A few months ago, IR Magazine asked us to give our insights on some features that we’d include in a dream IR website. We were also asked to give a brief explanation of why the feature would be great to use and to provide some examples. Darrell Heaps, (Q4′s CEO) and I collaborated and submitted our ideas. The piece: ‘Tomorrow’s IR site, today‘ was published July 2, 2012 on IR Magazine’s site: Inside Investor Relations. We thought it would be useful to re-publish it on our blog. Note: our version is slightly different in that the order varies and we also include some snapshots of the examples.
Introduction
We envision that transparency and engagement will be the underlying philosophy of the IR website of the future. A large part of this philosophy will be based on interacting via social channels with the company and other investors.
Most Popular Content
Savvy investors are accessing company websites to gather information to make informed investment decisions. They are also increasingly signing up for and sharing ideas and information with other investors on social networks.
Therefore, they will be interested in seeing what their friends are looking at on a company’s website and on social channels. One way to help achieve this is to provide a snapshot of the most popular content that is being sought after prominently displayed on the IR website.
Discussion section
Online conversations about companies are on the rise. A good way to stay apprised of these conversations is through an amalgamated discussion section. This section would incorporate a mashup of conversations about your company (and peers) on social networks. It would also track trending themes and sentiment analysis by providing analytics from the social web.
This section would give help IROs monitor the conversations and help mitigate potential rumours from misinformation and respond in a timely manner.
Interactive Access
Access to the C-suite and transparency are two top-of-mind concerns from investors. The Interactive Access section would list all of the public events available to all investors to partake and interact face-to-face with management. For example, investors would sign up for an earnings call and be brought into a virtual meeting room like PGI’s iMeet. The same concept would also apply to annual meetings and investor days.
Similarly, there would also be a private sign up for institutional investors to book meetings with management (benefit is to speak with more than one investor at a time, also cost savings as there wouldn’t be any travel involved).
There would also be links to relational content such as presentations, transcripts and other applicable materials in this section. And also include an investor calendar with the ability to download events/meetings into outlook.
What’s New?
Whether a site visitor is a potential, new or long-term investor, providing links to recent news or events is typically highly sought after information. One way companies highlight what’s new is linking to the latest press releases, transcripts and upcoming events or a link to the latest updates made on the IR website like Danske Bank:
http://www.danskebank.com/EN-UK/IR/Pages/investor-relations.aspx
This section would also use highly visual feature linking to corporate video housed on YouTube or most recent presentation housed on SlideShare.
Reporting Center
Financial information is a key metric that investors use to decide whether they want to buy shares. So it is essential to make it easy to download and analyze this information.
For example, Agnico-Eagle has a Financial and Operating Database that gives analysts a full set of quarterly financials and fundamentals, delivered through a browser or as excel downloads; customizable charts; and the ability to share content from the model through email and social networks:
http://agnico-eagle.com/English/Investor-Centre/Financial-and-Operating-Database/default.aspx
Investors are also interested in accessing historical financial data. For example, Benetton Group gives investors the option to download the historical data in excel.
Other good examples:
http://www.nexeninc.com/en/Investors/StockInformation/ShareCalculator.aspx
http://www.carlsberggroup.com/Investor/Shares/Pages/Lookup.aspx
Email alerts and social
Investors are more discerning and want to receive selected information. Offering segmented email alerts gives investors the choice to select the type of information they want. For example, TVI Pacific has a very comprehensive ‘Connect With Us’ page with integrated RSS feeds so investors can sign up for news releases, events and presentations:
http://tvipacific.com/connect-with-us/default.aspx
This section would also allow investors to choose where they wanted this information sent. For example, to Twitter, Facebook or other social channels they are active.
Comprehensive Contact Information
Companies are making themselves more accessible by providing comprehensive contact information. For example, in addition to direct phone numbers and email addresses for the IR team, companies like Bayer are providing headshots of the IR contacts:
http://www.investor.bayer.com/en/funktionsnavigation/kontakt/ir-team/
Aviva also provides a headshot and a bio for their IR contacts.
Companies will also provide a link to their LinkedIn profile as well as for each member of the IR department. The addition of LinkedIn will encourage investors to connect with and engage in company discussions.
Investor FAQS
Frequently asked questions are a useful way to reduce investor calls. The IR department should regularly add any new questions to this section and think outside the box to think of other potential questions. Potash Corp. is an innovator in this area as they drill down and segment questions by category. They also give investors the option to filter and even the opportunity to suggest a question:
http://www.potashcorp.com/faqs/
We also envision a ‘real-time’ FAQ’s feature where investors can submit their questions and the most recent (if it’s ‘new’) will stay on top so others can see.
Aids to sort/search
A good IR website makes it easy for investors to access content. One way to accomplish this is using aids to help investors search, sort and organize company information. For example, Daimler has a great feature that enables users to look up press releases by year and category.
Other searchable information includes events by topic, month and year, like Adidas:
http://www.adidas-group.com/en/investorrelations/events/default.aspx
We also envision having related-content in this section with a feature to hover over a press release or quarterly report to launch a video interview of the CEO/CFO discussing what the press release or results means for the business.
What do you think? Anything you’d like to add? Or feel we missed? Let us know in the comments.
Stay tuned for an upcoming series on IR Website/Social Media case studies where we showcase some client examples that we recently launched.
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