Email Alerts

Turn your Website into an Active Communicator

Congratulations on having great content on a website and keeping it up to date with the latest news and ASX Announcements. It’s sitting there, waiting for someone to look at it. It’s passive. It needs visitors, while the news is fresh.

To actively use the website as a communicator, consider drawing traffic to it via an email alert. The email arrives in the investors’ mailboxes shortly after the news is published. A well constructed email at a relevant time is a key marketing opportunity.

The Email Alert serves multiple purposes:

It provides information about the announcement
It’s a branding opportunity, reminding subscribers that you exist and create news
It creates an indirect impression about the company

Move the corporate website up and beyond being a document repository or corporate history lesson. Make it relevant, up to date and push it out to investors just when they need to know. IRM Newsroom in your corporate website is the best way to achieve this.

Embrace Interested People

Encourage website visitors to subscribe for email alerts when news is published. Help them to trust you to provide relevant interesting emails and not spam them. Make sure the email is timely, immediately after the news is released.

In addition, capture all the contact details you can from interested or potentially interested people, and add them to your Email Alerts list. Add in the Share Registry’s list and the Executives’ business contacts files.

Be careful about how you use the list. Don't insult, offend, inconvenience or spam them. The very best time to get in touch with them is in the first few minutes after you've put out an ASX Announcement. Not a couple of hours later (when the share price has already moved) or a couple of days later, which is almost an insult. Immediately is best. They will like and respect that you've taken the trouble to tell them - immediately.

Segment your distribution lists. Choose which types of news are sent to each segment.

Make the Emails Attractive

Take care with the format of the email alert. Make sure it reflects your corporate style and values. Deliver the key message right there in the email, and provide additional links to click on for the other parts of the website you know are of most interest to investors.

Most emails are probably read on mobile devices. Make sure the email alert template is responsive to every format of device, phone, table, desktop and different screen sizes. In particular, an email needs to look great on the phone, and the links in it also need to go to documents or web pages that are also responsive.

Some IRM Experience with Email Alerts

IRM has been sending out email alerts on behalf of ASX listed companies for over 10 years. Including tracking clicks on the links in the email alert.

Only about half the clicks on the links in the emails are to the announcement itself. Less for more routine announcements. The rest are on all the other links - the share price is a big one, other latest news, the investor welcome page, and the names of the directors. This behaviour proves to us that the email alert is an effective general marketing communicator, as well as a delivery of particular news.

Avoiding being treated as spam is key to cutting through to reach the investor. Most spam filters will respect a proper attempt at communication, but there are some best practices in email design and technical setup that will minimise the risk of being spammed out. IRM Newsroom, properly set up, can navigate the spam filters.

Share Registry Email Distribution Services

Share registries offer email alert services for announcement distribution. If you’re considering using this service, we suggest you enquire about:

The delay between the announcement release and the email alert
The presentation of the email and your ability to control the format, perhaps on a per email basis
The cost of the process
Whether ex-shareholders will still get the emails once they sell (they may buy back in)
Whether non-shareholder interested people can get onto (or be put onto) the list
Whether the email list reaches real decision makers (e.g. in adviser firms) as well as the administrative people who deal with routine shareholder communication.

Following up offline activities

By adding people involved in the offline activities that you do to the Email Alerts list, you have an effective and easy follow up mechanism.

No longer is the website sitting there hoping for random or occasional visitors to turn up, you've recruited it as your follow up mechanism. You're drawing people to it that have a known past interest, and at a time when you really have something to say.

IRM Newsroom automates the Email Alert process in a way that

presents your company well,
at a time that’s key to the investor,
with little or no effort by the company,
while still leaving you in total control.

Don’t leave email alert distribution to third parties or automatic computer bots that dump everything on everyone. Take control, use IRM Newsroom.