Following my last article around situations where PR and IR must work together, I thought it would be useful to set out some suggestions on how to make this happen in practice.
- Have a regular (e.g. weekly) catch up scheduled in the diary to run through what is on your radar. To my mind, this is the easiest and best way to make sure the departments are fully aligned.
- Build a shared data bank of useful materials. This could include analyst research on the company and peers, approved images for use in annual report/ website/ social media/ other, media “factsheets”, Q&A decks, marketing materials, etc. Keep these up to date.
- Create a consistent language for all internal and external communications. This could include glossaries to ensure consistent terminology and definitions, and style sheets to ensure consistent formatting (e.g. use of double quotes or single quotes for speech, capitalisation of frequently used terms).
- Attend each others events. Regardless of how involved (or not) they are in the preparation of the event materials, the PR and comms teams should watch results presentations, capital markets days, and other key investor/ analyst events. Equally, the IR team should sit in on events with journalists.
- Organise joint staff training sessions, e.g. on compliance and regulations. The legal and compliance departments will love this!
- Create a list of spokespeople across the organisation, and involve them! This will help them, and the organisation, become recognised for thought leadership.
- Consider running join events e.g. “teach-ins ” or site visits may be appropriate for investors, analysts, and journalists.
- Repurpose content. In addition to their initial purpose, interviews, short video clips, white papers, etc. can add value to the website, social media, newsletters etc.
- Establish best practices for social sharing. Create a shared content plan. Will the IR team have separate social media accounts? Will it create content directly or focus on reshaping content produced elsewhere on the organisation? If you’re tasked with running the social media, use a platform to manage the various channels.
- Cross-promote media coverage. Content created by a third party is great for increasing reach and building trust. Include links to media coverage in an investor newsletter.
- Monitor and evaluate engagement. Discuss what works, and what doesn’t work – the old “lessons learned” session remains as valuable today as ever.
- And lastly, but probably most importantly, have an agreed key messages document, with supporting content. This should be refreshed periodically. Include the exact key phrases you want to see in the media and analyst research – if all spokespeople use the same language, the message will be clearer.
I hope that is a helpful starting point. What would you add to this list?
IR-connect 