What Makes for Effective Investor Relations Sites? Part 3: Share Price Information
October 14, 2009
Having established last time that a roadmap to the relevant investor information is essential on the main investor relations page, this piece will discuss one of investor relations more popular destinations – the share price page. You might think that this would be a simple enough thing to do – throw a graph of the share price up on the screen and let it go at that. But there is a lot more to it than that and companies that pay attention to this area can save their shareholders (particularly individual investors) quite a bit of frustration by thinking the site through.
The first thing to realize is that there are several distinct sets of information that investors are looking for when they visit your site for share price information. First, there is immediate information: what is the stock price doing now? Next, there is graphical information: what does the price chart look like? Third, there is historical information: what was the stock price on a certain date? I will be breaking down all of these parts in due course, but today I will be concentrating on immediate share price information.
There is a standard set of information that investors expect to see when looking at current price: last trade, open, high, low, change, volume and whether the information is real time or delayed. Below is a screen shot from the web site of ENI, the Italian energy company that does a good job setting out intraday information. Because ENI is traded on multiple markets, they also provide tabs to view the information for the particular market you may be interested in.
Another good example comes from BT, the telecom company, and below is a screen shot of a portion of their page on share price information. Note that BT adds in the P/E ratio and the dividend yield as additional pieces of information on the stock. Further, BT also shows what the relevant index, the FTSE 100 did on the day in question, so you have a reference point, although if they are going to do that, they should include the percentage change for both their stock and the index rather that the pure price change in order to facilitate understanding of the stock price change relative to the index.
Having established what the current trading in the stock is, companies should then move on to placing the stock price in historical context by the use of price chart graphs. In addition to the basics, there are many interesting things companies can do to help investors and I’ll be covering some of them next time.
In this series:
Previous post: Provide a Roadmap
Next post: Share price charts
An A+ for… Oops! No, wait–
October 13, 2009
KPMG–a “mature” company that has reinvented its employer image with admirable panache–won the 2008 ERE award for Best Corporate Careers Site. One of the practices they received praise for: “Weekly Web design and content refresh meetings ensure that the site content is always fresh.”
So I thought it would be interesting to see how things are going there a year later. The main Careers site looks nice enough—though it seems a little overstuffed. But actually I didn’t spend much time there, because a link labeled “Global careers magazine” caught my eye. Several of my recent posts have addressed aspects of global recruiting, and there will be more, so I zipped over for a look.
And I loved the top page (which illustrates this post) right away. The dramatic iceberg image captures attention for a strong message: “Inspired to act.” Focusing on sustainability as a corporate priority sets a great tone.
Scroll down, and there’s a rich array of content:
I was just about to enthuse about this excellent example of corporate communication when I noticed the line “Careers Magazine August 2009.” I’m writing this at the beginning of October, so there’s a definite freshness gap. Also—a promise broken. Either it’s a monthly magazine, or it’s not. (If it’s meant to be a bi-monthly magazine, the dateline should really say August/September; and besides, the section right below it is headed “Jobs of the Month”.)
Maybe there’s a more current issue that goes to subscribers? I’ve joined the subscription list, and will update if/when something new appears. But I have to report in the meantime that registering to receive this publication was not a positive experience. The registration process itself was okay, but in order to sign up for the Global Careers Magazine I had to sleuth through a list of 25 (yes, really) publications, such as “Audit committee insights” and “Chemical issues monitor.” Although the available items cover a range of types (magazines, e-updates, newsletters) and focus on a wide variety of industries, they are arranged alphabetically instead of being grouped by some sort of helpful logic.
These may seem like small items, and it’s unlikely that an out-of-date online magazine and an unwieldy subscription list will offend or even annoy most visitors. But details like these leave an impression. Did no one have time to publish a September issue of the magazine? Why not? Are they all overworked, has staff been cut back, has global hiring been put on hold? I think these questions might cross many minds.
And the thing is . . . KPMG didn’t even actually have to publish a new magazine! They could just have removed the word “August” from the page, and that would have fixed the problem, at least for most visitors. Which makes me even more convinced that no one at the company is taking ownership.
So this is basically another opportunity to remark on the importance of (a) paying attention to the state of the website—and (b) watching out for those subtle, unintentional messages that can creep in while everyone is busy with something else.
Stop Trying To Hold Back The Ocean
October 12, 2009
Ever wondered if you’re truly making the most of the resources available to you?
I recently invited Zack Grossbart, who is expert in telecommuting and works with high-tech companies to help them create strong teams that span continents (see The One Minute Commute) to write a post for us.
Zack has been working with and coaching remote teams at organizations like JP Morgan, 3M, Nortel, Hewlett Packard, and the United States Navy since 2001. He has served as a consultant to numerous Fortune 500 companies and is a consulting engineer for the Novell Compliance Management Platform.
Zack began loading DOS from a floppy disk when he was five years old. He began working professionally with computers when he was 15 and started his first software company when he was 16. He has also been an IT administrator and a member of an advertising firm. Zack lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, about a mile from Harvard University.
Over to you Zack…
Stop Trying To Hold Back The Ocean: Harness The Writing Talent In Your Company
In the old days the marketing department was the public face of your company. Your sales team talked to customers, your channel team talked to partners, and your marketing department talked to everyone. Marketing departments were judged by their ability to control the message and stop leaks.
The perfect example of the old way is Apple’s marketing department. They released what they wanted when they wanted and not before. When Steve Jobs unveiled the iPod reporters had been lured into the room with only the knowledge that Apple was releasing something and it wasn’t a computer. Today even Apple is springing leaks.
Companies all over are trying to plug up the little leaks in their corporate messaging while the roaring ocean of Twitter, Facebook, and personal blogs overwhelms them. They need to stop holding back the leaks and start seeing the world differently.
A few facts
Fact 1. You have writers in places you’ve never looked. Bob from Accounting has a blog about model trains. Sherry from Engineering manages a community of scrap-bookers. Your company is full of writers.
Fact 2. Bob and Sherry are scared to write about your company. There have been too many bad stories about employees who were sacked for complaining about their jobs online. Most blogging tutorials advise you to never mention your company and most companies have strict rules about it.
Fact 3. Bob and Sherry are passionate about their jobs. They work hard, know your products inside and out, and like them enough to keep working to make them better.
Put these three facts together and you have people who want to write about your company and can’t do it.
Stop plugging the leaks and build a dam
You can’t stop the ocean. Your people will keep writing so direct them. Your marketing department must change from being the sole providers of content to mentoring other writers. Focus the power of those writers like water through a dam.
Step 1. Find your writers. Ask around the office and see who has a blog. Use Google to search for your employees and see what they’re saying online. Look for the ones who write consistently and well.
Step 2. Create a place for them to write. You might create a single corporate blog, an employee blog section, or just organize their existing blogs.
Step 3. Guide your writers. Pair them up with someone from your marketing department who can guide them about what content you want and help them review and edit their work.
Step 4. Enable them. Google famously gave everyone 10 percent of their time to work on special projects. Give your writers four hours a week to write.
Step 5. Incent them. By the word, by the article, or on a bonus plan, pay your writers for doing the extra work.
Step 6. Get out of the way. Move roadblocks out of your writers’ way. If the legal department needs to review everything then take care of it for your writers. Make it easy for them to write.
Harness your ocean of writers to generate market power for your company. Let them talk about you, show your customers what an exciting company you are and where you need to improve. Your people really are passionate about your company, and passion sells.
Thanks Zack!
McDonald’s Hypes Free Coffee Refills with Creative Ambient Media
October 12, 2009
I love creative ambient media promotions, and Cosette West in Canada got very creative in their outdoor campaign for McDonald’s.
McDonald’s had a simple goal – to spread the word about its free coffee refills. During a time when McDonald’s is trying to directly compete with established coffee brands such as Starbucks, the campaign needed to really make a splash.
First up … Cosette West went big by transforming a street light into a coffee cup and pot of coffee with a big “Free Refills” message that no one could miss. Check it out below (click on the ad to see the full-size version on Ads of the World).
Second, Cosette West created an outdoor ad at a bus stop that didn’t remain static like most outdoor advertising does. Instead, this ad changed everyday as the amount of coffee beans dwindled each day that the free refill promotion neared its end — check it out below (click on the ad to see the full-size version). It’s easy for ads at locations like bus stops to become invisible to consumers who see them everyday. By changing the McDonald’s ad a bit everyday, that audience is likely to notice the change and therefore, take notice of the ad again everyday. It’s a very clever tactic.
It’s this kind of creative thinking that makes consumers stop and take notice. Does it convert and deliver ROI? I don’t have an answer to that in the case of McDonald’s and the free coffee refills campaign, but if the primary goal was awareness, the company undoubtedly succeeded. And isn’t that one of the first rules of advertising success — getting people to stop and notice your ad? Without awareness, there can be no sales.
Brands Hope Virtual Gifts Can Drive Buzz
October 9, 2009
If you could give someone a virtual Miller Genuine Draft via Twitter, would it make you want to buy one? That’s what some brands are hoping for thanks to a tool from AdNectar that enables Twitter users to give virtual branded gifts to one another, similar to how Facebook users can send virtual gifts to each other. The goal for companies is to create an online brand buzz that translates into more sales. But will it work?
According to BrandWeek, a Twitter virtual gift campaign through AdNectar can cost anywhere from $50,000 to $150,000 depending on the social media scope and duration of the campaign. Malibu Rum, Nestle’s Toll House, Fisher-Price, Trident Gum, and Overture Films (for Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story) have already begun working on or launched campaigns.
There is no arguing that virtual gift giving on Facebook is popular. Both branded and nonbranded virtual gifts can be shared on Facebook, but how will the tactic translate to Twitter? We’ll have to wait and see. The biggest problem is the potential to clutter users’ Twitter streams as Facebook walls have become. We’ve almost gotten to a point in the evolution of Facebook where people need multiple accounts to keep the clutter separate from the real content.
Certainly, for people who use these social media tools strictly for personal reasons, the clutter might not be a nuisance, but the problem is looming in the not so distant future. It’s a problem that many social media users are sure to face, particularly if they use their social media profiles for work-related purposes where sharing a Tickle-Me-Elmo Ticklegram or even seeing one on a business associate’s profile might not be appropriate.
For now, giving branded gifts on Twitter, Facebook, LiveJournal, etc. is still in its infancy, and the ROI is questionable. It’s certainly a good brand awareness tactic, but it remains to be seen if the investment is worth it in the end. Of course, by next week, there will be another hot social media marketing trend, but for now, head on over to your Twitter account and send a friend Michael Moore’s virtual hat. Or maybe not.
Image: Flickr
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