Published every year, Annual Report is a document that companies share to disclose their financial year’s operational and financial performance. Started off as a pure financial document, Annual Reports have now evolved to look more visually appealing and able to amplify the Company’s brand position and future strategies with added sections such as Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) information. The key to any successful and impactful annual report is the ability to tell a good story that engages and strengthens the Company’s market foothold.

Like any other wordy documents, Annual Reports may easily be hindered by clunky texts and heavy content. To avoid that, it is important to know how to spice up your Company’s Annual Report. One of the ways would be through story telling. So, where do you start? Let’s get into the steps.

Choosing the Right Theme: Every Annual Report usually starts with a concept or a theme. It could be related to what your Company does, or a message you are trying to convey to the target audience. A strong theme can align with your Company’s core values, or can showcase your Company’s strengths and prowess. As first impression counts (a lot!), a strong themeline with a visual that matches it on the cover page can set the tone of the story, enticing your target audience to read on, especially when it comes to potential investors or stakeholders.

Crafting a Strong Narrative: With the theme chosen, now it’s time to craft your content. Putting your content in a narrative structure would allow for readers to get invested in what your Company has delivered and what they can look forward in the short and long run. How does your theme tie into how your Company did for the financial year? Were there any significant milestones, strategies implemented or projects delivered? Set the tone and build up slowly…

Investing in Meaningful Visuals: Pictures are always a great way to grab anyone’s attention. Investing in meaningful visuals, especially those relatable to the theme or the Company’s story, can personalise your Annual Report, making it stand out from the rest. Coupled with a modern and a little twist of creative layout, beautifully crafted copywriting, nicely touched-up images and eye-catching graphs and charts, they can make infomration easier for readers to digest and pleasing to they eyes. Even a simple thing like a growth timeline or an infographic is enough to make your Annual Report looks more interesting.

Thorough Quality Proofreading: Nothing looks more unprofessional than a glaring mistake on an official document. From misaligned paragraphs and images, to misspelled words, all of these have the potential to turn someone away from your content. It is always good to always make sure that the entire annual report is coherent, be it the formats, colours, font types or font sizes, they should be consistent throughout and clearly presented.