Marketing your company to investors can be extremely stressful and time consuming. Constant traveling to get your company in front of investors is not ideal, from both a budgetary and quality of life standpoint. That’s why it’s important to utilize the available tools and tricks of the ever-changing marketplace, which can help save your company time and money. Below, we will discuss some ideas to bolster investor outreach for companies either looking to reach new investors or maximize the time spent communicating with shareholders and prospective investors.
Consistency
Consistency is key in investor communications. Whether it’s the amount of times you touch base or the publication frequency of investor-related news, focus on tracking all communication to ensure you are maintaining the interest of investors. Business is fast-paced as it is, so prioritize publishing the most imperative pieces of information to maintain a steady flow of updates.
In addition to frequency, consistency in messaging is also important. For example, if you fail to highlight certain company aspects that are usually discussed on earnings calls, there’s a big chance of setting off warning signals to investors. Regardless of why you choose to eliminate expected information, it’s likely that investors will assume the worst until otherwise clarified. Keeping investor messaging consistent will save you time in the long run. When you are hosting your first earnings call or expanding your business, talk through with your team beforehand as to what news will be the best to highlight regularly going forward.
Customer-Relationship Management
Customer-relationship management (CRM) is the process of building up a database to log meetings or pitches with current, past, and prospective investors (or customers/patients). Think of it like a diary for your past meetings. The database should at least detail your meeting history, the person(s) with whom you spoke, and location of the fund. Depending on your resources and available time, you can go as far as tracking the topics discussed, action items to follow up with, the investor’s investment style, and assets under management. Logging this information keeps the rest of your team aware of completed tasks and outstanding assignments regarding customer relationships. But more importantly, it can be used to create a list for the future when your company is looking to target specific funds and fund managers in order to create a more diverse investor base. CRM is time consuming in the early stages of investor communications, but the long-term benefits are well worth the hours spent on the front end.
Technology
Technology has revolutionized the workplace, and investor outreach is far from an exception. Take advantage of technological resources to reach your investor audience. One way you can do this is by sending out investor newsletters either by wire service and/or a distribution list, which can be built from your CRM database and list of existing shareholders. In addition to a quarterly earnings call, this is a great tool to help your retail investor base stay up to date with the business. The options for newsletter dissemination are endless, but we recommend email. Wire service has the ability to attract new retail investors, but it can cost a lot of money. While the email distribution list won’t reach new people by default, this free resource allows investors to respond directly with questions. As you create your newsletter list, be sure to communicate how often investors can expect to receive the newsletter throughout the year.
Another tool to consider is webcasting. As you know, earnings season is a very busy time of year and can result in days with several earnings calls on the same day at the same time. This can put investors in a tough position, making them prioritize which calls they will listen to. To make their lives easier, and potentially draw a larger audience, consider hosting your earnings call via webcast in addition to a conference call. Webcasts allows investors to quickly switch between calls by using tabs on their computer as opposed to dialing in and out, saving them time and enabling them to not prioritize another call over yours.
Conclusion
Investor communication practices are constantly changing, but in an effort to reach your audience, it’s important to stay up to date with the nuances. Not every company has the time or resources to keep track of these changes, but that’s where our team at Gilmartin Group comes in. We stay up to date with best practices for investor outreach and use them to leverage our wide-ranging investor database. Whether your company is looking to more efficiently communicate its progress, optimize investor communications, or researching alternatives methods to reach investors, we can help. You can find us at www.gilmartinir.com.
Hunter Cabi, Analyst
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