(This blog post was inspired by insights Peita Diamantidis shared at “Amplify Your News: Using Digital Media to Grow Your Investor Following,” a recent IR event presented by IRM and Computershare.)
Digital media can help you engage with your investor community and advance your business. Particularly if you’re an ASX-listed small cap company. This means of communication will provide you a unique opportunity for personal connection with your investor audience.
As previously discussed, websites, emails and social media platforms are just some examples of digital media. These tools can deliver the access and connectivity every long-term investor seeks from small caps.
The key is finding the right balance of digital media tools and putting them together. Following are 5 ways to set up your digital media to reach investors.
1. Review your website language
Have a look at your website. Try to see it from a third-person’s perspective. How are you telling your story?
Are you using industry jargon to talk about your company? Just because you’re communicating to investors, doesn’t mean they’ll figure out all your acronyms or terminologies. Keep it simple.
Get some help from your staff and go through each of your web pages. Identify terms that can still be clarified to get your message across.
You can also ask a copywriter or editor to help express what your company is all about. Words that are relatable and easy to understand are best.
2. Enhance your website content
A great way to build your website content is through a corporate blog. This will get the conversation going with your audience. It will allow you to get feedback from them too.
Don’t know what to write in your blog? Provide a basic definition of your business. Talk about your vision. Share how your executives or operations team started working in your company. Or post recent interviews of them. These are just ideas of great content to feature. They’ll make your audience want to explore your site and know more about you.
Then optimise your site for Google with SEO techniques. It will improve your site’s ability to stand out in search engines and increase visits to your web pages.
3. Maximize your ASX Announcements
Turn this compliance need into a way to connect with your investor community. How?
Start by including links from your ASX Announcements to relevant content in your website. This way your audience will be reverted to your site where they can find more info about you.
You can also group key messages in your ASX Announcements and create blog posts on each topic. It’s part of strengthening your content, as we’ve covered on the second point.
Don’t forget to add a subscribe link in your ASX Announcements too. This will enable your audience to be added to your email subscribers list. More on that in the next step.
4. Build your email list
Begin with your share registry list. Download this list from your registry and update it a few times each year. Your goal is to keep adding to this email list, and remember, do not take anyone off your email list unless they ask. They may be a very satisfied shareholder who has sold. So add entries on old lists to new lists if they no longer appear.
Don’t be shy to put subscribe options in your website or ASX Announcements. Remember, your audience includes current investors, potential ones, as well as analysts and financial advisers. Offer opportunities for them to receive email updates from you. You can use services like Newsroom to segment your subscribers into various subscriber groups too, so you can send each group the info that’s relevant to them.
Keep them interested with your updates so they’ll want to stay informed through your emails. A way to do this is by presenting your messages in different ways. Perhaps through an infographic of financial results, a video of your projects or a Q&A with your management. This will enhance your content and increase traffic towards your website.
Speaking of traffic, social media is another way to help draw your audience into your site. Just make sure your tweets or posts have links that lead them there.
5. Keep investors engaged with your creative content
You don’t have to be stuck with basic facts and figures on your website or ASX Announcements. Give your audience a fresh perspective about your business. It will help them be engaged.
Get a GoPro or drone to capture how you do things in your exploration sites or offices. Share photos of your efforts to help out a social issues group or environmental organisation. Or dig up some uncommon history about your sector or industry. You’ll come up with a lot of other ideas for sure.
Conclusion
Small caps have a unique opportunity of leveraging digital media to connect with investors. It’s essential to review and develop your website content to communicate well with stakeholders. And make use of ASX Announcements to build your email list. Then keep your audience engaged through your creative posts and shares.
Where to go from here
If you’re a newbie or consider yourself to be a bit “technologically-challenged,” take heart. There is a stress-free way to go about this.
We can help you with ideas on basic digital media strategies. And facilitate setting up your social media accounts and company pages.
We also have tools to easily send news to your email subscribers and via social media. IRM Newsroom makes it easy for ASX-listed companies to have a basic presence on Twitter around their ASX Announcements and other news. Click here to get a free trial.
If you’d rather chat with us, please call +61 2 8705 5444 or email clientrelations@irmau.com. You can also visit www.irmau.com for more details.
Online Investor Engagement Specialists
