For this week’s class we were asked to read numerous articles about the use of news releases in Investor Relations. One article was focused upon the influence of the different wording within new releases. Another of the articles had to do with the influence of these news releases upon market value. I am very interesting in the communication aspect of IR and was eager to learn more about the news releases that needed to be sent out in order to inform investors about companies, and comply with different disclosure regulations.
I then found an article written by Dominic Jones about the different key elements that should be part of a news release in order for investors for understand and gather key information quickly if they were using the internet as the source for the release. The articles we read this week explained more about the language of newsletter but I thought it would be interesting to see the way these were set up in order to provide as much information as possible.
As time is very important to investors, people must keep this in mind as they are writing news releases. As people typically only spend 60 seconds on a web page, and also read slower when reading from the computer, this time limitation because even more challenging with the presence of news releases being online. In order to make the release easier to understand, Dominic Jones discussed the importance of putting like information into categories. These could include highlights, financial statements, discussion of business performance and segmented results.
Another way to make readers understand the key information in the limited time they spend on the page, is to put the important information at the beginning. It helps to bullet point the key points of the article, along with putting a chart on financial statistics at the very top of the release. The use of descriptive headlines can make the key facts stand out when people are simply skimming the information. Different headers such as “Revenues rise 9%, driven by strong retail demand for accessories and Outlook for /images/0.30 EPS and 8% revenue growth maintained” will provide information will also helping investors to find the information they are looking for.
The use of links in a news release can have numerous different functions. Links are able to improve the traffic or amount of people viewing a release, along with shortening the document when there are links provided to different information. Other key information Dominic Jones mentioned to keep in mind is to make releases available in numerous different formats. Both HTML and PDF should be available. The last point was to make sure to find a newswire provider that is sufficient. Choosing wires with formatting options and that release to many different outlets is the best way to make information available and easy to read for these time crunched investors.
This article helped me to further understand what investors are looking for when they view news releases. I know understand the different components within these news releases that have the ability to affect investors opinions and the market value of stocks.
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