14 MSL Insights Report Templates Ready to Impact Strategy
Many MSL teams struggle to create effective insights reports that motivate internal stakeholders to act. Common complaints include that reports are confusing, too long, and hard to digest. In other words, internal stakeholders do not know what to do with this information or which actions to take. The result is that insights collected by MSLs go to waste and do not impact strategy.
Creating insights reports that articulate what insights mean help ensure that insights are used by internal stakeholders to drive strategy and improve decision making. The secret is to make reports that:
are concise
clearly explain how the insight data presented impacts strategy
suggest actions to take
We have you covered with these 14 report templates designed to help MSL teams create insights reports that are ready to impact strategy. These templates are designed to present different types of insights data in a clear manner with a focus on how insights impact strategy.
Be creative and make these templates your own. Tweak them as needed and of course, use them with your organization’s branded slide deck 😊. Keep reading to see some of these templates in action.
Examples of MSL insights reports that impact strategy
As outlined in this article on how to create effective insights reports, its key to include high-level summaries. Always include key takeaways or an executive summary, as well as, recommended actions (this means on every slide, see Figure 1 for an example). Your internal stakeholders do not have the same knowledge and background that you or the MSL team has. It is important to keep this mind when crafting summaries and slides. Don’t make assumptions about what they know.
Figure 1: Example slide illustrating how to articulate what insights data means, the impact on strategy and recommended actions (red box). Notice that a summary of the chart is included (red arrow). Including this information in MSL insights reports will make it easier for internal stakeholders to understand the importance and what action should be taken. Added bonus: when the MSL teams looks back at this report it will be easy to remember why this report was created and the impact. This template is included in the download. Download it here and customize to your internal stakeholder’s needs.
Here is another example (Figure 2) of survey results with free-text insights to give more color to the data and help highlight why it is important.
Figure 2: Example slide summarizing survey results (left) from an insights initiative on perceptions of clinical trial data with free-text insights to add the human touch to the report (right). The key takeaway with a recommendation is included below the graph (red box). Including the summary will help stakeholders understand what this information means and why it is important.
Conclusions
Creating MSL insights reports that impact strategy starts with understanding your stakeholder’s needs and presenting data in a format that is easy to follow. Outlining the impact on strategy and recommending actions helps ensure that stakeholders understand why it matters. When they understand the importance they are more likely to take action.
Don’t forget to collect feedback from internal stakeholders on insights reports. Ask them what they liked, how they used the information, and for ways to improve. Keep track of this feedback and be sure to share with MSLs. This will help close the loop and avoid MSLs feeling like insights “go into a blackhole.”
Additional Resources
Need help creating an actionable insights report, with insights analysis or how to create your insights workshop? Check out these additional resources or get in touch (we are here to help!):