Videos for investor relations: The new “must” for telling your story to The Street

While companies have long used videos as a compelling communication tool, this format is still not widely employed to engage with Wall Street analysts and investors. Given the fierce competition for equity capital and investor and analyst mindshare, overlooking videos is a missed opportunity.

Why video for Wall Street? Better question—why not?

• The average age of a Wall Street analyst is now 34, and younger generations rely on video content for everything from entertainment to education.
  
  
• Regardless of age, people prefer visual engagement over reading text or just listening to the spoken word.
  
  
• Approximately 65% of the population are visual learners.
  
  
• Studies have shown that the average viewer retains 95% of the message if it is presented in video form.
  
  
• Each week, people watch an average of 17 hours of online videos, and 52% of these viewers are more likely to share video content than any other type of content.
  
  
• Video can help translate complex ideas into a story that investors can more easily absorb.
  
  
• Wall Street analysts and investors are pressed for time. Video content can make their jobs easier while bringing your investment story to life.
  
  
• Video gives management teams a platform to personally engage and convey excitement and passion for their missions.

Even with these compelling reasons, video is still an underutilized way to stand out and capture investor attention. With IR videos, as with other communication tools, best practices often begin with the corporate leaders and are more widely adopted by small and mid-cap companies over time.  

So, if you haven’t already incorporated video into your IR program, it’s time to get started. 

First, you need a strategy and content calendar. Consider these ideas as a part of your video mix:

Investment thesis overview

Whether you are a newly public company that is relatively unknown or a well-established company looking to expand your shareholder base, a short video highlighting your investment thesis accelerates understanding and engagement. A video is a great tool for investor targeting and can also be prominently featured on the ‘Why Invest?’ section of your IR website.

A fireside chat with your CEO or a business unit leader

This is an opportunity to educate Wall Street about a business line, a new product and service, or an aspect of your company that many investors don’t fully understand or appreciate. It’s also a great way to showcase leadership bench strength.

Investor presentations

Ask any buy-side investor and they will tell you that an investor presentation is one of the most important tools they use as a starting point in the decision-making process. However, with the shift to fireside chat formats, fewer investor conferences offer companies the chance to webcast their investor presentation. Consider creating a video of your investor presentation and posting it to your IR website to educate newcomers and bring prospective investors up the learning curve ahead of face-to-face meetings.

A series of special topic videos that break down your investment story

Researching a company from the ground up takes time, and the easier you make it for investors to ‘get the story,’ the better. Especially for complicated stories, a series of short, special topic videos that break down the different story elements into bite-sized pieces can be very helpful. These videos can be posted to your IR site for analysts and investors as well as reporters, who can check out spokespeople ahead of media interviews.

A high-level summary of quarterly earnings results

Earnings season is a busy time for reporting companies but it’s an especially hectic time for analysts, who are often covering more than 25 stocks. In our experience, the more you can do to help analysts understand the most important information from your quarterly earnings report, the better they will do in getting their research report headlines right. Take a look at this example from Goldman Sachs.

M&A transaction

M&A transactions are typically announced without warning, and analysts and investors need to quickly get their arms around the details of the transaction and the deal rationale. A video can quickly relay that story. Check out the video from the Stanley Works and Black & Decker transaction.

A 20-minute video presenting the key takeaways of your four-hour investor day

Investor days are a big lift and require a significant investment of both time and money. But not everyone can attend your investor day, and not everyone has the time to sit through a four-hour presentation. A video that captures the key takeaways of the event can maximize your ROI and allow analysts and investors to tune in at their convenience. Check out the video that C3 AI produced following their recent investor day.

An introduction to your sustainability program, initiative, or report

While sustainability reporting has become widely adopted, these reports can be long and onerous to digest. Videos can help make your sustainability reporting interesting, engaging, and easy to understand. Consider a video that helps this audience better understand how your sustainability initiatives will drive long-term growth and returns. Check out Coca-Cola’s video about their sustainability report.

Also read: Under fire but here to stay: What’s next for ESG

If you're interested in exploring how video can advance your investor relations program, we would be excited to hear from you.