By Dominic Jones
JUST popping in because this guy from a mega-cap company emailed me on my “vacation” wanting to know if we could review his employer’s IR website and give them “the 10 most important improvements” for their site.
Oh, and by the way, “we don’t have a budget for this,” he says.
At that point, I just get pissed off. Because if you “don’t have a budget” for your website, then you are not serious. You’re not going to be able to implement anything we tell you anyway.
Not having a budget is the same as thinking this stuff isn’t important. The SEC and regulators around the world are increasingly mandating specific web-based disclosures, so not having a budget for an expert to review and benchmark your site occasionally is irresponsible. It’s incompetence, in the extreme.
Listen, dude, here’s my first recommendation — get a budget!
And here are some free tips while you’re waiting.
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Well said Dominic
It always staggers me that companies apply no budget to their corporate communication websites. All company’s have the budget, except possibly the micro caps, even though they can miraculously afford the $100,000 BMWs for the board!
Why are budgets low – I’m sure there are lots of reasons, but I ultimately think there is one overriding factor – especially in the UK.
The various main suppliers, like Investis and Hemscott, have developed their ‘cookie cutter’, ‘out of the box’ solutions and then pitched everything they do on the lowest possible margin, or even at a loss to gain access to the client.
As a result IR departments and their finance masters have come to expect significant website builds to be done for peanuts, with free advice, feeds etc all thrown in.
I came across one implant in a IR/PR company the other day that was going to advise, design, build and host a FTSE250 company website for $15,000!
You cannot get good advice/develop a good site for that kind of money! Having said that they just spent $6,000 with us pulling the proposal to pieces, asking analysts what they really want, and planning content that will be worthwhile – so at least they saw the light in the end(enough self promotion Anderson!)
The result of these low cost solutions: investors are not being serviced properly, IROs are not doing their job properly, and the suppliers are making little, or in one case above, losses, trying to service the market this way.
The market needs to mature, but that has to be led by the suppliers educating the customer and changing their business model, and I don’t see that happening any time soon!
Ian
Ian,
Good points. The cookie-cutter biz is like crack. It is highly addictive and makes people stupid and lazy. Eventually the addict dies or gets help.
That said, the crack you get in the UK and Europe is much less damaging than the cheap junk US companies are hooked on.