Investor Relations

How to manage investor relations in an organisation?

Learning objectives

Investor relations: “Investor Relations is the communication of information and insight between a company and the investment community.”
Source: http://www.irs.org.uk/about/definition-of-investor-relations

1. What processes are involved in investor relations?

·         Means of communication used in investor relations
`?

·         Investor materials and events

Event examples (GE):

-2015 Annual Meeting of Shareowners
GE to convene its 2015 Annual Meeting of Shareowners in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

-GE Aviation & GECAS Investor Meeting at Paris Air Show

David Joyce, President & CEO – GE Aviation, and Norman Liu, President & CEO – Aviation Financial Services will present

 SOURCE: Ge.com, (2015). Investor Relations: Events | GE.com. [online] Available at: http://www.ge.com/investor-relations/events

Other examples:

-Annual shareholders meeting
-Earnings release

·         Which factors are most important in reliable financial communication and investor relations?

?

2. Who is involved in investor relations?

·         Influence of shareholders

·         Shareholders-own parts/shares of companies

·         Investors- when they buy company shares they get a certificate showing how many shares they have and owning shares enables them to a portion of the company’s profits which is issued as a dividend. (dividend= a sum paid regularly to shareholders out of a profit)

·         shareholders- normally offered a fixed payout per share if company is bought out. (because they are partial owners)

allowed to vote at shareholder meetings

• Influence of stakeholder- ?

Source:

Referenceforbusiness.com, (2015). Shareholders - strategy, model, type, company, business, Types of shareholders. [online] Available at: http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/management/Sc-Str/Shareholders.html

3. Difference between existing and potential investors?

·         How to acquire new investors

*****Understand what the investors want

-what investors will think about/consider:

1. Does the company's product or service address a large and growing market need?

2. Can the company scale quickly enough to take advantage of that market opportunity?

3. Does the company have a defensible competitive advantage?

4. Can the management team execute on the potential outlined in the first three criteria?

*****Look for the Best Fit and Make Connections

*****Share your visions- who understands your views the best

SOURCE:

Inc.com, (2015). [online] Available at: http://www.inc.com/guides/2010/08/how-to-find-willing-investors.html 

·         The main drivers and medias used when making investment decision

"The study showed geographies different on their use and consumption" 

-European institutions preferred LinkedIn

- the plurality in US asset owners leaned more towards Twitter

-Asia Pacific preferred YouTube.

-78% of institutional investors in Asia Pacific :Facebook- used at least once a month (source of financial information)                           -23% in the US                             -17% in Europe.

LinkedIn- the preferred source of information( 85% using at least once a week.)

SOURCE:

Lokhandwala, T. (2015). Social media influences investment decisions, shows research. [online] IPE. Available at: http://www.ipe.com/news/asset-managers/social-media-influences-investment-decisions-shows-research/10007592.fullarticle 

How to make use of the senses in marketing

Problem

How to make use of the senses in marketing?

Learning objectives

1. How do ideas become messages?

·         the process of creating a message

Creating a marketing message that will sell according to
: Businessknowhow.com, (2015). 6 Steps to a Marketing Message That Sells. [online] Available at: http://www.businessknowhow.com/marketing/marketing-message.htm

The 6 Steps:

-       Set up a clear defining headline to attract your target market

-       recognize the problems, symptoms, issues, needs and wants of the target market  

-       short explanation of the product

-       what value and benefit the customer will develop

-       provide message credibility such as testimonials or case studies

-       what’s the action that you want your audience to take

 ·         What is a message?

“A tech startup’s marketing message is a key instrument to reach your target customer. It forms part of an important communication process that changes depending on a company’s stage in the technology adoption lifecycle (TALC).”

Source: MaRS, (2015). Marketing message: a tech startup’s key tool to reach target customers. [online] Available at: http://www.marsdd.com/mars-library/your-marketing-message-a-tech-startups-key-tool-to-reach-target-customers/

2. What constitutes a message?

·         Consider messaging using the five senses: sight, smell, touch, sound, and taste.

Own opinion: Considering different senses is important depending on your product. For example a yoghurt. How the yoghurt looks, smells, and tastes like are all important factors affecting the customers opinions of the yoghurt and perhaps even the brand.

Site: visual clutter makes it difficult to gain customers just be the use of site.

è Shape & color= brand identity

Successful brands that can be identified by their color and shape: Hershey’s kisses, and Mc Donald’s Golden Arches

Smell: the most important sense sense as it can’t be turned off. Less than 3% of companies have established a unique aroma.

Singapore Airlines aroma is included in the perfume of the flight attendants, in the towels provided before takeoff and sprayed into the cabin.

Taste: Colgate stands out as the taste and flavor of their toothpaste is patented.

Sound: Findings from  Journal of Consumer Research have shown that the slower the music the more people shop and also that when slow music plays in a restaurant the bills are 29% higher.

CNN and Intel have used sound in their marketing ang gotten into the minds of their customers.

Touch: 35% of consumers have said that how a cell phone feels is more important that the way it looks but still the sense is often ignored in marketing.

Source: Thedreamspeaker.com, (2015). Successful marketing demands use of all five senses | Motivational Speaker - The Dream Speaker™. [online] Available at: http://www.thedreamspeaker.com/successful-marketing-demands-use-of-all-five-senses/

3. What factors to consider when designing a message?

Cultural factors, recent events, social trends, (new) materials, target audience, (product) image

Opinion: When designing the message of course the culture of the country you’re in or targeting your product to has to be taken into consideration to ensure that there is nothing offensive or restricted mentioned in the message.
Social trends should be taken into consideration to help the brand stay fresh and up to date. 

à The mistakes:

-The story is all about you when it should focus on your customer.

-The focus is on brand positioning but not on the customer messaging. The marketing message needs to be a compelling story, creating impact

- You mix out content without a distinct point of view.
“You need to show the relevant impact that the latest trends, issues, challenges, problems, and changes will have on the outcomes that customers desire.”

Source: Corporatevisions.com, (2015). The Three Deadly Sins You’re Committing with Your Marketing Message | Corporate Visions. [online] Available at: http://corporatevisions.com/resources/article-archive/the-three-deadly-sins-youre-committing-with-your-marketing-message/

Companies Using Social Media

Problem

How do companies use Social Media?

Learning objectives

1. What should a company think about before getting active in SoMe?

è  1) Identify your customers  2) determine the bandwidth and social media resources  3) choose the social media channels

·         Which channels are the best for each customer group?

Facebook:
originally made to target college students but according to research on users in 2014 majority of facebook users are stilll below 30 years old.
You can easily reach a large audience and target users according to their location and behaviour.
Youtube
User amount more than 1 billions, people of different ages searching for something other than text.

Pinterest
Visual online pin board – one of the fastest growing social media channels
Majority: female 25-35 years old.

Sources:
-Sanfilippo, M. and Sanfilippo, M. (2015). Businesses: Determining Which Social Channels to Use. [online] SEMrush Blog. Available at: http://www.semrush.com/blog/businesses-determining-social-channels-use/

-Wax, A. (2015). Choosing Social Media Channels for Your Business. [online] Precisionmarketinggroup.com. Available at: http://www.precisionmarketinggroup.com/blog/choosing-social-media-channels-for-your-business

This older data from 2012 and 2013 shows that before, people 35-44 were most active on social media.
-->If this is true or near truthful then I would say that a 2015 graph would look very different.

Source:

Slideshare.net, (2013). Building The Business case to Use social Media For Recruitment. [online] Available at: http://www.slideshare.net/AnnzalieAnnBarrett/building-the-business-case-to-use-social-media-for-recruitment

----------The following pictures are from a blog by Avinash Joshi.
The author is a Social Media Lead and Digital Account Director at SapientNitro in India. (15 years of experience)

Source: Avinash Joshi, (2010). The Power of Social Media. [online] Available at: https://ajaxjoshi.wordpress.com/2010/12/14/the-power-of-social-media/ 

2. What are the company’s objectives for SoMe engagement?

·         What do companies try to achieve by using SoMe (for instance Relationship Building)?

“Relationship building is the motivation and driving force behind social media”
à connecting with others and finding value in these relationships
à relationships must be nurtured by creating great social experiences.

1. Listen first and never stop, - learn likes and dislikes of customers and provide them with what they want.
2. Respond and engage- signalling your brand is invested in each individual relationship
3. Become a storyteller- storytelling is one of the most powerful ways of communicating- inspiring people to share.

Source: YouTube, (2015). Building Customer Relationships With Social Media. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvKNtvUJ67U 

3. Is the success of SoMe engagement measureable? If yes, how?

·         What are the KPI’s of Social Media engagement?

Different social media KPIs:

-Social connections-the number of connections
-Social page views- how many have gone to see the webpages?
-Video/Slideshare views- the number of views on videos, success of content
-Engagement Rate- Number of Likes and comments
-Talking about this- the number of people talking about your brand

-Facebook reach-How the brand reach is going on Facebook
-Re-tweet rate- you can see if people thought the tweets were valuable enough to tweet again.
-Social clicks-how many clicks you are getting and which categories are getting the most clicks

Source: In2communications.com, (2015). The Most Important Social Media Key Performance Indicators (KPI). [online] Available at: http://www.in2communications.com/blog/bid/149702/The-Most-Important-Social-Media-Key-Performance-Indicators-KPI 

4. How to set up a SoMe Plan?

Source: Ajaxjoshi.wordpress.com, (2011). social media plan | Avinash Joshi. [online] Available at: https://ajaxjoshi.wordpress.com/tag/social-media-plan/ 

Big Data

How to Use Data in Media Planning

What is big data ?

Popular term, used to portray the exponential growth and availability of structured/unstructured data.

3 Vs of Big Data (articulated by industry analyst Doug Laney)  :

ü  Volume- many factors creating an increase in data volume. Data is flooding in from social media, more and more data being collected.

o   Data storage use to be a problem but now new problems arise such as how to find relevance within the data and how to create value from the existing data.

ü  Velocity- data flowing in at extraordinary speed and has to be dealt with in a reasonable time. To deal with torrents of data, RFID tags, sensors, and snart metering is used.

o   For many organizations it is challenging to act fast enough to deal with the data velocity.

ü  Variety- data comes in all kinds of different formats. (Structured, unstructured, email, audio, transactions.)

o   Many organizations struggle with managing, merging and governing different variations of data.

Source: Sas.com, (2015). What Is Big Data?. [online] Available at: http://www.sas.com/en_us/insights/big-data/what-is-big-data.html



-----Interesting Video: Big Data- What It Means to You

http://www.sas.com/en_us/insights/big-data/what-is-big-data.html

How and when a company should use media agencies?

ü  Marketing and communications needs

ü  To solve a problem/issue

ü  values & opinions of consumers

ü  looking for enhancements

ü  research

Sources:

• Olap.com, (2015). Big Data Collection: What’s in it for Me? | OLAP.com. [online] Available at: http://olap.com/big-data-collection-whats-in-it-for-me/
• Kantar, (2015). Coverage. [online] Available at: http://tgi.kantarmedia.com/international/about-us/coverage 

How to collect and analyze media habits ?

v  Web analytics:

Used often by companies using ecommerce. Provides answers to whos looking at your site, unique visitors or not, and how they got there, key words searched..etc.

Important information for any company with a website, facebook page, twitter or other social media site.

Source: Webopedia.com, (2015). What is Web analytics? A Technology Word Definition From Webopedia.com. [online] Available at: http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/W/Web_analytics.html 

What are the ethical and legal issues related to data collection ?

ü  PRIVACY ISSUES

ü  incomplete/ badly done anonymization- when companies try to protect the privacy of indivudals but it doesn’t work as planned.

Example:

      Massachusetts Group Insurance Commission released data which was part of a study showing state employees’ hospital visits in the mid-1990s. The data was meant to by anonymized. To prove limtiations in anonymizations, a graduate student was able to identify the governor (William Weld.)
- The same student (Latanya Sweeny) resumed her work and was later able to show that 87% of Americans could be recognized  by just using the following points: birthdate, gender, and zip code. 

      Aug 2006, AOL released 3 months of search queries by 650,000 of its users to the public. Anonymization was tried however the users could be recognized just on the pattern and substance of their searches.

Source: Davis, S., Lambert, E., Geibelson, M. and Rader, M. (2015). Big Data raises big legal issues. [online] Insidecounsel.com. Available at: http://www.insidecounsel.com/2014/03/28/big-data-raises-big-legal-issues 

·         How to make a media plan ? (different steps)

·         Examples of a media plan 

Media Funnel”à “Engagement Pyramid”

Instead of starting with the most extensive reach vehicles, and going down to the 5% that matter. Things can be done vise versa, starting with the 5% and then going to the broader reach.

Some advertisers using this method, like Nike had decreased spending on traditional media by 40% in the past three years despite the fact that they have had a rise in total budget.

Source: Blogs.imediaconnection.com, (2015). The Engagement Pyramid: Turning Media Planning Upside Down « iMediaConnection Blog. [online] Available at: http://blogs.imediaconnection.com/blog/2012/11/29/the-engagement-pyramid-turning-media-planning-upside-down/ 

Developing a Communication Plan

Developing a Communication Plan

According to: Hieran.com, (2015). How to Develop a Communications Plan. [online] Available at: http://www.hieran.com/comet/howto.html

A Communication plan is a written document explaining

-what you would like to achieve with your objectives
- ways to accomplish those objectives ( ex. goals)

- who your audience is that the objectives will be presented to

- how the objectives can be accomplished, using what tools/timetables

- and how you will take care of the evaluation

1.    What is the structure of an effective communication plan, what important elements are there?

source: Sridhar, R. (2013). Business Communication Training – Using Visual Graphics Effectively - PowerPoint Design Services – Presentation Designers. [online] PowerPoint Design Services – Presentation Designers. Available at: http://www.24point0.com/powerpoint-business-templates/powerpoint-business-communication/

source: Cadic-guideline.org, (2015). CADIC: Cluster Communication Guideline. [online] Available at: http://www.cadic-guideline.org/cadic-toolbox/cluster-communication-guideline/

     
--> I watched an interview of Kelly Rossman(CEO of The Rossman Group) on youtube.com: YouTube, (2015). communication plan basics with Kelly Rossman-McKinney. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_gEevOykqw

·         communication plan- “it’s like having a map, your communication plan really indicates your destination, and helps you determine your vehicle and the roads you’re going to take to reach your destination”-

·         “you need to put a lot of strategic thinking”

Key elements a communication plan should contain according to Kelly Rossman:

·      **-  identifying your goal “destination”

    **those objectives you want to achieve to reach to your goal.

·      ** Understanding your target audience-determining what their attitudes are,

·      ** what you can do to build on those attitudes or influence those attitudes.

·        **  figuring out what messages you need to deliver.

·       **figuring out your big message, and your messengers.

·       **  communication tools/tactics used to deliver message.

- Examples of communication plans that stand out/ that are very well structured?

None found

- Any examples of bad/failed communication plans?

No examples found

1.    What processes are involved in creating a communication plan?

Source: Mindtools.com, (2015). Communications Planning: Getting the Right Message Across, in the Right Way. [online] Available at: http://www.mindtools.com/CommSkll/CommunicationsPlanning.htm

#1 Star with thinking about your overall communication objectives- what, when and why you want to achieve?
#2 Identify & list different audiences, and for help you could start with doing a stakeholder analysis.
#3 Identify the objectives for each audience separately

#4 Think about all the possible communication channels that could be used.
#5 Then start planning the message for each audience group and its good to start with the broadest audience group.

 Table Examples below:

Communications Plan For……………………
Overall Communication Objective:
Audience	Communication Objectives	Message	Channel	Timing

3. How can you measure the effectiveness of your plan?
- Are there any specific methods usually used for testing this?

The evaluation can take the form of:

• a monthly report on work in progress,
• formalized department reports for presentation at staff meetings,
• periodic briefings of the chief staff executive and the department heads, and
• a year-end summary for the annual report.
  
  According to source: Hieran.com, (2015). How to Develop a Communications Plan. [online] Available at: http://www.hieran.com/comet/howto.html