Global Head of Influencer Relations at Google Cloud.
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Analyst relations (AR) is confusing by name and hard to explain in practice. Let’s start here.
A common (and, in my opinion, antiquated) view is that AR is a sister practice to public relations (PR) and consists of setting up meetings to move up and to the right in competitive evaluations. Many believe that companies can pay analysts to write good things, otherwise known as “pay to play.” Check.
Respectfully, this is an inaccurate view of the practice. Yes, industry analyst firms often charge for engagement and advisory. However, you cannot pay analysts to say good things about your company. Cue a common disappointing occurrence.
• Your company engages an analyst, shares all the great things about your product and believes that this has sealed the deal for glorious accolades.
• The analyst publishes a report with a mediocre evaluation of your company.
• You are frustrated and disappointed. (You might think they don’t get it or that other vendors must be paying more.)
Why You Need AR
Rely on AR to dispel the myths and prevent unnecessary frustration. Here’s an analogy for how to think about AR. Most savvy people would not hand money to a financial advisor that acted merely as a transactional clearing house. You look for an expert, one who intimately understands the nuances of the global investment climate, to tell you how much of your portfolio you should really be investing in that new crypto coin and set annual growth expectations. Having trusted counsel in your corner who has a daily pulse on the market will provide you with a strategy for increasing your returns so you can focus on making more money to invest. This sentiment is one you should also apply to your AR leaders.
We can define analyst relations as “a corporate function leveraging established industry and technology pundit relationships and expertise to achieve business milestones and augment long-term corporate goals. The practice of AR requires deep expertise of analyst firms, engagement practices, and how to build and deploy effective AR programs to improve the competitive market dynamics, awareness and perception of an organization.” Come again?
Your future prospects and current customers want to make secure investments in their vendors and product selections. The industry analyst community provides valuable insights on vendors and the best products available. AR is a strategic mechanism for building advocacy for your differentiated value proposition and offerings.
The Many Facets Of AR
AR drives long-term impact on the business. Your organization is on a mission. If you are publicly traded, you want to do everything in your power to increase shareholder value while providing solutions for your customers across the world. As a privately held company, you are looking for some type of exciting market event with an IPO or acquisition. Net net, strategic AR can help any company that is focused on driving recurring revenue, growing a customer base and keeping investors happy.
AR drives education that can yield positive influence on the perspectives of industry pundits. It’s a long-term game that can pay dividends when done thoughtfully with consistency over time. When was the last time you went on one date and then decided to commit to a lifetime of marriage?
AR provides air cover for your troops through market awareness and building positive buzz while the rest of your company is working toward major product launches and milestones. AR partners with PR for analyst media references and marketing campaigns for demand generation featuring third-party validation. Have you chosen to dine at a restaurant after seeing that it was rated two out of five stars?
Proactive AR is also helpful for providing feedback before the world has a chance to chime in. You should take advantage of constructive criticism while you have an opportunity to adjust and refine before a public release. AR pros provide these insights and bring in the best-fit analysts to help. Did you test drive your car before you purchased it?
Framing The Impact Of AR
Narrow the gap to harness the impact. The more that leaders understand the nuances of the workstreams AR is driving, the more space they’ll have to show tangible value. The number of briefings you hold is a metric of activity, not necessarily an impact. You should measure AR’s impact over time using a combination of qualitative and quantitative metrics of perception shifts with analysts who have the greatest impact on your business goals of raising customer acquisition and revenue growth.
For the AR pros: Increasingly apply AR outcomes to overall business goals and communicate in terms that anyone across the company can understand. Documentation is key. Without artifacts, strategy guides and planning documents that you can share, your analyst relations efforts might as well have never happened. Too often, the work behind AR wins feels intangible, and AR must effectively illustrate outcomes for business leaders to digest. There is an opportunity to carve out greater career paths for AR as the business impact evolves.
For the non-AR practitioners: Become familiar with the practice of AR and make the space to showcase this business impact with evolved views of the function. Your AR team will only be able to strengthen your business outcomes if you open the runway for them to fly. Create the space so that AR can demonstrate the business impact just as equally as more understood disciplines like marketing and PR.
Avoid the pitfalls of solely applying marketing or PR measurements to AR, which can create confusion and degrade the understanding your company has of AR. Outlining distinct shared goals with other teams is one measure you can take but should not be the lone reporting mechanism. Converting units between the metaphorical metric and imperial systems is never apples to apples.
So, what do you think AR’s new name could be? Is there a name that more accurately reflects the value and nuances of AR? I’ve spent a lot of time helping others understand all that AR is and can be, and the common hurdles begin with the preconceived notions and fast judgments the name “analyst relations” conjures up. Now that we are all on the same page, perhaps we do not need a new name; perhaps reaching a new modernized view of AR will do the trick.
Forbes Communications Council is an invitation-only community for executives in successful public relations, media strategy, creative and advertising agencies. Do I qualify?
