Attract More Investors With These Investor Relations Website Best Practices

There are many channels through which issuers can engage shareholders, and a well-designed and optimised IR website is one of the key weapons in the IRO’s arsenal. IR Magazine found that almost 80% of officers found these sites an effective tool in engaging institutional investors, with 62% saying that the site helped them interact with retail investors. 

And the feeling is mutual. The study found that 65% of institutional investors felt IR websites were useful when considering whether to invest in a company, with 63% saying they were helpful for engaging with issuers in whom they already invest. This emphasises the importance of creating a truly captivating resource for current and potential shareholders. In this article, we will go over the most effective investor relations website best practices that you can use to create an effective IR platform.

Why you need an investor relations website today

Humans generate 3.5 quintillion bytes of data on the internet every single day. And because there is so much user-generated content, it can sometimes be difficult to find the truth behind the rumours, speculation and misinformation. When you create an investor relations website, you present to the world your one source of truth. It becomes the destination for shareholders looking to find accurate data and information. Best of all, you control the narrative. 

Given the number of shareholders who find this type of engagement helpful for informing their investment decisions, having an IR website is essential as a lead generation tool. It provides a repository for all of the resources that help to promote your business to investors, making it easy for them to find what they need in order to assess the suitability of your offering. 

Keeping this website up-to-date presents your company as transparent and open with regard to financial matters. It also shows your willingness to engage with investors and analysts, which can reassure them that you value their input and investment. This leads to better connections with your shareholders. 

How to develop an effective investor relations website

There are numerous considerations to make when developing your IR website. To break this down into easily digestible chunks, here are the three main areas you must cover and detail of what is involved within each.  

Key elements

Here are the essential components of an effective IR website. 

Design, usability and accessibility best practices 

Aside from the written content, there are a host of technical best practices that will help engage your users with your offering. These include: 

Compliance Considerations

One of the key investment risks in any company is compliance, and investors need to know that your business does all it can to mitigate these risks. This includes all areas of the organisation, from the board to the IR website. 

Failing to ensure that your website adheres to the local regulation and legislation in the countries in which you are based is an immediate sign that the issuer is not as compliance-focused as it could be. 

Research your obligations under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and other key legal requirements to implement them within your IR site. 

How to make your IR website stand out

• Clearly communicate your company’s financial performance and strategy to investors. Be open and honest, and start the relationship on the right footing to allow them to make well-informed investment decisions. 
• Provide up-to-date and relevant news and events related to your company. This keeps your investors in the loop and makes them feel part of the organisation and valued by it. 
• Include investor-friendly content, such as shareholder presentations. These are informative files that are purposefully designed to appeal to investors. By adding them to your IR website, you increase the reach of the presentations and provide helpful information to users.
• Provide a comprehensive view of your share price data in real time. This is helpful to shareholders who want to understand the dividend-yield calculation, track performance and gauge market sentiment. They can also use it to assess risks and calculate optimum entry and exit points. 
• Provide an option for investors to sign up for alerts and updates in order to be able to engage them further. Having their consent to contact them directly allows for easier investor targeting and further networking to take place. 
• Make the investor relations section easy to find from your website’s homepage, as that might well be the first place an investor or analyst arrives when searching for the information they need and planning their investment strategy. Make it an extension of the brand website and simple to reach. 
• Include a clear call-to-action for investors, such as a contact form or your investor relations team’s contact information. Anything you can add to your site that makes it as simple as possible to facilitate conversation is a positive feature of your IR strategy. 
• Implement an investor relationship management system. Using the sign-up form, you can add the details of users in this CRM, which stores details of your interactions that you can use to inform targeting, roadshow scripts and other IR activity. 
• Educate investors to build confidence in the company strategy. Engage them with your story and make it feel like an opportunity they cannot miss out on. 

FAQ

What are strategies to engage your investors?

Outreach is an effective way to keep investors engaged. Ask them for their thoughts, concerns and questions to maintain a conversation with them. Regular updates in a range of media should be another key element of your communication plan, as should making the materials that they need for research purposes as easy to find and use as possible. 

What are the common mistakes to avoid when building an investor relations website?

Concentrating on style over substance is a mistake that many organisations make with IR websites. The important aspects are those that help investors find the information they need and that engage them with content relevant to the business and their investment. Leaving out ESG reporting is another way to disengage investors. 

What do investors and analysts expect from an IR website?

Investors and analysts expect to find tangible data and information regarding the company, its performance, its aims and the reasons why they should invest. It should tell them about the value they will receive from the investment and back that up with evidence.