Award-winning annual report copywriting for Serco
At the 2012 Strategic Value in Corporate Reporting Awards, my client Serco picked up the Tomorrow’s Company Award for Best Strategic Capability.
This is the second time a report I wrote for Serco has won this award, having previously won it in 2008. Serco’s reports have also been shortlisted each year in between.
In the words of the judges:
“Of the four companies shortlisted for this award, one is more effective at showing how it is investing in and developing the strategic capability its resource-based strategy will require, in successful pursuit of its vision to be the world’s greatest service company. Serco Group makes 87 identifiable references to its investment in intangibles. The emphasis here is on employee and organisational drivers, with knowledge the most referenced intangible element. This rich and expansive narrative is particularly readable.”
The award was for the 2010 report. Follow the link to download a copy and find out more about my annual report copywriting work for Serco.
Find out more
Learn more about my annual report copywriting services.
Ask me for an assessment of your annual report.
Find out why a good annual report boosts your share price.
Read my top tips for improving your annual report.
Read my top tips for improving your corporate governance reporting.
Annual report copywriting: good reporting boosts your share price
FutureValue has released its latest analysis of FTSE 350 annual reports. Once again, the research shows that most companies can do much better. And they should, because the benefits can be massive. Over the last four years, FutureValue’s index of the best strategic reporters vastly outperformed the FTSE 350.
How the analysis works
FutureValue marks each report out of ten, across seven areas. Five of these areas are content related – objectives and strategy, performance and KPIs, future factors and risk, strengths and resources, and sustainability. The other two factors are the report’s communication and coherence.
The analysis included 250 of the FTSE 350’s members and looked at reports for years ending between 1 October 2010 and 30 September 2011.
The best reporters outperform
The Strategic Planning Society uses FutureValue’s analysis as the foundation of its Strategic Value in Corporate Reporting Awards.
The chart shows how the shares of companies shortlisted for these awards have performed. The green line is an index of the companies that are shortlisted each year, with companies joining the index when they are shortlisted and leaving it the next time they are not shortlisted. The purple line is an index of consistently good reporters that have been nominated at least three years in a row. (One of my annual report clients – Serco Group – is in this category. Have a look at Serco’s annual reports in the projects section.)
(Click the chart to make it larger)
The results are clear. Shortlisted companies did well, outperforming the FTSE 250 by nearly 19 percentage points. The consistently good reporters, though, did staggeringly better and outperformed by 76 percentage points.
Why do these companies outperform?
There are several factors at play here.
First, some of the outperformance must be attributable to excellent strategic reporting. These companies should be better understood by the market, increasing the pool of potential investors, making their decision to buy that much easier and providing support when the market turns down.
Second, to be a good strategic reporter, a company has to have a well-thought-out strategy in the first place. These annual reports showcase the quality of management thinking, but they also encourage that thinking. Companies that are committed to transparent reporting put pressure on themselves to think hard about where they’re going and why. They know they need to have something substantive to say, and that they’ll be judged on it.
Third, great annual report content has a wealth of other uses, from investor presentations to the corporate website to management’s spiel in face-to-face meetings. Putting effort into the annual report improves the quality of all your investor communications, reinforcing point 1.
So how are companies doing?
The picture is mixed. There are some excellent reporters out there, as well as some lost causes. In between is a majority of companies that churn out depressingly inadequate reports year after year, when they could do so much more.
Big companies have long done better than smaller ones and that pattern continued this year. The FTSE 100 scored an average of 6.32 out of ten, well ahead of the 5.25 for the FTSE 250. Smaller companies can do well and there are some exemplary reports among the FTSE 250. Overall, though, FTSE 250 companies did worse than last year in almost every area, a clear sign that most do not appreciate the benefits of good reporting.
The area with the lowest scores was objectives and strategy, reflecting the fact that it needs the most thought to get right. The FTSE 100 scored 5.5, while the FTSE 250 limped in with a dismal 4.4, down from 4.8 last year. Business models are part of the problem here. Many companies seem not to understand their business model, although this is a relatively new reporting requirement and standards should improve over time.
The best marks are for communication (FTSE 100: 7.0, FTSE 250: 6.2) and sustainability (7.0 and 5.6 respectively). Companies have focused on improving their sustainability reporting for several years. Compared to objectives and strategy, it’s a relatively easy area to score well in.
What’s the conclusion?
Effective strategic reporting is well worth the effort. Most companies have a real opportunity to do better and they should grab it with both hands.
Lack of resource is undoubtedly an issue for many FTSE 250 companies, and that’s where having the right partners comes in. Use a design agency that understands corporate reporting and a specialist copywriter who can create the words and advise you on content and messaging.
Ultimately, of course, it’s up to companies to think harder about their strategies. Good strategic reporting depends on good strategic thinking.
Find out more
Annual report copywriting: improving your corporate governance reporting
Annual report copywriting: top tips for improving your annual report
Read about my annual report copywriting services.
Using a copywriter: what determines the cost?
Budgets are tight, so any conversation about copywriting will eventually turn to the subject of cost.
Potential clients often ask for my day rate, perhaps because it seems like an easy, objective way of comparing copywriters. Unfortunately, that’s only half the equation. After all:
cost = day rate x time
As the client, you have a major influence on the second part of that equation and hence what the project will cost you.
So what determines the time a job takes?
Clarity
The clearer you are about what you want, the more efficient (and cheaper) the copywriting process will be. If you can scope out your project, write a brief, get any buy-in you need from senior management and generally avoid surprises, you’ll save yourself a bundle.
If you don’t know exactly what you want, that’s okay too. I’ll help you to work out your messages or whatever else is concerning you. It’s likely I’ve done similar work for other clients, so you’ll get the benefit of their experience. But that extra work will add to the cost.
Length
It’s obvious that the longer your document or the bigger your website, the more time it will to take to write. But brevity takes time too. That 200-word piece you’re after might take twice as long as 500 words because compressing material without losing the meaning is tough.
Information gathering
Interviews are a great way of gathering information and phone calls are the quickest and cheapest. Face-to-face meetings involve travelling time, so try not to spread them out over several days. Every journey you save is a chunk off your bill.
Most jobs also involve background reading. Keep the information you send to your copywriter as relevant and concise as possible. That 50-page PDF might contain ‘one or two useful nuggets’ but it’s better – and cheaper – if you tell me where they are.
You can still send me everything you’ve got if that’s best for you, but it does affect the fee.
Existing material
If I can reuse bits of your web copy, annual report, corporate brochure or whatever else, that’s great. Recycling material – even if it needs editing – is almost always quicker than writing from scratch.
You can also kick start the process by writing an outline, bullet points or even the first draft. That can work well if your budget is really tight and you can produce something usable.
Revisions
Some clients like to email their comments. Some like a phone call. Some like to get everyone round a table. Some gather every reviewer’s comments and mark up one document. Some send every reviewer’s comments separately.
All these approaches can work. But the simpler and quicker you make it, the less it will cost.
The clarity of purpose I mentioned earlier also has a big influence here. The price I quote covers three drafts. If you’ve agreed your aims and messages up front, there’s much less chance of extra costly revisions.
Experience
It helps if you have a few projects under your belt but it helps even more if your copywriter has. Use someone who’s done it before and knows what you’re trying to achieve. Even if their day rate’s a bit higher, it will probably save you money overall. And you’ll get a better result and an easier, less stressful process.
Want to read more?
Read my other posts on using a copywriter:
- Getting the most from your copywriter (part 1)
- Getting the most from your copywriter (part 2)
- How a copywriter will improve your project
Go to my Facebook page for more observations about business copywriting.
Get in touch
If you have a project you’d like a quote for, give me a call.
What’s my writing style? That’s up to you
You’re looking for a copywriter. It’s a specialised brief, editing your company’s financial results and writing your annual report. How do you decide who to use?
Experience? Definitely.
Price? That’s bound to play a part.
Writing style? Then you’ve misunderstood what copywriters do.
Copywriters use a writing style that suits you
Good copywriting reflects the client’s personality. A skilful copywriter uses word choice, sentence structure, rhythm, metaphor and a host of other techniques to communicate the company’s essence. Copywriting is a creative process.
That’s why I talk to clients about their writing style, as part of the briefing. I try to get a feel for their culture and self image, and how they perceive their brand. I might make suggestions, point out that if we do this with the copy, then you can achieve that. But the decision is always the client’s.
That’s also why a potential client needs to look with care at a copywriter’s past projects. The writing style you’re seeing is the style of that client. It’s someone else’s choice. It doesn’t have to be what you get, any more than you’ll be forced to use the same design and colour palette.
What’s your tone of voice?
There’s another issue here for companies: do you actually know what your writing style is?
Most companies don’t. Their corporate style is whatever the person briefing the copywriter thinks it is.
So why not work out your tone of voice? It’ll strengthen your brand and make life simpler for your copywriter, and for you.
Want to read more?
Read my other posts on using a copywriter.
Go to my Facebook page for more observations about business copywriting.
Annual report copywriting: you call that a strategy?
I’ve recently spent a lot of time reviewing annual reports, mostly from small and medium-sized companies. For a whole host of reasons this has been a disheartening exercise.
One thing that really stands out, though, is companies’ inability to describe their strategy and draw out the links with their key performance indicators, business model, risk and remuneration. Given the low quality of the reports I’ve read, it’s not surprising that the government has put this strategic framework at the heart of its proposals for reforming narrative reporting.
I was going to develop this into a long and detailed post that explained how to do this properly, but I had a much better idea and I’m now writing it up as a white paper for a client. I’ll post it on this site when it’s published, which should be in the next few weeks.
Read more
More posts about annual report copywriting.
Go to my Facebook page for more interesting (and occasionally funny) observations about business writing.
