ICO_Ebook (1)

Sean Dougherty
INVESTOR
CONVERSION
OPTIMIZATION
Four Steps to Attracting and
Retaining More Shareholders

2
Introduction 3
What’s the Investor’s Journey?
What’s the ICO Process?
Step 1 Attract 4
Why Attract?
How To Attract
Investor Conversion Optimized Solutions
Current Tactics (ICO Solution)
ICO Tactics
Step 2 Engage 8
Why Engage?
How To Engage
IR Website
Inbound IR
Corporate Video
Step 3 Convince 10
Why Convince?
How To Convince
ICO Tactics
Step 4 Convert 14
Why Convert?
How To Convert
Investor Conversion
Optimized Solutions
ICO Tactics
Conclusion 17
TABLE OF CONTENTS

3
This book is intended to teach you how you can attract and retain more
shareholders; increase your stock’s liquidity, and compete for capital at the
absolute highest Level.
First we’ll examine what steps an investor goes through in their decision making
process; then we’ll examine the 4 steps that bring them along their journey: why
to do them, how they are done, and how you can investor conversion optimize
them.
What is The Investor’s Journey?
The Investor’s Journey is a 5 step journey that shareholders go through when
making investment decisions
• Stranger
If they don’t know about you, they are a stranger.
• Interested
They’ve heard about you and are interested enough to
look into you.
• Researcher
They like what they see and want to research your
company to decide whether or not to invest.
• Shareholder
They feel confident that your company is a good
investment so they commit.
• Stakeholder
They believe in your company and want to share your
story with everyone they know. They are your biggest
fan.
What is The Investor Conversion Optimization Process?
The Investor Conversion Optimization Process is a four step process that brings
investors along their journey every step of the way. In short it is what this book will
teach you, and help you turn strangers into stakeholders.
INTRODUCTION

4
Why Attract?
If you want an investor to buy your stock, the first thing you
need to do is get their attention.
How to Attract
All IR services you know of basically concentrate on this, it’s
about making investors aware of your stock. Here’s some
popular tactics for attracting investors:
• Press Releases
• Conferences
• Roadshows
• Media Coverage
• Word of Mouth
• Brokers
• Analyst Coverage
• Social Media
• Good Stock Performance
• Institutional Targeting
• Third Party Newsletters
Investor Conversion Optimized Solutions for Step One
While these methods are all excellent, there are ways to
make the attraction phase more efficient by either improving
current methods, or applying some new strategies.
STEP 1: ATTRACT
FROM STRANGERS TO INTERESTED

5
CURRENT TACTICS
ICO OPTIMIZED
PRESS RELEASES
• Add photos or videos to increase your view rates
• Write attention grabbing headlines
• Write the release to increase comprehension
• Provide context to “why this release matters”
• Lead investors back to your site
CONFERENCES
• Use awesome videos instead of just powerpoint
• Coach the CEO so he’s presenting to the best of his
ability (Think Steve Jobs)
•Askattendeesfortheiremailaddresstoputthemonyournewsletter
list so that in case they aren’t interested yet, or forget about you
after the conference they can be reminded.
• Consider virtual conferences as well
• Figure out how you can ‘stand out’
• Hand out exit surveys to see what worked and what didn’t, how
your company can improve in their eyes and what you’re doing
right.
ROADSHOWS
• Use awesome videos instead of just powerpoint
• Coach the CEO so he’s presenting to the best of his ability (Think
Steve Jobs)
•Askattendeesfortheiremailaddresstoputthemonyournewsletter
list so that in case they aren’t interested yet, or forget about you
after the conference they can be reminded.
• Hand out exit surveys to see what worked and what didn’t, how
your company can improve in their eyes and what you’re doing
right.
MEDIA COVERAGE
• Begin a conversation with all media, local, national, finance, tv,
radio, newsletters, webcasts; from the big to the small; begin the
conversation with a friendly intro email, and as you gauge interest
keep this group in its own CRM
• Be persistent, not annoying, but consistently informative and
helpful. Persistence breaks resistance and media makes the public
aware of your existence.
• Leverage the expertise of someone at your company to become an
expert available when necessary to certain media outlets.

6
WORD OF MOUTH
• If you do a great job of handling this 4 step process you will have
plenty of brand advocates spreading the word on your company
• We will cover this more in Chapter 4
BROKERS
Make sure the brokers covering you have been made aware of your value
proposition.
ANALYST COVERAGE
• You can pay for coverage
• Use the same methods detailed in “media coverage”
SOCIAL MEDIA
• Be active
• If you have created enough brand
advocates this method will work better.
• Have your social media specialist reach
out to other companies, and begin public
conversations bringing your company
in front of investors that are interested
in similar companies and may not have
learned about you any other way.
• Use all platforms, not just twitter or linkedin
• Create a “code of conduct” or “governance”
for SM use to ensure you are staying
compliant.
GOOD STOCK PERFORMANCE
If you handle this IR marketing process correctly your stock will begin performing
better and you will get more organic interest.
INSTITUTIONAL TARGETING
• Don’t just target a small amount of institutions
• Begin speaking with as many as possible
• Create an email process to gauge interest and track it through your
CRM.
• Garner more retail interest, “Institutions pay a premium to be
nimble” © Nasdaq
THIRD PARTY NEWSLETTERS
• Make sure you’re using a reputable sender
• Give them your message
• Give them your video
• Again, MAKE SURE YOU’RE USING A REPUTABLE SENDER

7
YOUTUBE ADVERTISING
• Youtube is the second most used search engine next to Google.
• Advertising on youtube is relatively cheap
• When you create your video make sure your company name and
symbol are in the first 8 seconds, because even if they don’t let the
video play the first 8 seconds are free and you will begin creating
awareness.
• Make engaging videos
INDUSTRY ARTICLES
• Have a third party create an article on a newsworthy issue in your
industry
• Have them source someone at your company for a quote.
• Include companies with a larger following in an effort to gain a new
audience and show your company’s expert is a thought leader.
COMPANY ARTICLES
• Third party company articles
• Even if you don’t have press these can keep your company in the
news
ICO TACTICS
FOR STEP ONE
CORPORATE BLOGGING + SEO
• Write about your industry
• Write about your company
• Write about your staff
• Create a strategy that is in line with your SEO
• Think of the words and phrases that people
who may be interested in your company would
be searching, or will be searching.
• Create blog and page ideas for each keyword/
phrase
• Set a schedule for posting
• Add a call to action in every post (Sign up for
our corporate newsletter)
• Stay on top of google’s latest changes, and track
which words are working best for you.
• Continue to shape your strategy based on
what’s working.
STEP 1 IS COMPLETE!

8
Why Engage?
Once someone is interested you need to make sure they
stay interested enough to research (and eventually invest).
When someone begins researching a company they naturally
become more emotionally invested and are more likely to
actually invest.
How to Engage
Whether they go to your website, or search you in google
after learning about your company what they find needs to
show you’re credible and worth researching further. Besides
a few firms who design IR websites, there is not much being
done to specifically handle this stage, and even the current IR
website firms don’t necessarily take this stage into account.
STEP 2 ENGAGE
FROM INTERESTED TO RESEARCHER

9
Corporate Video
• An awesome video is the most engaging piece
of content you can have.
• An awesome video is an automatic credibility
builder
• You can put it on your front page
• They can find it on google
• People are 48% more likely to buy a product
after learning about it via video, your stock is
essentially a product and investors are more
likely to buy it after watching your video.
Because this phase is mostly ignored we are going to skip current tactics and go
right into ICO tactics for this step.
Investor Optimized Website
• Depending on your current web design this may either mean
complete website redesign or just IR page optimization.
• If your company’s clients are attracted or frequently visit your
website, consider a separate IR or Corporate website
• If you’re a company that doesn’t use its website for clients (i.e.
mining) consider optimizing your entire website.
• Make your website looks beautiful. It will automatically add some
credibility and visually excite the visitor.
• Make it easy for any visitor to quickly identify “who you are, what
you do, and what makes you great?”
• Make it easy to navigate.
• We could be here all day as this is a crucial part of your IR strategy.
If you’d like to learn more about Investor Conversion Optimization
contact a specialist at HiltonAdvisory.com
Inbound IR Strategy
If you are using an Inbound IR strategy there will be a ton of confidence building
content around the web for investors to find when they google you.
Think about it...when you google a company do you want to just see their website
and several links to their latest news? Or do you like to find a ton of content from
all over the place talking about how great the company is.
This is a complete strategy that includes blogging, SEO, analytics, PR optimization,
Corporate video, Industry Articles, Media Outreach, Social Media and more.
INVESTOR CONVERSION OPTIMIZED
SOLUTIONS
FOR THE STEP TWO

10
STEP 3 CONVINCE
FROM RESEARCHER TO SHAREHOLDER
How to Convince
Convince has a ton of overlap with the Engage stage, the
reason is generally once someone is engaged they will
immediately begin their research. The key to convincing an
interested investor into becoming a committed shareholder is
by eliminating any roadblocks that may impede their research
and evaluation process. Here’s a couple of current IR tactics
that are used for this step:
• IR Website
• Financials
• Press Releases
• One on One Meetings
• Tear Sheets
• Sell Side Research
• Presentations (PP, Slideshare)
• Balance Sheets
• Management Bios
Why Convince?
This is the stage most potential shareholders are lost. From
our 5 years of research, for every 1000 investors that become
interested in a company only 25 invest. If we can do an amazing
job at this stage we can start to convert more of those 975
shareholders that generally bounce. It’s not enough to just
interest an investor, you need to make it as easy as possible
to successfully complete their research process so that they
can become a shareholder.

11
These methods are tried and true, but there are several ways to make this phase
more efficient by either improving current methods, or applying some new
strategies.
IR WEBSITE
• After you’ve considered the website suggestions to ‘engage’
investors you need to consider how it will affect their research and
evaluation phase.
• Make sure they can easily find ‘who you are, what you do, and what
makes you great’
• Don’t just put up your charts, financials and news on the IR page.
• Begin with a message from the CEO, have a brief paragraph on
your value proposition and include video, infographics, and other
media to draw attention and tell your story.
• Make sure investors visiting your page don’t have to think to hard
about where to go, create a simple, intuitive navigational strategy.
• Create calls to action, such as links to every online broker that allows
your visitors to easily access their broker if they’re ready to invest!
FINANCIALS
Make sure when they click your financials they are still on your website, whether
that means housing them on your server, or opening the link in a new window,
you want them to stay on your site where you control the message.
PRESS RELEASES
Follow the steps we detailed in step 1 and you should be good here.
ONE ON ONE MEETINGS
As a side note, not every investor will have the ability to set up a one on one, so
make sure your website conveys your story so well its just as effective as a one on
one.
• Practice your pitch
• Include competitor comparisons, to save them a step of research.
• Ask for feedback shortly after they’ve made their decision...if they
invested, what worked with your presentation? If they didn’t, what
didn’t work?
• Explain the 4 step IR strategy you are using so they know you will
be continually attracting new shareholders. Even though they are
currently a part of the process they will respect and admire your
commitment to building shareholder value.
SOLUTIONS
FOR STEP THREE

12
• More pictures, fewer words
• Fourteen (14) slides are ideal, if you can’t convey
your value in 14 slides you’re trying too hard.
• Share them on “Slideshare” its one of the
highest engagement social sites around
• Include the option to watch a video with
voiceover on the slideshow to drive the points
home. Include notes in the slideshare version.
TEAR SHEETS
• Have a beautiful design
• Highlight the best parts
• Don’t hide the worst
SELL SIDE RESEARCH
• Follow the suggestions in step 1 you will have plenty of sellside
coverage.
• If you don’t have it yet, pay for a report, but make sure its done
with no bias so the investor can trust it (One way to achieve this is
paying to present at SeeThruEquity’s conference).
• House a link on your IR page so investors don’t miss it and you can
keep them on your website.
PRESENTATIONS
BALANCE SHEETS
• Institutions love these and know how to read them well, some
individual investors however aren’t as skilled at seeing the value in
balance sheets.
• Create a Press Release detailing the highlights of each balance
sheet, explaining both good and bad developments
• Make sure that PR is the first thing an investor reads before opening
the balance sheet.
MANAGEMENT BIOS
• If I’m investing, I want to know who I’m investing in
• There needs to be pictures at least, a picture plus a short intro
video would be ideal.
• Don’t just include your achievements but why those are significant
and if you can relate them to how they will help you be successful
with your current company.
• Include some personal information, so they can really know YOU
and not just your resume

13
INBOUND IR
Again, if someone doesn’t visit your site they will search you on google and need
to find confidence building content. Here’s our breakdown of Inbound IR.
CORPORATE NEWSLETTER
• Not everyone will be ready to invest after researching, even if they
like what they see.
• Make sure you are including newsletter signup “Calls to Action”
throughout your website so that you can either keep someone on
the fence informed on your progress or remind someone interested
that they should invest.
• This also helps connect with current holders but I’ll save that for
step 4.
INVESTORS HELP DESK
You ever see those awesome “How can I help you” chat boxes you find on websites
that allow people to ask questions immediately to a live person? That’s an IR help
desk.
Basically, having someone available or at the very least an automated system
ready to quickly answer questions someone in the research phase may have will
significantly increase your investor conversion rates.
CONNECT EVENTS
Have a bunch of brokers and institutions interested but not sure how to get them
over the hump? Connect events will give them that extra push. Depending on
what the CEO’s interests are we create a fun event we can invite these institutions
and brokers to, in order to get to know the CEO as a person and build a true
relationship. These can be anything you think of, but some examples include:
fishing trips, luxury box rental at a game, pga tour tent rental, and other fun
excursions This is particularly helpful for Microcap CEOs trying to convince local
institutions and brokers to follow him.
ANALYTICS
• If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.
• Develop a system for calculating your investor
conversion rates and shareholder acquisition
cost.
• Track your conversions on every different class
of investor as well as media sources.
• This will allow you to do more of what works
and less of what doesn’t.

14
Why Convert?
This phase probably has the most long term benefits for your
company’s growth.
It costs 7 times more to attract new shareholders, happy
stakeholders attract more strangers, one of the cheapest
attraction methods available. Think about it, when a friend
you know hears you work in the stock market what’s their
next question? “Got any hot tips?”
If you can retain more shareholders your volatility will
decrease and the share value will raise. Low investor turnover
will impress institutions.
Having more shareholders with different areas of expertise
you can lean on will only strengthen your company. A good
relationship with your shareholder base is probably the best
common sense method for combating activist investors or
even preventing them from becoming one
How to Convert
Serve your shareholders, keep communicating even when
there are no material events, stay available, complete the
previous 3 steps impeccably and this should be easy. Here’s a
few tactics currently used:
• Press Releases
• Earnings Calls
• Shareholder Letters
• Analyst Days
• Great Stock Performance
• Dividends
STEP 4 CONVERT
FROM SHAREHOLDER TO STAKEHOLDER

15
This step is unfortunately taken for granted, but as you can see from the list
of benefits, successfully handling this stage is imperative. Here’s how you can
investor conversion optimize the current tactics and use a few others to turn
more shareholders into stakeholders a.k.a. your biggest fans!
PRESS RELEASES
Use all the suggestions previously mentioned, you’ll be fine. Just to reiterate, make
sure you provide context to why this PR is significant for your company’s growth.
EARNINGS CALLS
• Practice for them
• Don’t be boring. Engage, joke around, convey your passion.
•HighlightthepositiveANDthenegative;obfuscationmakesinvestors
nervous
• Explain why the positive is a great sign, explain what you’re doing
to fix the negative.
• Survey attendees to see how you did.
SHAREHOLDER LETTERS
• Be candid
• Don’t neglect putting them out.
• Show gratitude to current shareholders
ANALYST DAYS
• Hold webcasts for those who can’t attend
• Make it fun.
GREAT STOCK PERFORMANCE
• Pretty obvious but needs to be mentioned.
• If you handle your IR correct this should be easy.
• If your performance is dipping, communicate why.
• If you fear a bad quarter, get in front of it
• Don’t provide guidance you know to be exaggerated
• Underpromise... overperform
DIVIDENDS
• Pay them if possible
• It’s a great way to provide monetary value to holders coaxing them
to continue holding.
SOLUTIONS
FOR STEP FOUR

16
INBOUND IR
I bet you’re sick of hearing about this, but Inbound is important to every step of
the process, just wanted to make sure you didn’t forget.
SHAREHOLDER DAYS
• Invite all your shareholders to the company
• Let them see what they’re investing in, so they can connect further
CORPORATE NEWSLETTER
• Keep them in the loop.
• Ask them for their opinionletthem feel like they have a real position
with the company no matter how big or small.
OPEN OFFICE
• If shareholders want to talk with C-Level management, be available.
• No matter how big or small, they are behind you and you don’t
know how valuable they could be to your company eventually.
SOCIAL MEDIA
• Your shareholders should follow you on Social
Media
• Your shareholders communicate with their
friends on social media, so if you provide
them awesome shareable content it will be
easier for them to spread your story.
• Make sure you’re on ALL the social sites.
• Again, keep a policy in place that ensures your
social media is compliant

17
CONCLUSION
I hope you found this book helpful. We spent years researching this investor
journey and how to effectively bring investors through it and I think even if you
don’t agree with all of our findings you can find something of value.
At the end of the day the key is realizing you need to make it as easy as possible
for investors to go from strangers to stakeholders. Thanks for your time, and
good luck with your IR strategy. If this sounds like too much work for you, your IR
department, or you just have some questions on what you should fix contact us
at HiltonAdvisory.com to request a free consultation.

18
WE HOPE YOU FIND THIS USEFUL, IF YOU WOULD LIKE
A FREE CONSULTATION ON HOW TO IMPLEMENT A
COMPLETE INBOUND IR STRATEGY REQUEST ONE BY
CONTACTING HILTON ADVISORY AT 585.507.8652

ICO_Ebook (1)

More Related Content

What's hot

Viewers also liked

Similar to ICO_Ebook (1)

ICO_Ebook (1)