Is Your Website Ready for Your IPO?

IPOs are gaining more momentum in the UK and across the globe. In the UK, a rebound in capital markets resulted in nearly $7 billion raised during the last four months of 2020 according to the Financial Times – and so far in 2021, European and UK stock exchanges have raised about $10.2 billion, marking the best such start in the IPO market since 2015, according to Refinitiv. Globally, initial public offerings raised $331 billion across 1,591 listings in 2020, which represented a 42 percent increase over 2019, according to Baker McKenzie. Going public poses a myriad of new challenges for companies that they did not need to worry about when they were private, such as meeting the regulatory requirements for publicly traded companies and balancing long-term vision against the reality of meeting shareholder expectations each quarter. Many of these challenges converge in one place: the corporate website.

A website is the home for a publicly-traded firm to share its narrative, divulge required financial data, and meet a host of other expectations. Many companies preparing to go public are already experienced in operating consumer-facing sites. But adding a corporate-facing site, or indeed building both from scratch, as the case might be – poses special challenges that might be new to a publicly-traded company. Preparing a website for an IPO can even require something of a rebrand.

Based on our experience working on numerous IPOs, we believe anyone planning for an IPO needs to address these considerations:

1. Speak to a Broader Audience

Before going public, companies might be accustomed to talking exclusively with their customers, suppliers, and business partners. They’ve understandably focused their content on attracting and keeping customers. But going public means satisfying more audiences, including, of course, potential investors (both individual and institutional), and everyone else who influences shareholder sentiment, including, analysts, the media, partners, job seekers, the executive team, and so on.

Speaking to multiple audiences influences everything from your choice of content to your tone of voice. A business that needs to report quarterly earnings to investors will probably need to take a different tone and approach than when they are courting customers, especially if a brand adopts a casual or whimsical tone in their customer-facing communications.

In addition, they may need to meet the needs of different types of investors. Millennials and Gen Z, for example, are more likely to evaluate a company based on its values and purpose, not just on financial performance.

2. Share a Strong Narrative

One of the biggest shocks companies face when they prepare to go public is realizing how much effort they need to put into sharing their brand narrative – including their company story, their values, and their commitment to ESG. Won’t it suffice to simply post their legally required documents for investors?

Well, actually, no.

Why? Because investors look at much more than the numbers. And they also need to have the numbers explained within the context of an investor case – the activities a company undertakes to make itself a more attractive long-term investment choice. Here, sharing a company’s vision and strategy comes into play. Many already-established publicly traded firms are wrestling with the challenge of keeping their vision and strategy up to date in an ever-changing world. They need to show how they are aligned with the societal, technological, and climate mega-trends that are shaping the world. Just about every company in every industry now absolutely must articulate a lasting game plan for sustainability. As Comprend’s 2020 Capital Markets Survey found, companies must also codify their efforts to being sustainable through recent performance, clarified objectives, and targets.

3. Be Engaging

Another surprise companies often encounter in the pre-IPO stage is realizing just how dynamic and varied their content needs to be. Publicly traded firms need to:

• Rely on their executive team far more than they ever did to carry the content load. CEOs need to humanize the company brand and demonstrate confidence literally with their faces and voices. Preparing for an IPO means, among other things, working with the company’s CEO to craft video content such as a CEO’s statement of corporate vision.

• Show a compelling narrative in a visually appealing way, and break down the numbers by using infographics, animation, and video. No, we’re not talking about dumbing down the numbers. We mean telling the story behind the numbers with visuals that pop. We live in a visual age – analysts and investors included.

In addition, after the corporate site goes live, it must be refreshed constantly with news, shareholder developments, changes in personnel, progress on attaining ESG initiatives, and many other elements of a company’s growth trajectory. And that content must be clear, effective, and engaging. Always.

Get the Details Right

The above three considerations are just the tip of the iceberg. In the ramp-up to the IPO, businesses also need to:

• Make sure the user experience is as good or better than the consumer-facing site. You think customers get impatient with a slow-loading site? Wait until investors start visiting.

• Take security and privacy to another level. A hack on your corporate site may ruin an investor announcement, make a company run afoul of the government, and destroy shareholder value. Privacy violations go beyond customers now – they affect a company’s financial returns and stock price.

• Step up your analytics. Good analytics help a publicly traded firm understand crucial details such as surges in site visits that could portend an activist investor taking an interest in the company. Be prepared ahead of time.

What Businesses Should Do Next

Companies should include website launch as part of the necessary game plan for going public. Your corporate website will become a vital part of your communications strategy because this is where analysts and institutional investors will be going to research about your company. It’s that important. Getting the corporate story ready and telling it to a public audience must happen well in advance of the IPO. Make the site development an extension of the content you are probably creating already as you file for your IPO.

At IDX, we help businesses prepare for an IPO by building durable websites rapidly and cost-effectively. The IDX Connect.ID platform leverages an atomized design approach to create digital channels for many of the world’s most ambitious companies.

Our Connect.ID Express templated websites use pre-built components and functionality to deliver websites when time and budget are limited, but where security and performance are paramount.

Contact us to learn how to build an enterprise-grade, scalable, and secure site as part of your IPO game plan, and make sure to visit our Connect.ID Express page to learn more about our offering.