Smarter Week

How to automate it

How to automate “compile coverage and comms reports”

Here are 2 ways to spend less time on this, best first. Each comes with steps you can follow today and, for AI fixes, a prompt to copy.

90 min
typically, once a month
65%
of the time can be automated
Easy
to set up

Fix 1 of 2

Software featureBest fix

Let a monitoring tool collect mentions and build the coverage report

Google Alerts, Talkwalker Alerts, Muck Rack, Meltwater, Brand24 or Sprout Social listening gather mentions automatically and many export a coverage report.

Typically saves about 55% of the time45 min to set up
  1. 1Set up alerts for your brand, executives, products and key topics.
  2. 2Send them to a daily digest or a Slack or Teams channel, not your inbox.
  3. 3Use the tool's coverage report or export; have AI summarize sentiment and themes.
  4. 4Keep a short list of mentions that need a response.

Tools: Google Alerts · Talkwalker Alerts · Muck Rack · Meltwater · Brand24 · Sprout Social listening

Fix 2 of 2

AI

Have AI write the "what happened and why" summary

The numbers are the easy part; the commentary takes the time. Paste this period and last period and AI drafts the summary for you to correct.

Typically saves about 50% of the time5 min to set up
  1. 1Export the numbers for this period and the last.
  2. 2Paste them with the prompt below, plus anything you know that changed (budget, launches).
  3. 3Correct anything it misreads and add your judgment.
  4. 4Paste it at the top of your report.
Prompt to copy
Here are our marketing results for [THIS PERIOD] and [LAST PERIOD]: [PASTE TABLE]. Context: [CHANGES, LAUNCHES, BUDGET SHIFTS]. Write a summary for [AUDIENCE] in under 200 words: three biggest changes with numbers, likely reasons based only on the context given, and two recommended actions. Flag any metric that looks like a tracking error.

Tools: ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini or Microsoft Copilot · Copilot in Excel or Gemini in Sheets

Who does this task

Roles in our library that list this as one of their common tasks. Each guide covers the rest of that role’s week.

PR / Communications

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Other common tasks for PR / Communications teams