4 WAYS TO GET THE MOST OUT OF YOUR INVESTOR RELATIONS WEBSITE
For many investors, your company website will be their first port of call when trying to assess the attractiveness of your company. Your company website should be front and center of your digital strategy. Getting an investor to come and stay on your website offers a great opportunity to showcase your brand, tell your story and highlight your vision for the future.
Here are the irlabs cardinal rules when creating your investor relations website:
Make it Easy to Find
It may not be the most popular page on your site, but for investors researching your company, the information on the Investor Relations (IR) section is fundamental to their due diligence process. Consider adding a link to the IR section in the top navigation or footer to make it easy for them to find. After all, you don’t want a potential investor leaving aggrieved after not being able to find what they need.
Aesthetics & Usability Design
Put more emphasis on design as you go about building out your IR pages. The data and reports held within are important, but you want to create an aesthetically pleasing and easy to navigate experience for your visitors. You’ll find creating an improved website experience where investors are enjoying interacting with your brand will contribute greater business success. You can easily help guide and engage investors by consolidating menu options, keeping text brief, and leveraging high-impact visuals and call-to-action buttons.
Spotify does this superbly with a minimalist page that presents all information in an easy to find, well designed way. Reports are neatly arranged on the page, and the simplicity in the top navigation makes it easy to find anything investors might be looking for.
Capturing Engagement
So, you’ve got investors visiting your website and thinking about investing in your company? Well, what next!? Once a prospective investor is on your website you should aim to get them to engage with content in a way that will capture their contact information. That’s typically done using simple forms for downloaded content, a request for email updates, or perhaps a request for contact. Now that those contacts are in your database, engage them with a well thought out strategic e-mail campaign to build brand equity. Engage your investment audience, and increase shareholders!
Highlight ESG
Investors like to align themselves with companies that share their values, and your website is the perfect opportunity to showcase what is important to the company going forward. For example, your stance on Environmental Social and Governance (ESG) issues can be important in attracting capital. It is critical to leverage your IR website to showcase your ESG efforts and tie those efforts to the success of your company.
Conagra Brands does a great job of highlighting their social responsibilities and recent achievements on their website. ESG content is fully integrated throughout the site, so that you see content about the company’s good deeds right alongside quarterly reports.
Wendy’s also does a fantastic job of emphasizing the importance of ESG in their company strategy. On its ESG page, there is a note from Todd Penegor, the CEO, recognizing the importance of ESG, and explaining how ESG fits with the company’s values.
IR websites often contain dry, stuffy information, but that doesn’t mean it needs to be presented in a dry, stuffy way. A website that artfully mixes storytelling with elegant design and a smooth user experience engages investors both rationally and emotionally. Delighting your investors and giving them all the information they need will go a long way to endearing you to the investment community.
