Analyst relations teams often lack internal support. I was surprised when that comment was viewed by 16,000 professionals in just three days, and 21,000 before the week was up on LinkedIn. The audience attracted by a rich discussion on the post, which involved several of the smartest analysts and analyst relations people I know.
I wrote that internal “support means more than budget to hire good AR support and equip it well. Executives need to take the time to brief analysts. Product and service managers need to be available to schedule inquiry calls. Communications professionals need to amplify supportive analysts using social and traditional media, and with content marketing. Salespeople can use analysts’ insight to grow and accelerate the sales pipeline.”
One of the key things analysts ask for is candour, and it’s not surprising that the analysts who commented started from there. If analyst relations does not have respect, then people won’t listen to its suggestions and, eventually, every ignored AR manager loses the will to offer advice. So you end up in the situation where the executive gets a briefing document they don’t read, the analyst gets shown some off-the-shelf slides that tell them nothing new, and everyone has a few hours of their lives wasted. Initially, it might seem that the big loser here is the analyst since the analyst spends more time in briefings than anyone else. In fact, it’s the potential buyer who misses out. If the analyst can’t understand where the solution can be confidently used, then the prospective users will never hear about it from the most influential third-party influencer in most tech markets.
There’s a simple way to start to win more internal support: Learn how to amplify the value your analyst relations outreach is generating. A great introduction is CCgroup’s free research report about influencer relations.
You can read the original post and the replies at:
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6463881970047946752
