Targeting and Outreach

Investor Targeting – creating consistent demand for our client’s stock could be the most important strategy of our investor relations outreach programs. Yet, before we pick up the phone or write an email to a potential investor, we first lay the groundwork necessary that enables us to be effective in our targeting, such as:

• Get to know your company and story very well – its history, management, customers, sales channels, success stories and strategy for increasing shareholder value. In some cases, we’ll help tighten your story or key messages.
• Conduct research on who holds, or recently held, your stock and their buy/hold/sell patterns. We determine which financial institutions and mutual funds are holding shares among your company’s closest peers, but not holding your shares.
• Evaluate which of the institutions would make good shareholders or prime targets and group them by geographic region.
• Build a contact database of analysts and/or fund managers likely to follow or buy shares in your industry.
  

Investor Outreach – once our targeting process is complete, we begin a systematic outreach campaign. At this stage we are flush with market intelligence and have an intimate knowledge or your company and its key messages. During the outreach process we help raise the financial community’s awareness of your company and help educate analysts about its investment potential. All the while we are gauging their level of interest in learning more, receiving additional information, or perhaps meeting with management. While not all are, our experience suggests a well-prepared program and presentation will yield a substantial level of new interest in your company among this targeted group of investors. The information we gather is also used to organize the following events:

One-on-One and Group Meetings – as often is the case, our first outreach effort will identify analysts or fund managers who want to meet with management at the earliest opportunity. We will try to schedule such meetings around upcoming business travel by company executives, either one-on-one or in small group meetings over breakfast or lunch.

Road Shows – the term “road show” traditionally referred to several weeks of back-to-back marketing meetings held in conjunction with an IPO, follow-on or other type of offering. Offering road shows typically encompass a dozen or more cities in the U.S. and perhaps overseas. However, over the years non-offering, or non-deal road shows have become and effective way, particularly for small and mid-cap companies, to quickly reenergize and reeducate the marketplace regarding your company’s story. Typically, non-deal road shows include a few days of tightly scheduled, back-to-back meetings in several financial centers in the United States, or internationally. Well-organized road shows efficiently leverage management’s “Street” time and can be conducted independently, or with sponsorship of your company’s investment banks’ marketing departments.

Investor Conferences – our services will identify and recommend those conferences in which your company should participate, or request to participation. We also organize and manage all activities leading up to conferences, including registration, accommodations, marketing materials, PowerPoint slides and IR Web site links to the live Internet broadcast and webcast replay. We will help navigate your company to the appropriate conferences, which come in several forms, including those:

• sponsored by investment banks (usually free for presenters);
• sponsored by professional, industry, or shareholder organizations (presenting fees required);
• offered by independent businesses (presenting fees required).

Database Maintenance – using our investor database systems, changes to your investor database are often done automatically as new intelligence is posted to the contact system. This allows us to track analysts as they move from firm to firm, from the sell-side to the buy-side and vice versa, or as they become fund managers. We use contact information to directly notify analysts and investors by email of new company developments.