There are not enough hours in the day.
Life as an investor relations person is busy and stressful. There are so many things to achieve in the annual calendar. All the work that goes into planning, then reaching corporate milestones, arranging and delivering investor presentations, creation of ASX announcements and reports, driving media engagement, managing a range of stakeholder groups, and so much more.
Not to mention the challenges of our present set-up: working from home, online meetings, virtual AGMs, and the like.
For good reason, investor relations people and company secretaries find it hard to ensure that everything to do with communications runs like clockwork and happens at the right time. Because timing is crucial, particularly for time-sensitive ASX announcements.
Even within an hour of an announcement being released on ASX and the email delivered, the market could have already moved. So, the need for immediate delivery of announcements.
Unfortunately, other business-critical tasks do get in the way at times, leaving investors to receive announcements after several hours, sometimes even a day or more. Reality bites.
Sending out ASX Announcements is a difficult process. You would have to go through something like this process to successfully lodge and communicate an announcement:
1. Log into ASX Online and lodge the announcement
2. Wait for a confirmation from the Issuers Office
3. Once confirmed, upload the announcement onto your website’s ASX Announcements section and maybe on the homepage as well. You’ll need to upload it again in other sections if it’s a presentation or quarterly report. But if you hit a snag and it’s more difficult to post on a page, you’ll need to contact web support and get them to upload it for you when they have the time.
4. Next, login to Outlook (or Mailchimp, etc.) and write an email using a stored template. Double check it, ensuring the addresses are all in the BCC field (and not the To field!) and then send the email. Wait while the emails are sent one at a time, while dealing with bouncebacks and unsubscribes on the side.
5. Finally, post the announcement in your company’s social media channels too.
What a frustrating and time-consuming process!
At a time when it’s busiest for you as an IR person -- right after an announcement is released. Really not the time to be doing all that clumsy admin work, right? There’s also that matter on accidentally sending out a wrong version of the announcement that no one would ever admit to.
Even if you've managed to send all the emails, how would you know they were actually received? Some email analytics would surely come in handy, right?
Timing is crucial, particularly for time-sensitive ASX announcements.
Make things easier with IRM Newsroom
There must be a simple way of streamlining this key part of your investor communications.
Actually, there is!
It’s called IRM Newsroom. A smart news delivery tool specially tailored for ASX-listed companies like yours. Check out this list of companies currently using it.
IRM Newsroom provides an extremely efficient and simple method of loading announcements made to the ASX directly to your company’s website. It also allows information to be distributed through email or social media, like LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.
IRM Newsroom ensures investors will be able to read your ASX Announcements on your website and in their inboxes – immediately once the announcement is released. With very little (or no) effort by you! Because IRM Newsroom enables you to manage your website, email alerts and social media updates from one platform.
Here’s how it works.
You just need to set up preferences in IRM Newsroom for your news distribution, according to the type of announcement. This means you will define which type of news go on a section of your website, which create email alerts to subscribers or which are shared on social media.
For example, ASX Announcements for investor presentations would be posted on the presentations page on your website. Announcements for annual general meetings may also be emailed to your investors and posted on your LinkedIn page. These are just some ideas on how you want to deliver your announcements.
IRM Newsroom is a smart news delivery tool specially tailored for ASX-listed companies.
Once an ASX Announcement is approved by the ASX Issuers Office, IRM Newsroom is immediately on the job. It can instantly send you an automated email alert, prompting you to publish the announcement to your selected channels with the simple click of a button. Or you can change your distribution defaults before sending them.
One click to approve the news distribution, and everything gets done. Immediately! For selected types, you can even choose to send them automatically. No clicks needed. All up to you.
What's more, IRM Newsroom's built in email statistics allow you to track your emails. Helping you know the number of messages successfully delivered, which were opened, clicked, among other features.
With IRM Newsroom, it all just happens. All your pages, all your email subscribers, and your social media channels. Yes, really!
Get a demo and see how fast you can send out your announcements to investors today!
In short
It's possible to send your ASX Announcements immediately, without the hassle. IRM Newsroom enables you to push out your news through your website, email or social media channels in just one click. No wonder it's preferred by many ASX-listed companies.
Want to buy back some time?
If you’re running a time-consuming process for sending announcements, we promise that we can improve your life! You’ll be able to buy back some valuable minutes in an already busy day and provide a more immediate service in the process.
Chat us on +61 2 8705 5444 or clientrelations@irmau.com for a demo on how fast you can send out your announcements to investors. Better yet, avail of the free Newsroom trial so you can have a go at it yourself.
Editor's Note: This post was originally published in June 2015 and has been updated for accuracy and comprehensiveness.
Online Investor Engagement Specialists
