Some associations disseminate their annual reports online only—or they produce none at all.

"We do not do a glossy annual report," said Jim Singerling, CEO of the Club Managers Association of America. "Eight years ago we went online and saved $8,000 to $10,000 in printing and mailing costs and handling time spent by staff on proofing and editing.

"It can be done digitally much more easily. The glossy things are nice to put out, but it's becoming less of a necessity to have one," he said.

The National Association of Realtors also does not print an annual report. Heather Elias, NAR's director of social business practice, said the online report is optimized for social media.

"Each page of it is shareable and very visually appealing, so it's very workable for social versus only having a PDF of information to share," she said.

The National Association of Chain Drug Stores focuses on real-time communications throughout the year—including speeches by CEO Steve Anderson—rather than an annual report.

"As opposed to spending the literally tens of thousands of dollars that it takes to put out that annual report, we're really focused on getting information out instantaneously to our members," said Chris Krese, NACDS senior vice president of marketing, communications and media relations. "That's where we have invested the members' resources because that's what they've said is important to them.

"There are different types of membership out there and certainly an annual report can work for some trade associations," he said.

"The meetings and conferences [that NACDS holds] are so vital they form the very core of what we do as an association," Krese said. "At those meetings our chairman and CEO provide a state of the industry and state of the association address three times a year. These are very well attended. It's not putting these things down in glossy print, it's presenting them to the membership in the spoken word."