How to use Call-to-Actions for investor relations

Introduction: Why having Call-to-Actions for investor relations is useful

Most people are familiar with Call-to-Actions when it comes to buying a product online or starting a free trial with a company. But what about public companies and their investor relations strategies? With a public company IR section or IR website, you often get a very short amount of time to articulate the most information to potential investors. CTAs are great because they can help fluidly move viewers throughout the different pages of your site. Here are seven different ways to use Call-to-Actions for investor relations to get potential investors directly to the pages you want them to see. Interested in specific ways to improve your digital investor strategy? You can also download our free eBook for 9 tips to improve investor communication with your website.

 

1. Joining an email list

The CTA for your email signup should clearly explain upfront what the subscriber will get. ‘Subscribe’ buttons are great, but consider adding a quick sentence underneath outlining what to expect from your emails. Amcor takes the classic investor ‘subscribe’ and turns it into more of an information filtering system. Some investors may not want to sign up if they think they’ll get pestered with emails, but would be willing to participate for specific annual reports and briefings.

How to use Call-to-Actions for investor relations

 
 
 

2. Read/download thought leadership

If you’ve produced a whitepaper, a guide, or any other form of thought leadership available for download, highlighting it on your investors section shows that your company is an expert in the space. Let investors know that it’s free with phrases like ‘Get your free guide now’ or ‘Send me my free ___’. General Electric is well-known for the content they produce in their thought leadership section that they describe as “innovation insights, bringing you the latest from clean technology, commercial innovation, energy, mining and oil & gas”. In a smart move, GE includes a Call-to-Action to read thought leadership on their main investor relations page. In addition to financial information and pushing their investment opportunity, General Electric knows that showcasing their innovative endeavours greatly helps their case.

How to use Call-to-Actions for investor relations

 
 
 

3. Showcase events you’re attending

We love the call-to-action Mastercard added to their IR homepage page underneath their upcoming investor events. The CTA button ‘Add to Calendar’ makes it a cinch for anyone to immediately have the event included in their personal calendar with the date, exact time, and reminder. It’s a subtle yet forceful way to make sure people people will listen in or at least be aware of  your next earnings call.

How to use Call-to-Actions for investor relations MasterCard

 
 
 

4. Highlight your investment opportunity

We love Silver Standard’s CTA on their investors page that immediately directs interested parties to ‘Watch Our Corporate Video’. Clicking the button opens the video right on the page, without any extra effort. It’s a great idea to pull out 1-2 of your most enticing investment highlights or the most important aspects of your company, like your annual review, and feature them with their own CTA button. This CTA gives important features more real-estate on the page and subtly directs users to other pages on your IR site.

How to use Call-to-Actions for investor relations

 
 
 

5. Direct to other pages

For consumer and retail brands such as Under Armour and Lululemon Athletica, their website is also one of their main sales tools. Under Armour’s investor section features an area where browsers can easily click onto their main corporate site through an easy ‘gateway’. Use your discretion about when and where it’s best to use Call-to-Actions for investor relations in a way that directs your audience to your corporate site. These CTAs are useful on an IR homepage to push browsers deeper into the website and encourage them to learn more about you than just your highlights and greatest hits.

How to use Call-to-Actions for investor relations UA

 
 
 

6. Follow on social media

‘Stay informed’ is one of our favourite ways to use Call-to-Actions for investor relations when talking about social media. This type of Call-to-Action includes the immediacy-type language that highlights the main benefit of following a public company on these channels. Both General Electric and FedEx embed their Twitter timeline on their investors page with a CTA button that makes it easy for anyone to become a follower.

How to use Call-to-Actions for investor relations GE

 
 
 

7. Contact IR 

A public company’s investor section is full of information, so include a Call-to-Action that connects a user directly with an IR point of contact who can answer further questions or provide investment information. Most investor relations sections already have the general ‘contact’ tab, but including an easy-to-find button that sends an investor directly to the appropriate email address erases that extra step and makes life easier for them. (Always be thinking mobile-friendly, too. A ‘Connect with IR’ CTA button that opens straight to an email? They’ll thank you later).

How to use Call-to-Actions for investor relations

 
 
 

Conclusion: it’s all about making lives easier

Call-to-Actions for investor relations take all the guesswork out, and that’s a good thing. Most of the time, investors navigate to your IR section for a specific document they’re looking for. CTAs push them right where they need to go. For those visiting your IR website simply to browse, a very obvious Call-to-Action on the page that prompts viewers to request more information or sign up for a newsletter is a good way to hope they stick around.

Now that you’ve learned about Call-to-Actions, what are some other areas of your IR website that can be improved to help your company get more investors? We’ve done years of research on this subject, and written an eBook too. Download it below!



9 tips to improve investor communication with your website





Marika Hirsch
Marika Hirsch

As Blender’s Content Manager (aka ‘Resident Wordsmith’) Marika enjoys bringing readers the latest and greatest in both digital trends and IR tips. Follow along on Twitter: