August 4, 2017
We are involved in a lot of investor presentations here at Dix & Eaton. We may be building the first one for an IPO company, undertaking a refinement of a company’s investible story and the presentation of that information, or helping to prepare for a major event or transaction. We also look at a lot of non-client presentations just to see the variety of story-telling and style.
For most public companies, the investor presentation is probably the most important single piece of information on the IR website. According to the Cision/PR Newswire Shareholder Confidence 365 survey, “PowerPoint-based investor presentations are the top content hunted by Wall Street.”
The problem is that the vast majority of these documents are a compromise. They are created as supporting material for a live, in-person presentation. But they also need to work when viewed online or printed out, a self-guided experience without the benefit of the accompanying remarks.
Try this experiment:
Find a company that provides transcripts of its posted investor presentations. Among those that do so are: Alcoa, GE, Ford, HP, Johnson Matthey, Mattel, Nike, and Rolls-Royce.
Review a deck on its own and then alongside the transcript. I expect you will feel significantly better informed by the combination of the two. Transcripts can help fill in some of the blanks, elaborate on important points, and even capture the CEO’s passion and confidence.
Posting a transcript is the easiest way to enhance the value of your online IR presentation, but there are other ways to improve the experience, including:
- Producing a separate document that is more of a report than a bullet-point presentation. As an example, see this self-standing quarterly Investor Updatefrom Brandywine Realty Trust.
- Creating a more robust version of your standard investor deck. For example, the utility NW Natural uses thisas its all-purpose IR presentation, but the somewhat-copy-heavy format is better suited than most for viewing online without the benefit of a transcript.
- Posting a “Notes” version of the PowerPoint PDF that includes the scripted remarks for the slides.
- Recording your CEO delivering the presentation and offering it as an audio or video webcast for replay. Many brokers now offer audio and video webcasts from their conferences. See both a company-produced and a broker-provided audio presentation on the GE investor siteunder Recent Events & Presentations. And see this example of a video presentation from a broker conference.
Remember: This may be the most important content on your website. Make the most of it. Don’t shortchange your investors, especially prospective shareholders who may not know your company’s full story.
Are you looking for ways to improve your IR website and increase overall investor engagement? Drop me an email or tweet me at @PatrickPfxg99.
