Appeal

A significant percentage of investor decisions to progress to the next stage of their journey are not based on facts and logic, but are based on emotions and impressions. The emotional appeal must be just as good as the facts.

Use emotional / irrational appeal with impressions and messages. Design, imagery and style are key for about half of investors in early phases. Details, facts and numbers come later.

Make sure the website home page says what we do, and can be easily understood, within a few seconds. Remind visitors on subsequent pages.

The style should be confident, approachable, knowledgeable and current. Make it better than expected. Have great messages, deliver them well. Have a powerful investment proposition, clearly presented. Use images, videos, infographics, maps and thumbnails to reinforce messages. Include image / video galleries.

Make your social media posts informative, easy to read, and interesting. They should use the same or similar style as the corporate website.

Make messages great, deliver them well. Have a powerful investment proposition, clearly presented.

Avoid clichés, corporate speak, motherhood and meaningless trendy icons.

Here are IRM’s top three hints for being better at appealing to investors:

Subject	Suggestion
Site Design	A modern, fresh clean corporate website design should be reflected in  the home page design and carried through all other pages of the website.  Avoid looking old fashioned, out of date or amateurish in the site design, it doesn’t create a favourable impression.
Hero Images and tag lines	Visitors like a set of large rotating “hero” images on the home page. The images should provide an instant impression of the company’s values, products and services.  Display a different simple statement (tag line, or elevator statement) on each image, preferably the one that is relevant to that image, to make the home page more engaging and informative Carry through the theme of hero images and tag lines to the banner images used in each section of the site.
Home Page Features	On the home page (and possibly in internal pages such as the Investor Welcome page) use an attractive layout to present designed promotional boxes of information about and navigation to the key parts of the site. Present latest news items and a relevant corporate video on the home page to keep it fresh, up to date and interesting.

A full review from IRM will identify and discuss more than 10 additional aspects of how to Appeal to investors.