We’ve been writing annual reviews (annual reports) for more than 15 years. In that time, we’ve gained a great deal of experience across financial services, as well as range of other sectors. However, beyond the vast experience of our 25 senior-level writers, it’s our tried-and-tested methodology that guarantees an outcome both we, and our clients can be proud of.
We’ve refined our annual review writing process over many years, and we know it works because it has proven reliable, time and again. It’s the reason our writers have worked with some of the world’s biggest brands and why clients come back to us, year after year.
We’ve set our process here, so you can see exactly how we work, and you know what to expect from us as a partner.
Our process
1.Initial consultation: We start off as we mean to go on, in close collaboration with your team. That means an in-depth discussion to understand what you want to achieve with the report. This gets us off on the right foot, quickly building rapport between your people and our writer. Most importantly, it helps your annual review copywriter understand your requirements and objectives in detail.
2. Collecting and understanding data: The writer will then gather all relevant pre-existing information and analyse it to ensure accuracy and relevance. What do we need? Usually the last annual review, analysts’ overviews, key press releases, the brand’s most recent investor presentation, exec speeches and communications.
3. Interview process: Following this, your copywriter will organise and undertake a series of interviews with the company’s senior executives to gather their views. Our writer will discuss questions with your team prior to the interview and provide a questionnaire if necessary. This is a crucial foundation with annual review writing.
4. Core message and theme development: In close collaboration with your people, we’ll define and develop the central theme (core message) of the report. We’ll set out, with a short explanation, the key idea the brand would like readers to take away from reading the report. This core message will be used to guide theme development. This will be done in collaboration with the design agency. We’ll work together to create written elements (such as the headlines) and with visual ideas – with clear rationales – that work with the central theme.
5. Writing and feedback: Once the core message and theme are agreed, we’ll commence the annual review writing. To make sure we’re on track form the start, we’ll deliver sections incrementally, so you can feedback, ensuring your expectations are met. Following your feedback the writer will redraft as necessary.
6. Shareholder letter: For this vital part of the process, we’ll re-interview the Chief Exec, before drafting the letter and addressing any feedback.
7. Delivery: Your annual review copywriter will re-visit the initial data, interviews and agreed them – sense checking all of this against the final document. This ensures the final report is polished, professional, and conforms to your corporate tone of voice.
8. Finalisation: Once the annual review has been designed, our eagle-eyed proofreader will perform a deep-dive check, to ensure there are no errors before you publish. Proofreading is a multi-stage process, covering text, numerical data and design elements. This is followed by a second-stage proofing, to check for any errors, post-redesign.
By implementing this proven methodology, we can guarantee gold-standard annual review writing, that fulfils your legal obligations, works hard for your brand and leaves readers with a rich sense of what really matters to the business.
Get in touch today to discuss your next annual review
