PART ONE: *Rethinking Your IR Website*
Even as technology rapidly advances, the bread-and-butter IR website maintains its status as go-to source for stakeholders, from institutional and retail investors to employees, customers, and members of the wider community.
One way to view your IR site is as the lobby of your company, a place where investors are made to feel welcome and can begin to understand your story and your performance to date.
When done right, an IR website is the source of straightforward answers to investor queries, of the latest earnings releases and SEC filings, of highlights from videos of executives’ speeches, and even of information for current and prospective employees and customers, too.
With all that potential, some IR websites are not hitting the mark.
According to IR Magazine’s 2023 research report, just under 80 percent of IROs surveyed said that IR websites are an effective tool for engaging institutional investors.
Investors themselves are even less enthusiastic. Here, only 65 percent find IR sites very useful when looking to invest in a new company, and even fewer - 62 percent - say the same of IR websites at companies where they’ve already invested.
Although IROs and investors have complaints, there is overwhelming agreement that IR websites are key to a company’s success in conveying its story.
In fact, 84 percent of institutional investors in the Brunswick survey said that it was important for the equities they cover to have an IR website.
Nearly everyone agrees that consumer and employee-facing websites need to have high-quality design.
Surveys of institutional investors show that the same attention to detail should be paid to an IR site.
Gone are the days when making information downloadable is enough to satisfy your institutional base. Investors want facts at their fingertips and are voicing a clear preference for digital interactivity and in-page content.
Here are the top four areas of IR sites ranked starting with the highest in terms of importance by institutional investors in Brunswick’s survey:
Stock price
Digital interactive quarterly/annual reports
In-page ESG materials
Interactive investor presentations
Here are nine top tips for making sure you’re getting the most from your IR site:
Make an Impression Quickly
Experts say a company has six or seven seconds, at most, to make an online impression before a web visitor moves on.
For the majority of public companies, conveying your investment thesis clearly and memorably is a must. Remember it’s not just what you say but how you say it. Be accurate, concise, and engaging.
In addition, consider adding media that captures a quick overview of your company or, ideally, a video of your CEO describing your mission in an inspiring way. Both “video content about the company” and “video interviews with the leadership/board” tied for fifth in institutional investors’ wish lists for IR sites in the Brunswick survey.
Presentation counts, too. Medtronic’s sparing use of text and plentiful white space are extremely low-tech but draw in visitors, encouraging key messages to be absorbed.
Be Visual
Once upon a time, IR websites were chockful of boilerplate. Not today. The best websites of 2023 go light on text and are instead rich in infographics, videos, and matrices of key performance indicators (KPIs).
Create a Memorable Landing Page
As much as you’d like to think that investors will eagerly read all information posted, they won’t. Use analytics to determine which content is being consumed and which is getting overlooked. If information is too hard to find or too difficult to understand, your message may be getting lost. Once you know what to highlight, use your landing page to its fullest.
Include an FAQ
Your website should be equipped to answer common questions for times when direct engagement isn’t possible. Remember to carefully cull the questions and provide concise answers in plain English.
Tell Your Story Boldly and Clearly
If your company is among the fortunate few that possesses a household name, you don’t need to use your IR website to tell the world what you do. For practically every other public company out there, though, explaining your business in clear and unmistakable terms is a must.
Make Life Easy for Visitors
“Investors want information about a company at their fingertips,” as Andy Kramer, VP of Investor Relations at Cellebrite, noted in a recent report. Offering subscriptions to news alerts, SEC filings, and other relevant events is a way to keep investors informed. Ensuring that information provided is machine-readable and easily extracted from its source is appreciated, too.
Allow Users To Control Their Own Journeys
Your site should deliver high-impact, bite-sized pieces of content allowing users to see what’s latest and greatest - with the option of drilling deeper when they’re interested in learning more.
Reinforce Your Branding
Whether it’s to investors or prospective employees visiting your IR site, showcasing your product line and values is a terrific idea. Think Kraft Heinz, which puts its vision – “to sustainably grow by delighting more consumers globally” - front and center on its IR site. The message is supported by a photo of a happy family making Jello.
Provide a Form for Feedback
What content are users looking for that they can’t find? And what questions do they want answered? Starting a conversation through a feedback form is a way to foster engagement. What’s more, if the same few questions keep arising, why not add those questions (with answers) to your FAQ?
