Why Your Team Needs a Digital Annual Report This Year

You've carefully written your annual report. You've compiled your financial reports, penned a letter to shareholders, and created an appealing annual report design. But to optimize your financial reporting, there’s one more step: building a digital annual report.

Annual and interim financial reports have been published online for years. You can dig up PDFs of these financial reports on most nonprofit and corporate websites. But now, these PDFs can’t compete with a digital annual report. Annual digital reports are smart, interactive, next-generation publications built with innovative digital technology. They’re superior to their paper and PDF predecessors. Companies across every industry are constructing digital annual reports to make their financial report more accessible and to wow their investors, competitors, and board. Like sleek, user-friendly websites, digital reports are no longer just nice-to-haves. A digital report is the new standard every company should consider adding to their budgets and year-end planning. Here are the 14 key benefits of a digital annual report.

#1 Digital Annual Reports Are Easily Navigated

Users browse a digital annual report similarly to how they navigate a website. The reports are built with optimal user experience (UX), including bite-sized, scannable chunks of text explicitly crafted for online reading. The best online annual reports attractively display text with links to related topics and menus.

#2 Digital Annual Reports Are Compatible with All Devices

When you build (or work with experts to create) an optimal digital annual report, readers can easily view it on any device: old or the latest model, desktop or mobile, PC or Apple. This compatibility helps you reach a wider audience with your report. They’ll be able to read it whenever and wherever they want. They’ll also be able to share it easily, increasing your readership even more.

#3 Digitized Reports Include Multimedia

A digital format enables companies to embed a variety of content. Reports aren’t confined to text and static images. Organizations can add interest and more robust context with videos. These videos could include footage from important events or interviews with senior managers or company leadership.

#4 They’re Customizable for Readers

Digital annual reports can direct readers to content tailored specifically for them. For example, when creating their annual report, a retailer, Migros, divided their annual report readers into customers, financial analysts, and NGOs.

The report can be designed with distinct paths and links for these three groups. Of course, annual reports must simultaneously address various audiences. So, a digital annual report will still satisfy this goal by allowing any reader to browse any section.

#5 Digital Annual Reports are Interactive

Many digital annual reports allow readers to easily extract financial reporting data into an Excel file with a push of a button. This type of feature is especially attractive to analysts. This button lets them easily locate needed data, then analyze it more deeply or compile it into new charts or configurations.

#6 Digital Reports are More Impactful

Digital reports are more relevant for readers than a conventional annual or interim report. Their visual appeal, storytelling, and emotional pull are significantly more persuasive. These elements tempt readers to spend longer engaging with your report and, most importantly, your messaging.

#7 They Project an Innovative Image

Digital annual reports project a professional impression of your organization as technologically savvy. By digitizing your financial reports, you convey a comfort with new technology and that user experience is a priority. Your digital annual report also transmits a crucial message: our communication and methods of operation are future-forward. So are our products and services.

#8 Digital Annual Reports Expand Your Reach

Financial analysts covering your stock will always read your financial statements, regardless of format. So will journalists and shareholders. However, choosing a more accessible digital format will also help you reach other stakeholder groups. With this format, you’ll reach more people, especially via customized interfaces.

#9 Their Impact is Measurable

With a digital format, you can track and aggregate key metrics that tell you how readers interact with your report. Going digital allows you to monitor how long users look at specific parts of your report, what sections they skip, how many readers “bounce” off the report, or share it, etc. You can harness this data to improve your future reports and tailor them to your target audience(s).

#10 Digital Reports Improve Search Rankings (SEO)

Your web team has more control of your content when you display it in HTML (rather than via PDF). It will be easier to tweak that content for higher SEO value. Though search engines theoretically read PDFs created from text, this practice doesn't always improve your SEO. Additionally, with a digital annual report, you’ll attract more users. (And they’ll be more engaged.) This increase is critical for SEO. Users often find a long PDF of an organization’s entire annual report off-putting. However, they’ll appreciate (and visit, interact with) a digital annual report they can easily navigate. Lastly, readers can easily navigate to other parts of your website from your digital annual report. This navigation increases overall web traffic, thus improving SEO. You can read more about the SEO benefits of HTML vs. PDFs.

#11 They Enhance Content Management

Digital reports are notably effective as part of a multi-channel content strategy. A powerful content management system (CMS) underpins strong digital annual report templates. A CMS stores its various elements in text blocks. You can reuse these text blocks in other channels: other sections of the company website, social media, and more. A digital annual report lets you efficiently integrate your financial reporting into your overall communications and marketing strategy. This saves your organization time and money overall.

#12 Digital Annual Reports Offer Long-Term Cost Benefits

The initial cost of designing a digital annual report may be significant. You’ll be developing or investing in:

• A CMS
• Data creation and importing
• Development of the annual report template
• Writing content
• Usability considerations

This saves your organization time and money overall. This annual reports brief process may also involve paying for agency support from digital annual reports experts and Language Service Providers (LSPs) to translate for global readership.

Once you've implemented processes, your organization can reap the benefits. You’ll be able to easily and cost-effectively update, add to, and optimize content in your CMS. Producing your subsequent annual reports, quarterly reports, and other digital channels will be faster and less expensive than costly print runs.

#13 Digital Annual Reports Are Secure

When you work with the right tools, or with financial reporting and translation experts like Lionbridge, you’ll be confident your content is protected. Whether we’re helping you create, optimize, or translate your report, Lionbridge uses innovative technologies and strong cyber security standards. Creating a digital annual report allows you to utilize tools and methodologies to protect your sensitive information.

#14 They’re Environmentally Friendly

Anything that shifts readers away from printed documents is beneficial for the environment. Digitizing your reports is a good step if your company is going, or wants to go, “green.” A recent Forbes article states that companies can become more profitable and successful by choosing sustainable practices and integrating them into their operations and values. They differentiate themselves to consumers who are increasingly concerned about climate change and how their dollar impacts the environment.

Get in touch

Need some assistance creating your digital annual report? We can help. Contact us today to find out more about Lionbridge’s financial report writing services. If you need to reach a multilingual readership, check out our tips for planning your annual report translation. When you’re ready, you can trust our financial reporting experts and linguists to translate your annual report.