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by Pete Kidd on Jul 12, 2023 6:00:00 AM
Are you an investor relations professional preparing for your company’s earnings day?
If so, it's important to understand the key elements, best practices and how to measure the impact of your communications and messages.
We’ve outlined five things every IR pro should know before heading into earnings to ensure corporate compliance, help tell a compelling investment story and effectively engage stakeholders.
Keep reading to learn more.
1. Incorporate These Best Practices Into Your Earnings Release
To ensure your earnings release has maximum impact, it's important to follow these best practices for drafting and distributing it.
Keep It Simple
It’s easy for IROs and senior management to get lost in the details of the ups and downs of a given quarter. Earnings releases can’t capture all these nuances, nor are they supposed to.
An earnings release is a snapshot in time with a simple set-up for how quarterly numbers submitted to the regulators came about. Pare down your story to its essence and then tell it in the clearest, most straightforward way possible.
Don’t Shy Away From Formatting
Using bullets and sometimes bold or highlighted text can help you draw the reader’s attention to what you want noticed. Remember that most readers of your earnings release will immediately jump to the bulleted items to decipher results.
Bullets and bold text should therefore appear near the top of your release and should be structured so what matters most comes first.
Write a Clear and Concise Headline
Too often, harried IROs dash off a headline at the last moment because the deadline is approaching, and time is up. This is a mistake.
Your headline is a critical opportunity to hook your reader and tell your story in miniature. Take full advantage. The best-crafted headlines unmistakably convey a message, but they also give context to how the latest quarterly earnings fit into a larger picture.
Get more earnings release best practices in this helpful blog.
2. Go Into Earnings Day Prepared for Your Call
Earnings releases are typically followed by an earnings call where company executives provide additional commentary on the financial results and answer questions from analysts and investors.
These events can be a busy and stressful time. Here are a few tips to help you prepare and execute a flawless call:
Practice Your Script
Before the earnings call, practice your script and prepare answers to potential questions. This will help you feel more confident and prepared during the call.
Coordinate With Other Departments
Ensure you connect with other departments beyond finance and legal, such as the communications team, to ensure that everyone is on the same page and has the same understanding of the financial results.
Monitor Social Media
Use social media monitoring and analyze your platforms to look for any mentions of the company or the earnings release. This can help you to identify any potential issues or concerns that may need to be addressed.
3. Maximize the Impact of Your Earnings With an Engaging Webcast
If you’re looking for a way to make your earnings more accessible and engaging, adding a digital component can bring your event to the next level.
Using an IR event platform will allow you to communicate with key stakeholders more effectively and provide your investors additional information in an engaging, two-way dialogue.
4. Avoid These Common Mistakes
To ensure that your earnings day is the most effective it can be, it's important to avoid common mistakes, including:
- Inaccurate Financial Statements: Ensure that the financial statements are accurate and prepared in accordance with GAAP. Inaccurate financial statements can damage the company's credibility and lead to legal and regulatory issues.
- Too Much Jargon: Avoid using too much jargon or technical language in the earnings release. This can make it difficult for investors and other stakeholders to understand the information.
- Overhyping the Results: Avoid overhyping the financial results or making unrealistic projections about your company's future prospects. This can damage your company's credibility and lead to legal and regulatory issues.
5. Use Analytics to Measure the Effectiveness of IR Communications
Understand how your earnings release and broader IR communications impact your business with performance reporting and analytics.
To measure the effectiveness of an earnings release, it's important to track key metrics.
Earnings Release Distribution
Collecting the data from your distributed release allows you to track the success of your press release and adjust your strategy as needed.
Newswire Analytics deliver meaningful metrics in a user-friendly format, using widgets and live dashboards instead of static reports. Your report is available immediately after your release is published and is easy to share with whomever you choose.
You can instantly connect to the data you need to help measure the performance of your distributed releases, including:
- Number of views
- Social media shares
- Multimedia engagement
- Link clickthroughs
By using GlobeNewswire, you can get insights into who is reading your press release, where it is being picked up and how it is performing overall.
Website Traffic
Track the number of visitors to your IR website before and after the earnings release. This can help to measure the impact of the release on investor interest.
Social Media Mentions
Track social media mentions of the company and the earnings release. This can help to identify any trends or concerns that may need to be addressed.
Analyst Coverage
Track analyst coverage of the company before and after the earnings release. This can help to measure the impact of the release on analyst interest.
Learn More About Notified's IR Services
Your earnings day is a key moment in time for communicating your company's financial results and broader investment story. And Notified is here help you make the most of this opportunity.
We can help tell your unique investment story with IR solutions that drive stakeholder engagement, increase shareholder confidence and showcase your brand.
Notified lets you manage all your IR communications through one partner, seamlessly. We support news distribution, regulatory filings, earnings calls and webcasts, investor days, IR websites, ESG communications and more.
Learn more about our IR services today.