Annual report writing: what your copywriter needs

With the end of the financial year just around the corner, it’s time to be thinking about your annual report. This post is the second in a series of four outlining a few issues that need to be considered when preparing your business report.

Last week, I wrote about what sort of non-regulatory things you should include in an annual report.

Hopefully, by now you would have worked out the structure of your report, briefed a designer and got Board sign off for the look, feel and theme.

So the next step – and it’s a big one – is writing the damn thing! And no matter whether it is being written in house – or outsourced to an awesome writer (I may know one) – there are a few things you can do to make the writer’s life easier, and ensure that what they produce is what you require.

A style guide

When the writer knows your company style for certain words or phrases, it will lead to consistency and ultimately mean less corrections as you go into the proofing stage. You have no idea how many hours of my life I have spent in discussion about whether it is “power line” or “powerline”, “East Timor” or “Timor Leste”, “programme” or “program”. If you don’t provide a style guide, the writer will likely use what she prefers, and then the proofreader will correct to what he prefers, and you will go around in circles. Honestly, in most cases it doesn’t matter which word or phrase is used, but it’s important to be consistent throughout the document. And given that the writer will be seeking dot point information from all sorts of people throughout your organisation, the risk of inconsistency is huge.

A brief

This needs to include purpose of the report (is it merely ticking governance boxes? Is it to be sent to shareholders? Will the CEO use it as a marketing tool to attract new clients/partners? Will it be used to seek capital investment?), target audience, tone, word length (both as a whole and for each section), time frame for stages of the project  and what the writer will be required to do (will all the raw material be provided in dot form? Does the writer need to interview key personnel? Will the writer be dealing directly with the graphic designer or will a project manager act as the middleman?).

An outline

It’s not the writer’s job to work out what need to go in what section. The project manager needs to map out  a detailed outline of the key points to be covered in each section. This will also help everyone involved in the project figure out any information gaps, as well as avoid duplication – especially important when more than one business unit is involved in a major project and they all want to shout from the rooftops. And make sure you include contact details of any subject matter experts who may be able to fill in the gaps.

Strict deadlines

Copywriters often have more than one project on the go at once. If they give you a week turnaround for edits to the first draft, then, please, I beg of you, turn it around in a week. The writer would have scheduled the edits and if you don’t meet your deadline, you can’t expect them to drop everything to meet yours.  Seriously, one of the most frustrating things is a client who fails to send back edits until the 11th hour and then makes meeting a deadline the copywriter’s problem. Develop a project plan with strict deadline for each stage, and keep to it.

Access

While the project manager may be the key person that the copywriter deals with, it’s vital to also give them direct access to key personnel – especially the bean counters and CEO (or at least the CEO’s personal assistant). The latter is especially true for the copywriter who is writing the forewords. Sending comments and edits through a third person is never a good idea. Ever heard of Chinese whispers?

A proofreader

It’s incredibly hard to proofread your own work. I can almost guarantee errors will make it into this blog post, so can you imagine what the risk is when we are talking 10s of 1000s of words? Words that the copywriter is already so familiar with that they are dreaming about your company’s human resource strategy? If you want to minimise the risk of errors creeping in, budget for a proofreader – or find a grammar and English pedant in-house. And if you don’t do this, don’t blame the copywriter.

Time

Writing an annual report is a time-consuming process. There are likely to be several eyes that need to look at each draft – subject matter experts, directors, line managers and more – which means lost of to-ing and fro-ing. So don’t leave it till the last minute. Ideally, companies that operate on a financial year basis should be briefing the designer and project manager in March and hiring a writer 2-3 months before the report is due to go before the board (or be tabled in Parliament).

Trust me, if you give your copywriter the above seven things, they will have the tools to give you a great annual report that will wow the shareholders and promote the company.

Till next time,

Nicole

Next week: Annual report writing: For non-profits