As an investor relations officer, you know that the “off-season” is a misnomer. While another AGM and proxy season are in your rearview mirror, you can’t take the rest of the year off. The upcoming off-season is a busy and important time for your investor relations strategy.
Your competitors are definitely not taking a break. According to IR Magazine Off-Season Governance Report, two-thirds of IROs have investor relations activities planned outside of proxy season.
From roadshows to targeted communications, there are plenty of ways to engage your shareholders and potential investors alike.
Why Should You Engage in Off-Season Activities?
More than four in five companies surveyed by IR Magazine believe their off-season efforts strengthen relationships. This has a huge payoff, as targeted outreach can help you increase support come next year’s proxy vote.
But who should you target?
The IR specialists at Q4 rely on sophisticated engagement analytics to answer this tough question. Engagement analytics leverages machine learning and AI to streamline all your tools in an end-to-end IR platform. One program collects, synthesizes, and analyzes data collected from your IR site and CRM desktop app.
By automating these three (often tedious) steps, your team can cut straight to the most important part of investor relations: actionable insights and informed recommendations. You’ll be able to see which investors and stakeholders are engaging the most with your brand and what content they are consuming, so you can accelerate outreach that fits their needs.
This on-the-minute overview of your engagement metrics might surprise you. While many IROs target major shareholders during the off-season due to their size and sway, engagement analytics might reveal that smaller analysts and investors are interacting with your brand and are therefore poised for timely outreach.
How to Engage with Your Investors During the Off-Season
According to IR Magazine, governance roadshows and shareholder forums are the most common activities scheduled for the off-season. However, only one-third of investors have attended an off-season shareholder forum. And under one in three investors have experienced a governance-related roadshow during the off-season.
Consider this as you develop your capital markets events schedule for the rest of the year. If you worry a cross-country schedule of roadshows and forums would be tough on your team, consider hosting these capital markets events on a virtual stage instead.
Without the physical or time constraints of in-person conferences, you may entice a greater number of attendees with your virtual capital markets events. The latest webcasting tools can feed even more engagement metrics used by engagement analytics, so you’ll glean additional insights about investor interests.
As you rely on engagement analytics to target investors, don’t forget about your IR website or social media platforms. These represent some of the most popular ways for investors to research your company before they make any investing decisions. You’ll want to ensure the messaging and financials they find there is clear and consistent.
What’s Your Off-Season Plan?
The off-season can be a busy time of year, despite its name. Consider upgrading to engagement analytics and virtual capital markets events to help strengthen your strategy outside the typical proxy season.