, seeing their journeys or the things that have shaped their lives that year. If you’re able to package data from individuals into something that they can share, you’re guaranteed to get people talking. You don’t need a ‘fun’ service like Spotify or Strava, just look at the amount of conversations that Monzo and Just Eat generated with their end of year user summaries.

Audience analysis – You should be analysing consumer data anyway, but collecting information from across a full year for a survey is a good opportunity to take a deep dive into the trends appearing across your user base. Is a new behaviour emerging? Think about how you can adapt your offering to cater to this behaviour.

Should your brand do it?

If you’re in a position to be able to comment on trends in your industry then it could be a good idea, especially if you have sufficient internal data to analyse trends. For example, if you run a company that makes custom skis and you sell 30 per year, your sample size isn’t big enough to discuss market trends based on your own data. All is not lost though, as below we’ll discuss options for reports that don’t rely on internal data.

It doesn’t need to be an all-singing, all-dancing animated affair with funky graphics, the barrier to entry is lower than you think. If your data/predictions/analysis is valuable, a simple onsite press release with a downloadable pdf if you want to include that will be enough to get people reading.

How do you do it?

As we’ve alluded to above, how you build out your annual report really depends on the aims of your business, how much consumer data you have available, and who you want the report to appeal to.

If your brand has access to internal data around customer activities and behaviours (that you have the rights to share), then you could assess the trends that have emerged over the year. This kind of report in particular lends itself to shareability, as you’re directly analysing consumer behaviour.

If your brand is consumer-facing but doesn’t have a lot of data available to analyse, then an alternative is to launch a survey. This can show wider consumer attitudes and habits, and isn’t limited to your own customer base, but will often involve commissioning a third party to carry out the survey.

Finally, if your business is B2B, you don’t have proprietary data and you don’t want to go down the path of a survey, there are two options for internal thought leadership when it comes to a report. You can look back at the previous year and discuss the trends that have emerged during the past year, or make predictions about the year ahead in your industry.

If you do choose to look back at the trends that have emerged, it is important to discuss them in the context of the coming year. It’s easy to talk about something everyone has seen, but talking about the future impact of these trends is what will give your brand authority and keep people interested in the report.

Conclusion

So there you have it. Reports can be a great, and cost-effective, way to build authority in you brand’s niche. No matter the nature of your business, using the end of start of the year as a chance to discuss industry trends and consumer behaviour can get people talking about your brand.

The best bit is that you can build on these reports year on year, or even turn it into a quarterly report. Each year you assess your data, you can make comparisons and discuss how your industry is evolving, and you’ll also benefit from the fact that more people will be expecting and looking forward to your report.

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