Project managing an Annual Report can feel like a never ending series of hurdles. From gathering content to agreeing a design, sourcing imagery and making sense of the finances, overseeing this process is a huge undertaking.
Our experience on more than 100 Annual Reports has taught us to ‘keep calm and carry on’ whatever the challenge and we support our clients every step of the way – even when they need to take a holiday!
Over the next couple of months, we’ll be sharing what we’ve learned in this evolving blog. We hope it will help both novice and experienced managers clear these Annual Report hurdles, with confidence.
Making your Annual Report work harder
Now that you have found your perfect design partner, a great deal of executive time and energy is going to be invested in your Annual Report. How will you guarantee you are getting good value for money? We believe that by making some smart decisions early on in the production process you can ensure your publication has a long shelf-life and multiple uses.
Annual Reports are rarely read cover to cover and people increasingly demand their information in bite-sized chunks. For this reason, you could choose a format which encourages your reader to keep your report for longer; perhaps include a diary as part of the layout or add in a notebook section at the end.
If you treat the statutory accounts as a separate publication it could release other parts of your review for broader marketing and fundraising purposes. This will give you greater freedom to think outside the box in terms of format – perhaps you could consider a poster or even a calendar for the main review?
Our final tip would be to reflect on how you might use your Annual Report resources after publication. Digital marketing enables you to share photographs, illustrations, infographics and written material on your social media, blogs and website. Thinking about about these channels and their audiences when commissioning your creative suppliers could provide you with much needed digital content for the rest of the year.
Next hurdle coming up: Let’s make data sexy