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(This is part two of a pair of articles on illiquid stocks. If you missed it, check out part one here.)

Being the kind of small-cap company that creates buzz and propels itself from the low liquidity sector into the big leagues ultimately comes down to two things: 

1. A sound plan and strategy, well-executed
2. A compelling story, well told to investors

We’ll leave that first point to you and your team. But the second point requires copywriting, marketing, and strategy know-how that goes beyond day-to-day activities.

In this blog, we’ll cover the basics of how to effectively use an investor marketing campaign to boost your visibility and increase the trade volume of your illiquid stock

1️⃣ Decide what kind of content you want to create

The foundation of any successful investor marketing campaign is a piece of content—or array of content—that tells your story in a way that motivates readers to invest. A list of your latest news releases is essential, sure, but without you putting the threads that tie them together into a coherent narrative, you’re leaving your company’s visibility up to chance.

Here’s a list of potential items you can use to tell your story (the more, the better):

• A long-form report that conveys your investment thesis from start to finish
• Email newsletters
• Social media posts
• Infographics
• Blogs (like this one!) that cover an industry topic
• A video or series of videos that cover different aspects of your company, such as…
  • Interviews with the CEO
  • Video tours of your key projects
  • A run-through of your investor presentation
  • Media appearances by your management team

If you’re overwhelmed by the above list, just focus on one item to start. Here at BLENDER, we are partial to the long-form report. It’s a tried-and-true tool across the small-cap space, and when best-deployed it’s full of all the information an investor could possibly need to know about your company. Such a report is generally what we form our investor marketing campaigns around, and it’s proven remarkably effective for our clients.

2️⃣ Make the content compelling

Of course, it doesn’t matter what kind of content your company puts out there if it fails to get investors to take action.

Videos are a different beast, but for written content, whether it’s social media posts, comprehensive reports, or newsletters, there are three rules of thumb to follow:

• Write for a wide audience: Write most of your content as if to an audience that doesn’t yet understand the opportunity. That means when you use industry jargon, you explain yourself, and you start from the macro opportunity and then get into the minutiae of your company’s initiatives. For example, if you’re a uranium exploration company, don’t begin by exploring how advances in in-situ leach mining has the potential to transform your flagship project—start with why uranium is worth paying attention today in the first place. And keep it in plain language wherever possible.
• Include a variety of graphics: In today’s fragmentary media landscape, the average investor skims more than they read. Graphics that explain key factors of the investment opportunity catch the eye, helping to slow readers down and quickly explain the points that you want them to understand. They’re also excellent tools to use when sharing information via social media.
• Base your points in reality: ;We’ve all seen incredibly hyperbolic marketing copy from unknown public companies in our inbox, claiming to promise multi-thousand percent gains. Aside from straying on the side of regulatory noncompliance, this kind of approach simply isn’t convincing to a savvy investor. Instead, back up your arguments with trusted sources whenever possible, and adhere closely to the facts of your company. Of course, you do want to present your story in the best possible light, but investors often withdraw when they sniff out overt marketing copy. Instead, tell your company’s story as it is—convincingly—and let the reader decide for themselves.

3️⃣ Distribute it to a targeted audience

Once you have a convincing piece of content to share, the next step is to share it with a targeted audience that is prone to interest in a company like yours.

This can be tricky to pull off on your own. If you already have a list of leads captured from newsletter signups or other sources, that’s an excellent start, but the most effective campaigns will reach beyond what you already have at hand.

A good general strategy is to meet investors where they live. This means advertising or partnering with sites that investors already use regularly to gather information and using them to boost the signal of your content.

Part of your strategy should likely include a marketing campaign that teases an enticing informative piece of content, giving the reader the opportunity to fill out their email in order to receive it. This will give you a new contact to share further follow-up items with and will bolster your list for the future.

At BLENDER, we run all our investor marketing campaigns through the trusted PrivatePlacements.com brand and platform. With accredited investors already using the site to track financings, it’s the perfect place to draw attention to small-cap companies with big potential.

Many of our marketing campaigns also tap into distribution lists across other platforms and trusted voices in the investing space, using emails, ads, and articles that link back to that aforementioned core report. It’s a proven strategy that has worked time and time again for our clients.

Feel free to emulate our approach yourself—but if you’re truly looking to kickstart your investor marketing and put your small-cap public company on the map, we recommend speaking with us first.