Annual reports are not just for compliance anymore but can be a powerful marketing tool. It can raise awareness of your brand, highlight your achievements, and build trust with your stakeholders. But too often, annual reports are dry, boring, full of jargon and errors.
Done right, your annual report can be a valuable piece of your marketing strategy. Here are a few tips to help you get the most out of your annual report.
3 main goals faced by annual report
- fulfilment of legal requirements (law)
- encourage shareholders to continue investing (sale)
- attracting potential investors (sale)
While achieving the first goal is fairly obvious, most companies neglect the other two. And this is a mistake!
Your potential investors and the present shareholders are the primary audiences. The annual report (as well as periodic ones, e.g., quarterly) is your sales letter and business card. It’s your business proposition for investors to invest and something that makes shareholders continue to support your company.
The way business results are presented can discourage more than poor business results. Even low performance, presented properly, can sell. Great results designed messy and disrespectful will not bring investors’ money into the company. Like the tastiest chocolate with gold pieces but wrapped in an old newspaper won’t sell.
It’s no coincidence that the largest funds have carefully designed annual reports. They don’t do it because they can afford it. They do it because it pays off well.
Ugly true or costly mistakes when designing an annual report
So, how hard can it be to design annual report? At first glance, it seems simple. Just take the data from the finance department, drop it into MS Word, bold the titles, number the pages and you’re done. Of course, you can do that if you want to wrap delicious chocolate in an old newspaper. Surely everyone will buy it…. oh wait, they won’t.
No title page, no company address and contact information, no details of responsible and contact persons. No letter to shareholders and potential investors, no presentation of the company.
Unreadable text, broken fonts, lack of margins, lack of paragraphs, lack of headings and mid-headings, lack of graphics, spelling errors and typos. Unreadable tables. The data difficult to find and understand.
Document not suitable for printing. Ugly formatting. Hard to display on website and computer. Provided in an unprotected (!) and editable MS Word file containing microdata about the company (hackers are happy), sometimes bloked by antivirus programs, instead of the widely accepted PDF standard…
’90 welcome to! All this makes the impression that you want to hide something. Do you? Even if you want to, no one needs to know about it…
You are building nothing but an image of an amateur who does not respect his customers – shareholders and investors. An amateur with whom money is not safe.
Time (and money) well spent: crafting an effective annual report
An annual report can be a powerful marketing tool if used correctly. It is an opportunity to tell your companyâs story and showcase your achievements. It can also be used to build relationships with investors, analysts, and other key stakeholders. Don’t want to miss this opportunity!
If you are thinking of using your annual report as a marketing tool, there are a few things to keep in mind.
- Make sure that the report is clear, concise, visually appealing, and working. It should be easy to read and understand, with strong visuals that help tell your story.
- Focus on the key messages you want to convey. What do you want your readers to remember about your company?
- Lastly, make sure to distribute the report widely. Send it to your mailing list, post it on your website, and share it on social media. By doing so, youâll maximize its reach.
Itâs your moment to shine, time to show stakeholders all youâve reached in the last year. And don’t start to late! An annual report is not something you want to rush especially since it’s a time-consuming.
Make your annual report a powerful fundraising tool for the year to follow
As you can see, nice design is not enough here. First of all, there is a need sales, marketing and technical knowledge. Most designers don’t have it.
We are different here, we come from business and sales. We have the right degrees and many years of experience in marketing and design. We know what sells.
We can help you with all of this and with less expense and trouble than you think. We will guide you step by step and design your content to be high-quality, professional and attract.
Letâs work together
There are two main options:
- we can design an annual report for you, you may get a print-ready version and a web version
- or we can consult your current layout on what needs to be improved (perhaps nothing, perhaps everything).
Just contact us to learn more about your options: Contact@AlphaLupiMedia.com
You can use contact form as well: https://alphalupimedia.com/contact/
And if you’re not sure what you need, just write ‘I’m iterested in report design’. We will ask you follow-up questions to know your needs better and offer you the best options.
âAccording to DMI study, companies with a strong design outperform companies with a weak design by 219% on the S&P Index. Business design thinking is more than just about aesthetics! It’s about money.â
$ PS. A periodic report is a very individual document. It is impossible to determine pricing and scope of work without knowing your needs. Just write to us! We will find the best solution for you.
