Financial PR is an essential component of investor relations. Presence in financial media is a key factor in drawing retail investors’ attention to their own stock. And ChatGPT? What’s the link to financial PR? Let’s explain that in a few more words.
The Importance of Financial PR for Investor Relations
How important is financial PR for investor relations? A 2022 study by the CENTER FOR RESEARCH IN FINANCIAL COMMUNICATION, in collaboration with the Deutsches Aktieninstitut and DIRK – German Investor Relations Association, found that financial newspapers and magazines are the second most important information source for retail investors—following financial portals. This applies to both the older and younger generations of private investors.
Source: DIRK P.49
Source: CENTER FOR RESEARCH IN FINANCIAL COMMUNICATION – Deutsches Aktieninstitut – DIRK: Kapitalmarktkommunikation für die neue „Generation Aktie“, 2022, S. 49
How does one Enter the Financial Press?
So, how can one break into financial newspapers and magazines? The recent “2024 State of the Media Report” by CISION offers interesting insights. The report shows that the chances significantly increase if journalists are presented with data-driven stories as topic suggestions. According to the CISION report, data plays a crucial role in developing story ideas. For example, 56% of journalists want to focus on the same amount of data as the previous year when shaping their editorial strategies. However, 25% of journalists want to rely on slightly more data, and 12% on significantly more data. Only 4% want to use less, and 2% much less data.
Source: CISION p. 14
Source: CISION: 2024 State of the Media Report, p. 14
What Does This Mean for Investor Relations?
As an IRO, if one understands which topics are currently important, one can offer journalists relevant data-driven stories. According to CISION, offering solid data in combination with trending capital market topics improves the chances that the articles will be published.
How to Find Trending Capital Market Topics?
Here’s where ChatGPT finally comes into play: with a little practice, you can extract valuable information from ChatGPT about which trending topics are currently popular with financial journalists. The AI can do something that IROs can only achieve with significant time and effort: analyzing multiple or, alternatively, selected websites in seconds. Incidentally, according to CISION, 47% of journalists find direct topic suggestions particularly useful. Only press releases rank higher in popularity at 68%:
Source: CISION: 2024 State of the Media Report, p. 22
Data, Data, Data?
And what about the necessary data that financial journalists would like for the story? If not available in-house, AI can be useful in finding data sources. Similarly, it can help identify suitable financial journalists for the developed topic suggestions.
The results from ChatGPT should be viewed with a healthy dose of skepticism, as results may sometimes fail to hold up to scrutiny. Nevertheless, ChatGPT is an incredibly helpful tool overall for identifying the right topics for story suggestions, uncovering relevant data, and finding journalists interested in these topics.