AI
Reports
Add value, not tick-boxes
Planning an annual or sustainability report? The worst possible outcome is that it languishes, unread, in stakeholders' folders.
With two decades of report copywriting experience across B2B, investor relations, and financial communications, we know exactly how to craft narratives that engage, inform, and build trust with shareholders, communities, and others who are invested in your brand.
What we do
Gunning Marketing's report copywriting service turns internal data and expert knowledge into annual reports, ESG reports, whitepapers, and ebooks that stakeholders actually want to read.
It suits companies that need to engage stakeholders and technical buyers, with reports written to strike the right balance between detail and narrative while meeting applicable regulatory or reporting requirements.
How we work
How we work
It all starts with your internal data and subject-matter experts.
We uncover the story behind the numbers, turning performance insights into compelling narratives that showcase your firm's impact and achievements with clarity, authority, and transparency.
01
No filter
Whether we're speaking with the C-suite or technical staff, we can hold our end of the conversation. No need to spell out the basics.
02
Laser focus
Highlight what really matters to stakeholders – performance, impact, and value – without slipping into meaningless marketing-speak.
03
Strategy-first
At the end of the day, report copywriting is all about narrative. We help you develop a consistent message that resonates with the right people.
How we help
From regulatory requirement to invaluable asset
Mandatory or not, annual reports can be powerful trust-builders. We craft cohesive messages that strengthen positive perceptions and inspire investor confidence.
Case studies
Learn how we delivered 15 high-impact case studies to a tight deadline to support Energy System Catapult with reporting around Innovate UK funding.
Read full story
See how we elevated MEPCO’s investor communications by crafting annual reports that strengthened its market positioning.
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See how we transformed survey insights from 300+ industry professionals into authoritative Innovation Forecast reports that powered Axora’s sales, marketing and PR campaigns across oil & gas and metals & mining.
Read full story
See how we transformed a single whitepaper idea into a strategic multi-stage campaign that generated strong engagement, numerous leads, and industry-wide praise for Tivoli’s thought leadership.
Read full storyTestimonials
Commercial Director, Software Company
Software Company
I’m really impressed. Everything reads really well, and you use language we’d never have been able to come up with in a million years!
Commercial Director
Harry Barton, Portfolio Manager - Strategy and Impact, Energy Systems Catapult
Energy Systems Catapult
Anna and Gunning Marketing provided the Energy Systems Catapult with a comprehensive copywriting service, collaborating with our different business units and partners to produce a range of case studies to highlight the impact of our work. The service we received was tailored to our needs and delivered over and above our expectations. I would highly recommend them to anyone looking for an exceptional copywriting and content generation partner, no matter the subject matter!
Harry Barton
Portfolio Manager - Strategy and Impact
Commercial Director, Telecommunications Company
Telecommunications Company
This is really good and exactly what I was looking for – without actually knowing what I was looking for!
Commercial Director
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Frequently asked questions
Annual reports that get read are structured around what stakeholders need to understand, not just around what the organisation wants to report. The distinction matters: an internally-organised report (department by department, programme by programme) tells readers what happened. A reader-centric report tells them what it means – for their investment, interest in the organisation, or confidence in its future. The structure, narrative arc, and ratio of story to data should all follow from a clear answer to: who is reading this, and what do they need to come away understanding?
Data needs context to be meaningful. “3,247 people supported this year” doesn't give a stakeholder what they need to evaluate significance. “3,247 people supported this year – a 34% year-on-year increase, against a backdrop of increasing demand' does. Every significant statistic in an annual report should be accompanied by enough context to make it meaningful – and enough narrative to connect it to what the organisation is trying to achieve.
Also, remember the human element. A well-told story of a person, project, or moment that embodies what the organisation is doing will be retained long after statistics have been forgotten. Stories bring the data to live and give readers an emotional anchor.
The test of a credible ESG report is whether every claim is specific, verifiable, and proportionate to what's actually been done. "We're committed to a sustainable future" is a sentiment. "We've reduced our Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 38% since 2019, against a 2030 net zero target" is evidence. Every sustainability claim should have a number, a named standard, or a specific programme behind it — and commitments should be clearly distinguished from achievements. The greenwashing risk sits in the gap between those 2 things: presenting a flagship initiative as representative of the whole business, conflating targets with achievements, or using aspirational language without the evidence to support it.
The frameworks and standards used for measurement matter as much as the figures themselves. Reporting against SBTi, GHG Protocol, TCFD, or sector-specific standards signals that claims are externally verifiable rather than self-defined. For organisations subject to mandatory reporting under CSRD or equivalent frameworks, this is now a compliance requirement as much as a credibility signal.
For UK and European businesses in particular, regulatory scrutiny of sustainability marketing claims has increased significantly, and the reputational and legal exposure of overclaiming is material. The most common errors to avoid:
- Presenting a flagship initiative as representative of the whole business
- Conflating targets with achievements
- Using aspirational language without the evidence to support it
- Failing to disclose the scope of claims
A credible ESG report also acknowledges complexity honestly. Net zero commitments made in 2019–2022 are now being tested against progress, and organisations that present a seamless sustainability narrative without acknowledging where the path is harder than expected risk eroding trust. Stakeholders – whether investors, communities, customers, or employees – often respond better to honesty about the journey than to an over-polished and therefore implausible narrative.
A key distinction between a whitepaper and a sales document wearing whitepaper clothing is directional: a sales document starts with the vendor's solution and asks the reader to see themselves in it. A whitepaper starts with the reader's world – the specific situation they're in, why the problem they're facing is harder to solve than it might appear, and a framework for thinking about it – and only then earns the right to present a solution.
An effective whitepaper structure is:
- Open with the reader's situation: Not just the market context they already know, but the specific pressure or gap that makes this document relevant to them
- Demonstrate why the problem is genuinely hard to solve: This is where credibility is built, before any solution is proposed
- Present a framework or approach: It should be useful even if a reader who doesn't buy from you
- Support with specific evidence: Case studies are effective here
- Conclude with what the reader what to do next: Not a sales pitch
Structure the document so it works as a skim read and a detailed technical/specialist read. This means you need to consider chapter titles, subheadings, bullet points, call-out boxes, pull-out stats, quotes, and graphics to help communicate key points.
Gunning Marketing worked with Tivoli on a whitepaper that became the centrepiece of a multi-stage campaign generating strong engagement and numerous leads, earning industry-wide praise for its thought leadership.
The most common failure in research-based content is confusing comprehensiveness with usefulness. A report that covers every finding from a survey is useful as a data appendix and almost never useful as a narrative. Selecting the findings that together tell a coherent story – and being willing to exclude findings that are interesting but don't serve that story – is the discipline that separates a readable report from an unread one.
These 3 structural principles help:
- Lead with the finding, not the methodology
- Group data by insight rather than by question or data source
- Use specific stories or examples to make aggregate data concrete
Remember, data tells readers what happened, whereas narrative tells them what it means. To help bridge this gap, ask "so what?" after every statistic until you reach an answer that matters to the reader. "72% of respondents said X" is a data point. "72% of respondents said X – which means most businesses in this sector are still approaching the problem the wrong way, with the associated cost of Y" starts to shape a narrative.
The Innovation Forecast reports Gunning Marketed produced for Axora demonstrate this approach in action. We structured and wrote the reports based on survey data gathered across 300+ industry professionals in oil and gas and metals and mining – turning raw research into content that underpinned sales, marketing, and PR campaigns. Read the Axora case study here to learn more.
Reports that need to serve multiple audiences – investors, employees, regulators, customers, media – almost always fail when they try to speak to all audiences in the same register, with the same emphasis, at the same level of detail. The approach that works is structuring the document so each audience can navigate to what's most relevant to them, while the overall narrative is coherent for anyone who reads end to end.
In practice, this usually means:
- Executive summary that gives the senior or time-pressured reader everything they need in a couple pages
- Clearly signposted sections that allow specialist readers to navigate directly to the detail most relevant to them
- Data presented at a level of detail appropriate to the most technical likely reader, with plain-English interpretation that makes it accessible to non-specialists
- Consistent narrative thread that connects the sections for any reader following the whole document
The messaging hierarchy also shifts between audiences. For investors, the priorities are performance, risk management, and strategic direction. For employees, culture, values, and how the organisation's work connects to outcomes. For regulators, compliance, governance, and transparency. For customers and partners, impact, reliability, and future direction. A report that gets this right doesn't say different things to different audiences – it emphasises different aspects of the same truth in a sequence that works for each reader.
A useful practical discipline in the planning phase is to map the primary reader for each section and identify what that reader needs to come away knowing. This forces decisions about structure and emphasis and helps produce a clearer, more navigable document.
A whitepaper or research report brief that produces the right result answers 5 strategic questions:
- Who are the target readers and what is their specific situation?
- What do you want them to know, believe, or do differently after reading?
- What evidence or research will the document be built on?
- What else exists on this topic, and how should this content be different?
- What do you want readers to do next after reading the report?
The “what evidence will it be built on” question deserves particular attention. A report’s credibility depends on the quality of its evidence – proprietary research, specific and unique experience, named case studies, third-party data with cited sources. Without this evidence base, you risk ending up with a document that reads well on the surface but makes claims that won't hold up to scrutiny from a technically literate audience.