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