Playbook: Growing and engaging your online investor audience

In today’s capital markets, where information is both abundant and instantaneously accessible, companies face both unprecedented challenges and opportunities in connecting with their investor audience. The evolution of online platforms has transformed the landscape of IR, making it essential for listed companies to not only grow but also actively engage their online investor community.

As investors increasingly turn to online resources for research and investment decisions, companies must leverage these digital channels to tell their stories, share insights and build trust.

This IR Magazine Playbook, written in association with Totem, explores the strategies and practices crucial for cultivating a robust online presence that resonates with current and potential investors. It also explores how IR teams are currently managing their websites, how they plan content around existing disclosures and the metrics they use to examine whether these approaches are successful.

It further contains insights from a buy-side investor about what he observes to be the best practices that make investee companies stand out in the marketplace today and includes two case studies of leading IROs revealing how they think about their own website content.

Key findings

• A poll of selected IR professionals finds that earnings materials are most commonly perceived as the single-most crucial aspect of a website, with 25 percent of those surveyed selecting it as ‘most important’.
• The most popular improvement IROs would like to make to their website over the next year is to have a greater variety of media assets available.
• Just under two thirds (63 percent) of respondents say they have a formal plan for updating their IR website content.
• What investors want more than anything is a ‘one-stop-shop’ resource that introduces them to a company’s fundamentals.
• Considering the concept of digital hospitality can help IROs drive even more efficiencies for their online content and nurture long-lasting relationships with their investors.