Best practice trends in investor branding
2 MARCH 2011
Insight Creative

Insight's newsletter on IR communication trends
Hi

Over the next few weeks, we’re updating you on current best-practice thinking in this fast-evolving area of your business.

In this issue, we’ll talk about

HTML Annual Reports – the new best practice

There was an article recently that said small children can now use a computer before they can tie their own shoes. Amazing to think that the whole online phenomenon has only been mainstreamed over the last 15 years or so.

Nevertheless, today, many people, including investors, head online for the information they’re looking for and, as we discussed last time, increasingly that means providing that detail in more sophisticated formats.

In future issues:

  • Is once a year enough these days?
  • One-way communication – or a dialogue?
  • The rise & rise of social media. You can run, but you cannot hide
  • Starting the dialogue: Investor blogs and their cousins
  • What makes a good shareholder review?
  • Is your IR website good enough?
  • Yes, but is it an Investor Brand?
  • Pitched just right: checking the tone
  • Is online enough?
  • Pushing and pulling: the new communications dynamic
  • The megatrend of CSR

Previous issues:

Making the most of your web annual report

In our last issue, we talked about the various methods of delivering your annual report online, and reported the significant international shift away from PDF-only delivery and page-turner JPGs towards full HTML annual reviews and reports, and the fact that the swing is fast reaching tipping point.

So, if you’re venturing into HTML Report territory, what are some of the benefits, opportunities, and what are some of the things to think about?

 

The Benefits

  • More rapid viewing
  • Key messages can be made more engaging and credible through video
  • Improved user experience through interactive tools, diagrams, charts, notes and feedback
  • Easy segmentation and layering for different types of audience
  • Ability to link to updated and related information
  • Video and animation capability can communicate complexities more clearly
  • Easily searchable
  • Viewers can customise their own reading of the report
  • Can promote the IR website and corporate website
  • Best-practice behaviour reinforces a positive Investor Brand


Moving to full HTML annual reviews and reports is more than just a format change. You need to design your HTML report specifically for the online environment.

Some things though shouldn’t change. Your report should be clearly aligned with your corporate brand – in other words, it should be recognisable to your investors. And all the materials you put in front of investors should be designed as a family – so that’s your Shareholder Review, your Notice of AGM, your CSR Report if you have one, your Results presentation etc.

 

Here are 8 things you can do to make the most of your online report investment:

  1. Pay attention to your navigational architecture. It’s a critical part of helping viewers feel in control and comfortable.
  2. Provide quick links to the most popular information, such as financial summary and Chair/CEO messages
  3. Make overview information easily identifiable and accessible. Then provide deeper, more detailed information elsewhere for those looking for the detail.
  4. Link related content.
  5. Always provide a pdf download option, preferably indexed by section so that readers can download only parts that they want.
  6. Make every page easy to print.
  7. If you can, create onscreen financial tables in HTML rather than providing them as images so that they can be searched.
  8. Use your other comms tools to drive investors to your online annual report and your IR website to encourage regular interaction with and understanding of your company.

 

Additional Features

One of the great benefits of an HTML report is that it gives you the flexibility to include a full range of other features. These are some of the value-adds we’ve been talking to our clients about:

  • Video of Chair and CEO messages
  • An easy to use ‘Downloads’ area
  • Financial downloads also available in Excel, and perhaps XBRL, as well as segmented PDF
  • Search function, with results listed by relevance ranking
  • A Feedback mechanism/effectiveness questionnaire
  • An interactive Q&A section, or even a full blown blog
  • Optimisation for iPad and for smartphones
  • Notes capability, so readers can make their own notes, save, download and print them
  • Social media sharing tools
  • Subscription to email updates and/or RSS feeds, so that you can continue to talk to them throughout the year.

Is it time for you to take the step to best-practice annual report delivery?

 

Time’s up.

Mike Tisdall
Investor Communications specialist and Managing Director – Insight Communications

Next Issue: Embracing the untouchables – communicating with those who don’t opt in

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We’ve been in the Investor Communications and Branding business for over 30 years, helping a blue chip list of Australasian companies retain engaged and loyal shareholders.

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