Torsten Sewing: The case for AR has to be tactical

Torsten Sewing, who led Lighthouse Analyst Relations’ work in mainland Europe for eight years, shared these thoughts with us.

 

The Institute for Industry Analyst Relations white paper on “Making the case for Analyst Relations” is one in the series of guides written for IIAR members. Many of its members are in large companies where AR-programmes have been cut during the recession and, what’s worse, social media campaigns have taken resources from other marketing activities.

The IIAR paper focuses on the need to support top managers actively. Thus, the paper takes a highly strategic view, reflecting the institute’s members’ deep experience in measuring and benchmarking the performance of AR teams, especially in the frequency, tonality and impact of mentions of your firm in analyst research.

AR managers have found that the case for Analyst Relations often has to be much more tactical: identifying the already existing goals of the business, and then showing how AR serves them. That seems to reflect what Forrester has shown to be most effective in a study that is still valid despite having been published in 2007.

Certainly, AR programme directors can use information about their influence on research. However, top executives are more interested in examples of how this research has influenced client’s actions. AR managers are primarily there to use their relationships with analysts to help meet the goals of corporate leaders, and not to dig deep into the research themselves. AR tactics have to be determined by the winning of internal support and the generation of external sales activities.

Thus, we opt for a close alliance and constant communications between AR and PR. Indeed, we recommend membership in the IIAR to stay abreast of the current issues in EMEA AR – and to be part of a growing community.

Berlin-based journalist Torsten Sewing has held senior roles in IT entrepreneurship, industry analyst relations and CSR. 

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AR Classics is a series of posts on Influencer Relations that aims to keep online important contributions to analyst relations. These are articles of lasting value by a range of authors, mostly published between 1995 and 2005.