Inclusion in Press Release and Earnings Call

The high level objectives for the investor relations or public relations group include the following:

1) List customer wins (name listings) in your earnings press release. We recommend consistency each quarter. Specifically, we recommend approximately one dozen. These should be highlighted in the company's key highlights section. A name listing should suffice.

2) Cover half a dozen customer "stories" - in verbal format -  in addition to listing customer wins (same list as above) in your CEO's earnings presentation. This is a brief paragraph on each customer, which includes their name, a few words describing them (go to the "boiler plate" of a recent press release to find this), what products and/or services they purchased, what the need was, intended usage, expected benefits, and associated partners (example: implementation partner for enterprise application software vendors).

Following the Proper Protocol and Process 

As per protocol, you must seek permission from each of the companies you wish to reference. As per process, contact the account manager, explain the request to him or her, and then ask if you can contact the customer (the business user) directly to make the request. Describe the full nature of the request to the customer and its importance to your company. Provide examples of last quarter's press release and earnings conference call presentation, and how companies may be referenced.

Inform the business users that they should get proper approval from the powers that be, who may be a manager and the company's public relations (PR) group. This most definitely should be brought to the attention of the customer's PR group, so point this out to your contact. You want to clearly spell out your request in an email with samples attached, so your contact can quickly and easily route the request to the approvers.

Gathering Content for an Earnings Call "Story"

The most efficient process that saves the customer time is to ask the account manager to complete a brief questionnaire, covering the customer's need, intended usage, expected benefits, and any other highlights pertinent to your company (note: customers are not usually keen to publicly mention competitors considered). From that content, draft a paragraph for the customer's approval, and include it in your original request. While a customer may come back with a quick rejection, as corporate policies may not permit public endorsement of a vendor, if the company supports such a request, your contact will have all he or she needs to route to the proper approvers.

Indeed, provide a deadline. And remember that your customers and their PR groups are quite busy, so provide them with as much time as possible (a minimum of one week is recommended and up to 3 weeks is desirable).

Would you like us to execute on a similar project for you? Or do you have questions on the above? If so, contact us.