Communicating your corporate story
Standing out in a crowded market
We’ve been supporting public companies with their corporate communications for over two decades.
We’ve interacted with thousands of corporate websites and investor centres, domestic and international, and like to think we know a thing or two.
With the technology and design gap shrinking, having a great looking and feature-rich website isn’t the differentiator that it once was. Today’s stakeholders have high expectations of the companies they choose to invest in, and this extends to their consideration of your corporate website.
So what makes for a great corporate website?
Many companies don’t communicate their corporate story as well as they could.
We live in an increasingly connected and social world, with companies turning to platforms like X (formerly known as Twitter) to publish their financial earnings, with services like Stocktwits acting as an echo chamber for social investors. It’s easy to see how the corporate website could take a back seat in favour of the immediacy of more fast paced social channels.
Even so, the corporate website remains an amazing tool. It’s an effective way to reach out to the people that matter. So how can you tell if you are doing it well?
We recently published a blog piece about writing for the web, which dips into the concept of companies externalising their business as they see themselves. We often find a website that doesn’t clearly explain who the company is and what they offer, usually because the company simply assumes everyone already knows. Others tend to talk about themselves using lots of jargon and specialised terminology.
But what about investors from abroad who may have never heard of you? Will they be able to gather enough information to make an informed decision? When you meet someone for the first time, are they more interested in your corporate narrative or your latest facts and figures?
Define and review your communication priorities
The world and the markets we operate in are constantly evolving.
The coronavirus pandemic turned things upside down for almost everyone, but smaller changes are happening on a constant basis at the micro level too. And these changes are often contextualised in your share price.
Recognising these changes and contextualising them as part of your corporate narrative is crucial to helping audiences understand and see how you’re responding.
Investors want to understand your business in order to assess the opportunity; they are more interested in the potential than the now. While there is a natural tendency to shy away from these sort of forward-looking statements, we cannot afford to ignore their demand by core stakeholders.
Storytelling techniques can be used to bring every element of your corporate story to life by making sure audiences understand who you are, the products or services you offer and the talented people working hard to make it happen. Perhaps one of your senior managers could explain what the company stands for, why it exists and why it continues to do well.
- Tell your story and contextualise change
- Ensure accurate information and timely publication
- Audiences need to understand the business and assess the opportunity
- Regularly review your peers and emerging digital trends
What is and isn’t a story?
Traditionally, a good story features a dragon slaying hero who overcomes all odds. But what if there are no dragons left to slay?
When we think of corporate storytelling we need to consider a slightly different definition; snippets of sensory language presented in a way that allows the reader to quickly and easily comprehend the narrative and create meaning from it.
Like our dragon slayer, a good corporate story should engage your audience and spark their imagination, and you won’t do this using facts and figures alone. In personal interactions we do this by adding colour while making the complex easy to understand.
Stories aren’t anecdotes, case studies, testimonials or examples. Each of these things have value in corporate communications but they shouldn’t be confused with storytelling. Stories paint a picture in the mind of the audience. By contextualising facts and figures with sensory language we can capture imaginations and create memorable impressions.
Stories give people the space to discover for themselves the implicit meaning of what’s being said. They create emotional engagement, drive genuine understanding and enable audiences to discover and learn for themselves.
- Context – set the scene
- Challenge – what obstacles do you face?
- Action – how is the challenge overcome?
- Results – what was the outcome?
- Evaluation – how has this changed your thinking or approach?
Understanding how to apply these ideas to your business is sometimes difficult. Some more relatable concepts might include the quality of senior leaders and management, innovation in your field, financial soundness, long-term investment value, community and environmental responsibility, the quality of your marketing and global competitiveness.
What does success look like?
Digital channels are synonymous with reporting, analytics, insights and endorsements.
The success of your corporate story could be measured by the number of visitors to your site, how many pages they view, how long they spend on your site and how this trends over time.
You can look at engagement across social channels, with indicators such as likes and shares providing a useful and clear benchmarking opportunity. It’s also possible to monitor your company for mentions in the press or on investor-focused forums and bulletin boards using freely available tools.
When someone engages with your story they often retell it. A social share is a great example of this. If someone sees your post and shares it with their followers, they are amplifying your message and sending a signal they are emotionally engaged with it.
For most businesses it comes down to reputation, which is often perceived as being closely linked to market value. Reputation is a valuable asset and storytelling offers a way to underpin and drive your reputation further. Even if you are communicating well and saying the right things, we can consider how to say them in a different way to communicate more effectively and tell a better story.
If you want to find out more about how we can help your company tell a better story please get in touch. We’d love to hear from you!
