AR programs should put their contact info on the company website

A recent survey of vendor websites indicates that while PR and IR contacts are clearly listed often AR teams do not post their contact information.  When questioned some AR teams have indicated that they know their tier one analysts and do not want to be contacted directly by other analysts.

The analyst landscape is constantly changing.  We suggest that every AR team follow the PR leads and post relevant contact information on their public websites for a variety of reasons:

• Your tier one list should be dynamic, and there could be analysts worthy of being included on an analyst list or ranked higher if the AR team had the right information, some of which could come to the surface when an unfamiliar analyst contacts the AR team.

• There could be new analysts at highly relevant analyst firms that are not yet on your radar screen. Also there could be existing analysts that are changing their coverage and now need to talk to a vendor they have not interacted with in the past.

• If one of your key analysts does not have access to their normal PC/phone with their AR contacts database they need a quick way to look up the AR contact at a vendor to get information for a deadline

• It is possible an analyst you consider tier three is doing work for one of your customers and needs information promptly to provide a valid recommendation

To prevent being blasted, teams should indicate their areas of coverage so that analysts can determine the best contact.  Include your desk phone number, but not your cell.  Your voicemail greeting should include your cell number when appropriate.  Email addresses should be in a graphic or spaced so that spam robots will not pick them off the web page. At a minimum, AR teams should have a generic “Industry analysts can contact the AR team at ar@company.com” not on the media contact page.

SageCircle Technique:

• PR teams may have more resources to deal with “tier three reporters”, but do not shy away from making themselves appropriately available
• Provide enough information so that analysts can find the right person quickly without website registrations or multiple telephone-tag calls
• Review your contact postings regularly to ensure that changes in your AR team are reflected

Bottom Line: The analyst landscape is constantly changing and AR teams need to make themselves accessible to analysts that may not be on their current tier one lists. 

Question:

Analysts – Can you easily find the right contacts within vendor companies when you need information? If the vendor makes it inconvenient to contact the AR team will you go to another source for information?

AR teams – Do you make you contact information readily available?  Has this ever caused problems?

Are you uncertain about how to leverage you company’s website to interact with the analysts? SageCircle can help.

SageCircle strategists understand your opportunities, challenges and priorities because we have been AR practitioners and executives as well as industry analysts and AR researchers. SageCircle emphasizes the use of phone-based inquiry through its Advisory Service, which is your lifeline when you need timely access to an AR and analyst expert to exploit an opportunity or mitigate a problem. Advisory is available through an annual “all you can eat” contract or blocks of two or five hours “by the drink.” Click here to learn more about our advisory services.

To learn more contact us at info [at] sagecircle dot com or 650-274-8309.  

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