Industry Analyst Relations

How do you amplify the value of analyst relations within your organisation?

Industry analysts are proving themselves to be highly influential in B2B purchasing decisions across telecoms, enterprise, financial services and beyond. But the practice of analyst relations is rarer than it should be.

Put simply, senior management cannot often understand the long-term value when weighing up an analyst relations campaign against a media relations campaign. So, what should you do if you feel like analyst relations is not taking root within your organisation?

Demonstrate the importance of analysts

Not everyone understands or values the importance of industry analysts. You have to make it clear to your senior management. Helpfully, we’ve done some of the research for you. Check out our enterprise techretail banking, telecomstelco digital transformationcapital markets and media tech Catalyst reports – which lift the lid on the influence of industry analysts in technology buying decisions in these markets. Or you could just crib from the below:

Industry analyst impact on longlisting:

  • Telecoms operators: 5th most important influencer
  • Large enterprises: 3rd most important influencer
  • Retail banks: 3rd most important influencer
  • Capital markets: 9th most important influencer
  • Broadcasters: 6th most important influencer

Industry analyst impact on shortlisting:

  • Telecoms operators: 2nd most important content
  • Large enterprises: 5th most important content
  • Capital markets: 4th most important content
  • Broadcasters: 3rd most important content

Provide top spokespeople with AR prep calls – particularly if you know the analyst or landmark report better than they do!

If someone is new to analyst relations, they need guidance. What does an analyst want from an intro call? What are they looking for? What do we know about them, what companies do they track, have they covered our competitors recently?

All of this is critically important and helps your senior spokesperson to understand the why do analyst relations at all question – because it puts you in frame for subsequent commercial conversation, and can improve the strength and frequency of your inbound leads. Undoubtedly important from a marketing and sales enablement perspective.

Amplify analyst feedback by packaging it up

Arm your intelligence and pre-sales team with verbatim AR feedback. I recommend packaging up analyst commentary from any briefing you do in the 24-48 hours following your call so that it’s fresh in everyone’s mind.

That way your spokespeople can prepare and have ‘live’ feedback on what they can do to improve for next time, as well as what key parts of a product’s message need tightening up or brand messaging is unclear.

Also: always ensure you have a plan in place to “seed” analyst coverage and watch it grow. What I mean by this is should an analyst do a write-up or blog after your briefing, share it internally. Post it on LinkedIn. If it’s a major report, investigate gaining a citation or reprint rights access.

All of this should help you succeed in integrating and creating value for analyst relations within the enterprise. Fundamentally, it’s about having a strategy and plan for executing on the time and investment you put into it. And then you’ll see that success should follow.

Written by Duncan Chapple

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