How to Attract Investors Through Great Storytelling
At our recent client summit in New York City, we heard about storytelling from experts across multiple verticals.
Be it marketing, public relations, or investor relations, the message was clear—the art of storytelling is alive and well in digital communications today, with new tools and tactics to engage your audience.
But too often in IR we let the quarterly cadence of reporting rule the calendar and govern our tactics, falling back on the tried and true while overlooking ways to bring our investment story to life with analysts and shareholders.
Finding new and engaging ways to tell your story will help your business attract future investment and grow relationships with your existing audience. The following three tips should serve as a jump-off point for discussions within your IR team.
1. Embrace Video
We’ve written about this before—but if you’re still not using video for your investor communications, it’s past time to give this powerful tactic another look.
Video drives better engagement and deeper understanding for your audience. Especially for tricky corporate movements, or financial news that requires some finesse in its delivery, opting for video puts you in control of the message you’re delivering.
Even if your CFO isn’t ready to make the switch to video earnings, don’t overlook short-form video of your C-suite telling your investment story. These kinds of clips can make for powerful content to pull in prospective investors looking at your website for more information.
2. Refresh Your IR Website
So many companies we work with still view their IR website as a set-it-and-forget-it kind of tactic. But the story you tell when you build your IR website (pre-IPO) isn’t the same as the investment story that evolves during your first years as a public company.
Your IR website is the first thing prospective shareholders look at—and is the de facto gold standard for information when the analyst community follows up post-earnings.
While most companies do a great job keeping fresh news and quarterly content flowing to their IR site, most overlook the changing nature of web design.
Incorporating video, high-resolution images and ensuring your messaging aligns with the rest of the corporate website are easy wins to attract and inform investors looking at your IR web presence.
Unsure where to start? Check out our recent overview or take a look at some current design trends in IR websites you could be incorporating to better tell your story.
3. Consider Social Listening and Media Monitoring
Not sure what investors think about your brand? Or worse, do you suspect there might be some social media backlash brewing that could potentially impact your share price?
Rather than firing off an email to your PR department, consider incorporating a social listening and media monitoring solution into your IR program.
Your colleagues in PR and marketing likely have some tools already in use; by simply adding search queries to their existing tools, you could understand on what social media is saying about your brand. Or, just as importantly, have a better understanding of what the media is saying about your company.
Today’s social listening and media monitoring tools can help you uncover what people really think about your brand and can help you get out in front of what kinds of questions analysts will be asking on your next results presentations.
If all this feels a little too avant-garde for your more traditional or conservative organization, start small. Incorporate a poll or survey into your next earnings call to hear from investors what they’d like to see or consult with your colleagues in PR to learn about what they’re seeing in the market from your peers.
But most importantly: start the conversation. Telling your investment story in a more modern, engaging way should be something you continue to grow over time.