The Investor Day has been a fixed part of every IR calendar for decades. But is it time to call a day on the all singing, all dancing, annual Powerpoint extravaganza?
If you read my last blog, you’ll know I’m a big fan of the virtual roadshow. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to recommend we take the Investor Day online. If you ever had any doubt, lock-down has proved it’s completely impossible to concentrate on a webcast for that length of time.
In fact, over the years, physical attendee numbers at the official Investor Day events have generally declined, with more people opting to join online, dotting in and out, keeping half an eye on it whilst multi-tasking at their desks. Even before Covid, it was already starting to feel like the format needed to be refreshed. So what do you replace them with?
Easy: Workshops!
As well as the obvious benefits from removing capacity and location constraints, there are so many reasons why these are the way to build deeper investor and analyst engagement, and increase the understanding of your business.
If you’ve never hosted workshops, here are some things to consider.
- Keep the sessions bite-sized. They don’t need to be an hour, 45 minutes could be plenty. Maybe even 30 minutes? I love that Zoom frees us from the feeling of having to fill an hour to justify the meeting.
- Do a series, spotlighting a different aspect of your business in each session. Bonus – this is a great way to keep a steady flow of news and engagement with the capital markets participants. And, once you’ve done a few, you’ll be able to rattle through the prep in no time at all (well, a lot less time than for an Investor Day anyway).
- Consider doing something different – virtual creates the opportunity to do live product demos and site visits.
- Use the sessions as an opportunity to demonstrate the strength and depth of your leadership team, beyond the CEO and CFO who are more usually visible to the investor community.
- Host them jointly with your comms colleagues and invite the media too. Half the work for the IR team, double the benefit for the company. Win, win!
If you’d like to discuss your IR engagement and plans, why not book a “Power Hour” with me?
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