PART THREE: *Making the Most of Webcasts*
At Tesla’s 2023 investor day, CEO Elon Musk seemingly spoke off the cuff as the company’s Optimus robot moved and grasped objects. “It’s obviously not doing parkour,” Musk joked, “but it is walking around.”
Using video to demonstrate the latest and greatest of a company’s products—Musk predicted that Tesla’s robot business might someday outstrip car sales—is a terrific way to engage stakeholders.
Like any successful presentation, a webcast requires enormous planning, beginning with the timing of the event. A well-prepared IRO will determine the times of competitors’ earnings calls, investor days, and major investment conferences to avoid conflicts.
Next, it’s important to publicize your webcast with a news release, emails, and announcements on social media. Conference dates and times should also be posted on appropriate IR pages.
While live events – the AGM, the earnings call— once reigned supreme, now the webcast may be what attracts the largest audience of all.
Here are some features that can make your webcast a success:
Transcripts
Remember, not everyone has the time to watch a webcast in its entirety, and so a full-text transcript, preferably a searchable one, is appreciated.
A Text-Based Q&A Option
IROs tend to avoid chat functions and instead favor text-based Q&A functions that are visible only to them. Even if a company doesn’t plan to answer many questions, text-based Q&A is a great way to put a finger on the pulse of your listeners and to identify trends. It may also tell you what aspects of your messaging aren’t hitting home and should be covered either in an FAQ or in subsequent conversations with investors.
Pause and Restart Buttons
When watching an archived webcast, participants want features that let them absorb information at their own pace.
Surveys
Asking participants their opinions is a way to keep an audience engaged. More importantly, though, surveys are a way to gather feedback and data, while engaging with stakeholders in a nearly effortless way.
Contact Details – Just the Basics
While gathering lots of information for future targeting is tempting, it can be a turnoff. Consider only collecting participants’ names, professional affiliation, and email addresses.
Digital access litigation is on the rise. Based on lawsuits filed by mid-year 2023, UsableNet predicts that there will be 4,220 suits filed by the end of 2023, relative to 4,035 last year and 2,314 in 2018.
Fear of legal reprisal is important but it’s not the main reason to focus on digital inclusion.
With a quarter of Americans considered “disabled” under the current Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) definition, this population constitutes an extremely important audience for all companies.
Going above and beyond requirements when it comes to accessibility sends a positive message about your company—and may give you a material edge over those competitors not taking digital inclusion seriously enough. Remember that digital accessibility is not a web trend but is rather a requirement for public companies.
Fortunately, IROs have reached a stage when accessibility guidelines are clear and achievable.
Help is available in many places, but the best place to start is with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (“wa-KAG,” for short). The current version of WCAG is 2.1, with WCAG 2.2 slated for 2024.
Many of the fixes are neither complicated nor particularly onerous. Accessibility features like machine-readable text and closed captioning for video are readily available. What’s more, furnishing a written transcript of investor events so those with hearing loss can read comments rather than straining to listen to streaming audio is easy to do and greatly appreciated.
Over one in four (27 percent) adults in the U.S. today have some type of disability, according to the CDC. Of the disabilities named, cognition - or serious difficulty concentrating, remembering, or making decisions - was most common at 12.8 percent.
Hearing problems affect 6.1% of the population, and 4.8% have vision problems.
Official statistics on disabilities can range considerably. According to the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS), for instance, 15.5 percent of American adults 18 years of age and older report having trouble hearing. Even if some individuals within your audience don’t meet the technical definition for having a disability, those with hearing loss or other challenges will appreciate your efforts to make communicating easier.
