MUNCmedia_Retail_Investor_Targeting

Investors need to buy the story before they will buy the stock.

This week, I had several MUNCmedia “IR 101” conference calls with a few of our long term clients. By no means were these strategic IR consultation discussions on issues: ie “should you offer quarterly of annual guidance” or “the value of stock-buy-back programs.” It was a tad simpler: ie “where the hell is your Investor Relations website?” One important facet of my joining MUNCmedia was to introduce real “tactical expertise” to the hundreds of smaller market-cap clients we serve. The very FIRST thing I do when we sign a new client is I review their IR website ( I have a deeeeeeeep knowledge in that topic ). I was surprised by how many small cap companies have no IR website. Some do link to random stock pages, but a large percentage have nothing. Bad PubCo, bad bad!     Without an IR website, you will be marginalized in the eyes of prospective Retail Investors. Opportunity for liquidity will fall away. What I tell them, very briefly? Get an IR website ASAP! Not for “transparency” - not for “compliance” but as an “investor destination.”  ie: What is the next step (the action) for all the Retail Investors MUNCmedia will bring to your IR door? Every investor – retail and institutional – ABSOLUTELY EXPECT to find an IR website about your company. In their eyes, iIt validates the “IR product” exactly as shopping consumers expect “more information” about a company’s products and services. “Without an IR website,” I merely state, “you are losing sales leads out of your sales funnel.” Funny. When I switch from IR vocabulary into Sales lingo, the CEOs tend to understand and take action. I also suggest to them… don’t get buried in the sales mire of available features. Just start with a crisp, professional presence, but the key point is to start. Make your “financial brand” at par with your marketing brand. There are many important reasons to have a great IR website, but for small-cap companies remember: Investors need to buy the story before they will buy the stock. Have a great day.

Update: O'Brien and others tell me to man-up!

UPDATE on my last post: I received six calls from niche folks calling me a Wimpy-the-Pooh (I am paraphrasing – they actually questioned my physical virility) for not taking a stronger stand a topic that I am very knowlwdgeable in. Here is my stand. In theory, tactically and technically it is a total no-brainer. Instead of a 6,000 word full content release, send a short 6 word snippet that says “Click here to read our earnings” that directs the reader to the IR website. Done. Wait a minute; this sounds a lot like the official SEC-driven eProxy Notice & Access model. And, Mrs. Lincoln, exactly how did THAT work out in practice? Not so well, mostly as the investors did not realize it was coming. (It does seem better this year.) But, the point is, with eProxy, the shareowners are being asked and given a choice… “what is your preferred method of proxy communications?” Can news distribution be modeled the same?

Certainly, lawyers, blogs and vendors have opinions on this. But what do investors want? Here are some points: ·   If you are compelled to switch, don’t switch to save money. Switch as you have a better honed web disclosure method to reach the audience you need to reach. And the definition of “better” may be different for different companies. ( per my blatant product placement ad for Retail Investor Targeting) ·   If you are switching just to save money, try renegotiating your fees first. ·   Are you really prepared? Going to a “notice and access” news model will need a total rethink of internal IR processes. Double work ? - creating the “snippet” press release as well as the full content version report. And what is that? A page on the IR website? Excel sheet? The 10-Q? One XBRL 10-Q to rule them all? ·   Also – be mindful of your content and formatting: not all news portals take (XHTML) embedded links. ·   A press release is an indelible public watermark. Content can be changed on an IR website 24/7. (Hopefully that is not part of your plan.) ·   Many companies use the newswire as their single input point for ALL the subsequent automated output including posting onto their own 3rd-party IR website, email broadcasts to opt-in recipients and to social media outlets. This is highly efficient for IR departments. Saving IROs time has immeasurable value.   ·   Twitter and Facebook instead of newswires? Great tools and I use them a lot, however – they are free services. Twitter’s and Facebook’s management can change their operation whenever they want. They "owe" us nothing. Not a foundation for compliance. ·   Is there a viable commercial product being built? NIRI is just around the corner. A couple newswires have dropped hints. Clearly, I could go on and on with this and no, I am not “picking a side.” I simply ask again: where and how do investors want to receive your news? That is notice and access. Have a great day.

Should companies switch to a “notice & access” model for press releases?

Video length: 45 seconds

There's been a lot of media, blog and Twitter discussions about Google’s announcement regarding their taking advantage of the SEC’s 2008 interpretation of RegFD. It’s a topic that I am very familiar with for a few reasons includuing: 1.) it was my Shareholder.com data that NIRI brought to the Hill back in 2008 that drove the interpretation,

2.) I obvivosly know the product workings of both IR website disclosure and 3.) the newswire product processes quite well.   I have been asked several times since Google’s “Earth Shattering Announcement” (capitalized that to make it look important) for my opinion on this. My Opinion (capitalized that to make it look important) is….. it’s a moot point for my MUNCmedia clients – which is my focus now. The overarching reason that public companies select to work with MUNCmedia is that their broadly disseminated news is not proactively reaching eyeballs (cue Frank video above). Regardless if it’s a 6,000 word earnings release or a 400 word “snippet” with a link to the full content, until a company gets their ticker into an investor, media or analyst watchlist, having their news passively sitting somewhere is not effective outreach. What am I defining as a watchlist? Any mechanism (financial web portal, IR website, institutional terminals) that sends out an alert that “xyz company has issued a news release.” This blatent MUNCmedia sales pitch aside, my belief is that newswires continue to be a very effective and IR friendly one-stop distribution channel to established investors and media.   I’m dodging the main question, aren't I? Should companies switch to a “notice & access” model for press releases? How the @#$%& would I know that? I ABSOLUTELY do know that tactically -and for RegFD compliance- companies can switch. But a tactical “can” is unrelated to a strategic “should.” Even though he's the grumpiest looking of the four in this IR Alert post, I like what my friend Jeff Stacey (GlobeNewswire) stated: “The term "best practice" is relative as each implementation is highly dependent on the company and the type of announcement. There are many nuances that influence what makes a best practice. Each company must measure whether the end goal is SEC disclosure, generating news coverage, reducing costs, engaging more directly with customers, attracting investors or a combination of any number of these factors.” Closing Thought. ( I capitalized it to make it look important) Perhaps companies need to ask their investors how they want to receive their news? That’s actually the genesis of the “notice & access” moniker anyway (it was stolen from eproxy). IE: if your institutional holders’ daily workflow is all within Bloomberg, ThomsonOne, FactSet – then companies may not want to interrupt that business process. Consider the fee for 6,000 words and snazzy XHTML tables as a cost of business. Retail Investors? MUNC is your best COB. Have a great day and see you at the NIRI Conference

Companies to use websites to build confidence. News at Eleven.

Interesting story in the New York Times this week about a topic that is de rigueur for investor relations – using the web to build confidence. Yawn. The article offers no real breakthrough advice – I felt it mostly rubbed hindsight salt in the wounds of Maclaren, Toyota, Playtex and Tylenol. For me, (and my inner “IR Website guy”) the take-away is that the companies (especially the listed ones) and their PR team should know this already. The learnings from Investor Relations are not new. The entire IR function revolves around online transparency to build confidence. For example, regardless of the pundits pummeling Toyota’s PR for weeks now, their IR team must be terrific – their stock is trading over $20 higher than it was a year ago. Sure, it dropped after the recall news, but it’s been rising calmly ever since. I can only assume the Investor Relations Department is meeting with the Street with great candor. I am curious on how their retail shareholder base is reacting. I did find one smart bit of advice in the article. Read David Meerman Scott’s book. Being biased and transparent, I brought Meerman Scott to NIRI 2007 for the formal launch of “The News Rules of Marketing and PR” (and my work is a case study in the book). David is a staunch proponent for using the web to communicate (and build confidence) one-to-one with people – that applies to where I work now (Retail Investor Targeting) more than ever.     I love to market and create “engaging revenue generating content” but I am deathly tired of spin. IR knows damn well that you cannot hide on the web. Everything comes out.   Have a great day.