While there’s much guidance available on IPO communications (including on which topics to be silent), there’s less guidance on what to do post-IPO. Firms need an integrated approach to capitalizing on the unique interest and awareness spike after an IPO.
Doing that effectively means driving beyond salience to authority. It’s an excellent opportunity to position the firm as a source of insight into its industry for a while. So companies need campaigns immediately after the IPO to leverage the boost in awareness and use it to drive positioning and push leads through the sales funnel. Content that drives both thought leadership and short-term business objectives.
CCgroup’s approach involves a brand-driven multichannel approach that leverages brand stories. Rather than focus on product-only conversations, we can grow the share of voice across the channels by speaking about people and impact in quite a thought leadership approach. That produces what we call “power of voice” (presence in authoritative conversations), the share of search, brand performance and lead generation quality.
To have something to measure, we need messages that are packaged into stories. Each organisation’s positioning needs explicitly known and agreed pillars. These pillars underpin the construction of a messaging framework that turns the messaging pillars into storytelling themes that are retold topic by topic: on solutions, points of difference and the value of the outcomes we deliver for the end-users of our solutions and the societies they contribute to.
These topics and stories can change fluidly. The pillars and position should be robust enough to support those changes and work across different channels, even if they have different measures. For example, SEO and website programmes uniquely focus on domain authority. Social emphasises engagement (creating or commissioning the content that drives it).
AR massively benefits if these are joined up and flow from the same messaging framework. Analyst relations programmes can be hugely successful post-IPO because of the massive boost in awareness, the tighter narrative developed through the IPO, and the greater ease with which the company can share proof points like customer wins.
As they roll out, there’s also an opportunity to learn and cross-pollinate from these campaigns. Something as simple as Google Trends can help identify external conversations to add to the topics we want to focus on. There can be minor and major topics, but the feedback we get from any topic in any channel can help develop and refine the use of that topic on every other channel. Analyst relations is powerful there because insights from briefings and inquiries can enrich how we build topics into campaigns.
These insights can also help quantify our impact on these topics and thus inform future investments. Many clients have chosen a highly performant theme to become significant thought leadership vehicles, like annual surveys commissioned with authoritative research partners. These vehicles are hugely price effective. For an investment of around £100,000, you can get highly authoritative content to position a firm as an authority on one or more associated topics across all channels. And these programmes are also strong candidates for awards programmes for creative marketing. More importantly, they provide excellent scaffolding for engagement and activation plans.
Contact us to learn more about CCgroup’s pre- and post-IPO communications approach.
