Generating Year-Round Value from your Annual Report

By taking a multi-channel approach to publishing your story, including your corporate website, social media channels and internal communications, you can use your annual report as a powerful stakeholder engagement tool throughout the year.

We know how much time and effort goes into creating a great annual report. So, when the document doesn’t get the attention it deserves, we see this as a tragedy. It’s important to have a plan that ensures your stakeholders see, read and share your report. By repurposing content in other formats for different platforms, you can get more value for your efforts, and achieve a better outcome overall.

Some companies take a multi-channel approach to the publication of their annual report. They craft a campaign of actions that makes their story and successes more visible to their audience, increasing readership of their annual report content.

The most common channel of communication around annual reports, besides the investor relations website itself, is LinkedIn. Publication day is announced to stakeholders via hyperlinked posts with an image or infographic. Posts linked to particular sections of the report, including the Overview and Sustainability sections, are also common.

Ocado and British Land have taken their publication announcements one step further, releasing video content on YouTube and LinkedIn. These videos are visual, compelling vehicles for storytelling that showcase the key themes of the annual report.

Estée Lauder Companies have found ways to use Instagram in their annual report campaign. They have generated interest in the document by posting infographics that spotlight key areas of the annual report and highlights of the year. Mixed into the grid with charitable giving and diversity and inclusion campaigns, these posts help to create a cohesive, overwhelmingly positive overall impression of the group.

Many listed businesses will also create a digital interactive version or summary of their annual report for their investor relations website. These summaries (sometimes known as Year in Reviews) are a quick and engaging way for stakeholders to digest the annual report content.

Using social media, video content and interactive summaries can create a real buzz around your annual report. However, these actions tend to be limited to a window of time around the publication date. After which, the annual report fades into the background of investor communications.

So how can you get more value from your annual report beyond publication time?

From videos summarising key messages, to factsheets, newsletters and case studies released at regular intervals, your annual report content can have a much longer shelf life than you might think.

As with any corporate communications campaign, your IR team needs to start with a clear strategy and set of goals. They will need to consider which bits of the annual report can be repurposed, who their target audience is for each campaign element, and how best to reach them.

By using different elements of your annual report in marketing and communications throughout the year, you can:

• Generate more value from an expensive and time-consuming document, reusing or repurposing elements including infographics, case studies and key messages.
• Reinforce your corporate story including your mission, vision and purpose.
• Draw readers into the rest of your reporting, leaving them with a memorable story that motivates them to act, as an investor, a customer or an employee.
• According to a report from PwC, narrative content from your annual report can “support the creation of a more commercially attractive and differentiated picture of the business, which can lead to better investor understanding and improved stakeholder relationships.”.
• Drive more traffic to your corporate site and develop other ways of measuring engagement including followers and likes, which then…
• Encourages stronger collaboration between your Investor Relations and Marketing departments.

If you would like to discuss how Jones and Palmer can help you to increase engagement with your annual report throughout the year, please get in touch.