Investor Relations Value Through Interactive Design
by AJ Philippakis, Project Management Team Lead
08/08/2006
Start by examining your IR audience and their priority in your communication. Common audience types are Individual Investor, Institutional Investor, Media, etc. Create a list of the most appealing content for each audience segment and develop copy accordingly. While developing your content strategy, share your objectives with your internal counsel for disclosure approval and allow your design team to create a clean page structure to support the content.
Once you're content and style architecture is complete, you'll want to create a rich user experience tailored with their interests in mind. Fill the page with timely and relevant Investor information. An effective way to accomplish this goal is to leverage the service offerings provided by real-time financial data providers, such as Thomson Financial. These services will allow you to port in your financial performance data directly into your website without forcing users to leave your site. To further the user experience, providers are able to apply your corporate style and brand guidelines to the financial data making the look and feel seamless with your brand.
Investor Relation homepages are often the key pages that your IR audience will bookmark. Treat your Investor Relations homepage as a standalone site design that conveys a snapshot of our most important messages.
Some ideas for you Investor Homepage.
- Investor Message - create fresh copy that is unique from the Corporate overview, this could speak directly to existing or new shareholders. This may be generated from your Annual Report or Investor Fact sheets.
- Quick Quotes - small snapshot quotes with the most pertinent data such as last trade and change percentage.
- Annual Report and Fact Sheets - provide quick links to latest Annual Report or 10-Q and Corporate Fact Sheet.
- Press Releases - post and update financial related releases. Financial release may be segmented from product or corporate releases.
- Email alerts - incent users to sign up for updated financial info.
Important content to remember for your details pages.
- SEC documents - maintain corporate compliance with links to the most recent SEC filings, including the required Section 16 filings disclosure.
- Corporate Governance - detailed information on Executive and Board leadership, Committee composition and corporate communication.
- Contact information - including Corporate Counsel, Transfer Agent and Independent Auditors.
Audience identification, clean and structured design and interactive financial data, some simple ingredients for creating value in the eyes of your online investor audience.
