The typical investor relations website contains the basic set of information for investors: stock prices and trading volume, SEC filings, perhaps the current market capitalization, and contact information with an investor relations officer. Though this information is adequate, it does nothing to create a relationship with investors, which is critical for creating a stable group of long-term investors. This article contains two levels of additional information to add to your investor relations website that provide much more information to investors.
The first level of additional information requires somewhat more website maintenance and a higher volume of posted information, but requires minimal additional programming skill. The recommendations are as follows:
- Research reports. If analysts give permission, post their research reports about the company or industry on the site. This requires users to first read and click on a disclaimer paragraph, since such reports usually contain recommendations to buy the company's stock.
- Press release archives. There may have been dozens of press releases over the past few years. If so, this is excellent information for investors, so give them access to an archive, with search capability.
- Industry overview. Many investors may have no idea about how your industry functions, so prepare and post information about its dynamics and overall growth prospects.
- Speech transcripts. If a senior officer of the company makes a speech, prepare a transcript of the speech and post it on the website.
- FAQs. Investors usually ask the same questions many times over. If so, post a list of answers to frequently asked questions, possibly sorted by topic.
- Glossary of terms. Most industries employ a variety of special terms that may be entirely foreign to a prospective investor. If so, prepare and post a glossary of terms.
- Track site visits and downloads. It is difficult to determine which parts of an investor relations site will be most useful to investors, so use a web analytics package to track which pages and downloads are accessed most frequently. Then alter the site to place the most popular items on the investor relations home page, or as close to it as possible.
The second level of additional information requires more advanced programming skills, since a much greater level of interactivity is required. Here are some possibilities to consider:
- Registration option. The key goal of an investor relations website is to build a long-term relationship with a current or prospective investor, and the best way to do that is to encourage them to register to receive additional information from the company. This can be a difficult task, so encourage them with an incentive, such as a discount coupon to purchase a company product. Also, itemize exactly what information you will send them, and make it easy for them to unsubscribe.
- Tailored web pages. If someone registers, then give them the option to create a customized web page that clusters together only the information that they want to see. This page can then be activated by a cookie, or by their signing in.
- Send page link. If an investor likes a web page, encourage them to send it to a friend by entering an e-mail address on the page. This also gives you contact information for another person who may eventually become an investor.
- Interactive tools. Investors like nothing more than to determine the current value of their stock holdings in your company (especially if the price is trending up!), so post an interactive tool that calculates the value of their current holdings, based on the most recent stock price.
- Pop-up survey. A great way to determine the effectiveness of a web page is to incorporate a pop-up survey that asks a viewer about the usability and presentation of information found on a specific page. Only use this feature selectively, since it can become annoying.
- Alternate language version. If there are many foreign investors, or if the company plans to attract foreign investors, then create a foreign language version of the site.