It's also often hidden three layers deep in your corporate website and presented in only a single, long-form format. Hopefully, hard copies are no longer piled up under an office desk at least...
So we're asking our clients - if this was your most important consumer product release of the year, how would you do it?
As a minimum, it would include a substantial promotional campaign - including a digital home that sells its key features and brings it to life through film. It would take over your website home page and social channels. You would proactively promote it to your most important customers across a range of channels - wherever they 'live' online. The campaign would span months, not hours or days, and you would measure its effectiveness and adjust tactics according to what works best.
Why not do the same with the Annual Report? Create an easy-to-understand digital version [see related article] that introduces the report and communicates the key messages and performance. Use film to give Leadership a platform to lead, bring stories from the year to life, or animation to explain the business model. Promote it across your corporate channels over an extended period - using assets from the report to engage and drive audiences back to the website. Target your key stakeholders through social channels - from investors to customers or ESG analysts - with content relevant to each group. Measure the campaign – what content or types of creative assets get the most engagement? Learn, adapt and improve.
The summer is often the time when companies start planning their next reporting cycle. If this is you, then start thinking now about how you can maximise the impact of all the work coming over the next few months... and plan to launch your next Annual Report as you would do a product.
If you have any questions about launching your next Annual Report please speak to Rick Sellers, Partner, Digital Strategy.
*Source: If investors were in charge of reporting
On a scale of 1-10, where 1 is not at all important and 10 is very important, 9.4 is the average score for how important investors say it is to have a good quality annual report.