For the most part, your investor relations efforts coast at a reasonable level, all systems normal, while consistently making gains over time. However, your program can mimic the jagged lines of the markets.
You can suffer a flattening of your performance — or worse, a significant drop in your targeting success.
It’s no coincidence that your IR performance most often reflects what’s happening in the economy. Bullish markets make it easier to connect with investors, while bearish markets raise challenges to gaining new shareholders.
With UK economists warning of a possible recession in the coming year, your investor relations program could face another bumpy road ahead.
If you haven’t already seen your performance glitch during the pandemic, you may experience troubling times soon. Here’s what you can do rejuvenate your strategy and report success to your C-Suite.
Table of Contents
Get Expert Advice
If you aren’t sure where you’re going wrong, get some outside perspective. An unbiased, experienced IR professional is removed from the problem, and they haven’t inherited company hang-ups affecting their thought processes.
As a result, these outsiders aren’t afraid to poke at legacy systems or challenge stale strategies. This fresh take can help them spot issues that you may not be aware are limiting your program.
Advisors from Q4 Inc. have extensive consultation experience across a broad range of investor relations goals.
From surveillance and IR web design to ESG reporting and more, these advisors can provide expert insights into existing strategies and why they might be failing—wherever you may be based.
With the latest launch of Q4 Sweden and Denmark, Nordic companies have the opportunity to work with this global IR firm.
While you might think consultation is reserved for the largest corporations, the best IR firms are scalable to your needs, even if you represent a nano- or small-cap company.
Update Your IR Site
A web design overhaul is the easiest and quickest way to refresh your strategy. A total rebrand isn’t something you should do often; however, it can be used strategically to address chronic underperformance.
You can update stale or glitchy designs and refresh messaging to align with your company’s goals.
Function and style should be twin priorities in this upgrade. Partner with an IR firm that boasts a large portfolio of award-winning designs aligned with the latest web accessibility standards.
You should also confirm your chosen designs translate seamlessly to the mobile experience, as more investors are viewing your site from handheld devices. Today, mobile visitors account for nearly 60% of all website traffic.
While updating the bones of your site, take some time to polish your IR narrative. Speak with a consultant to learn how to tweak your messaging to highlight your wins, explain your challenges, and let your value proposition shine.
Invest in Engagement Analytics
Like many modern IROs, you probably work with a large list of technologies to support your relationship management and outreach efforts.
Adding to these apps, you probably also utilize dedicated IR and ESG websites, webcasts capital markets events, and corporate social media accounts to keep in touch with your investors.
Thanks to these tools, you’ve never had more data to inform your strategy. However, it’s hard to strategize when you’re overwhelmed by the data. You can easily overlook the importance of a page visit or download, or you can miss these engagement metrics entirely!
If you’re having a hard time translating data into action, consider unifying your investor relations tools under one platform.
An end-to-end IR platform aggregates data from your CRM tool, IR website, and capital markets events webcasting tools. It relies on AI-backed engagement analytics to analyse online investor behaviour, revealing which investors need attention.
By automating these processes, your team can crunch an astonishing amount of data, leaving no clue overlooked.
It all happens at a fraction of the speed it would take you to do this manually, so your team can reinvest this time in more high-touch tasks, turning these insights into informed outreach.
The Takeaway:
If you’re tired of spinning your wheels in an investor relations strategy that goes nowhere, reach out to an expert IR firm, update your website, and consider adopting new engagement analytics.
New insights, a new look, and new technology can help you right your course and prepare for a possible recession in the UK and beyond.
