3 ways to improve your IR content

Last week, I sorta felt as though I was taking my life in my hands when I dared to "debunk an American myth" and question the true strength of today's emerging IR tools. Refreshingly enough - and much to my relief - many of you agreed (guess I can cancel my request for Witness Protection).

Let's indulge that notion for a moment, shall we? Let's say you're self-actualized enough to admit that your IR content is not as strong as your IR tools. Would you know where to start the rehabilitation? Obviously, if your core investor messaging is so bland that it could apply to any company in any industry, a major re-work is in your near future. But let's say for the sake of argument that that's not the case. Let's say your core investor messaging is actually pretty good but it just hasn't been refreshed as recently as your IR toolkit has. In some ways, this is a harder problem to address. 

One way to think about it is to view the task as a home improvement project... it's an expansion (read: adding to the sound foundation), not a makeover (read: gutting the structure and starting over) ... make sense? As you well know, I could go on and on about analogies... let me know if this home improvement analogy doesn't cut it for you. Here are a few ways to expand (read: improve) your IR messaging to ensure it's as strong as the tools with which you use to diseminate it:

• Innovation – Every company claims to be innovative, but how many can prove it? By establishing a consistent and accurate metric and reporting it to investors (e.g., a vitality index that captures the amount of revenue generated by products launched over the past three to five years), you will be able to more fully leverage this important value driver.

• Use of Cash – With balance sheets restocked with cash, investors are anxious to understand how these dollars will be deployed effectively to spur growth and drive value. They want to know what criteria the board and management are using – and over what timeframe – to determine the best uses of the cash to generate value.

• Governance – Investors consistently rank quality of governance as pivotal to strategy execution and shareholder value creation, and they expect transparency around a variety of governance issues. Succession planning is a key area. Investors are also becoming more acutely focused on the qualifications of each director and want to understand how each contributes to the company’s strategic growth plan.

There are a few more ideas included in this piece that we just issued. Anything else you'd add to this list? Anything on this list you'd avoid?

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