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News: Equipping two investment companies with an end-to-end solution to run virtual AGMs

Euronext Securities Copenhagen has worked with Obton and Koncenton to develop an end-to-end solution for virtual annual general meetings (VGMs). Each of the two investment firms now has a solution that is tailored to their unique needs and empowers them to run their own VGMs as a part of a self-service solution.

Two fast-growing alternative investment funds

Owned by the Obton Group, both Obton and Koncenton have experienced an exceptional growth rate in recent years.

Obton operates at the forefront of the transition towards more sustainable energy sources, helping new and experienced professional and semi-professional investors diversify their holdings by investing in solar plants around the world. The investment firm is among the largest investors in solar energy in Europe and has more than 4,000 investors and +20 billions under management

For the past three years, Koncenton has been the largest property investment firm in Denmark, and invested DKK 5 billion in properties during 2021 alone. This year, the company plans to add over 60 properties to its rapidly expanding portfolio and grow by 1,000 investors. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, both companies held in-person annual general meetings (AGMs). Given the large number of investors involved in both companies, the pandemic-related restrictions posed unique challenges.

Pandemic prompts search for a virtual, self-service solution

“Our AGM process was very physical before the pandemic,” relates Mads Møller Wejdemann, Director, Investor Services at Obton. “We scanned barcodes to verify the attendees, passed out paper ballots and collected votes manually. So, when it was no longer possible to hold a physical meeting, we needed to find a platform that would enable us to interact with our investors.” Because Obton and Koncenton have to hold an AGM for each investment fund, they needed to find a solution with a robust self-service element. “It would be a very expensive solution if we had to have a vendor provide support to hold all of our AGMs when we have so many, so one of our main requirements was the ability to run the VGMs ourselves,” he says.

Developing a tailored VGM solution

Obton and Koncenton worked with Euronext Securities Copenhagen to develop end-to-end VGM solutions that are tailored to each investment firm’s unique needs. Koncenton developed a two-factor model, which enables the company to adjust the VGM format based on the number of attendees. “For meetings with a small investor turnout, we use the Euronext set-up for the registration process, and run the actual meeting on the Microsoft Teams platform,” explains Kenneth Klitgaard Sørensen, Company Manager at Koncenton. “But when we hold our large meetings, where we need to manage participants and voting, we need to have a digital flow covering the entire meeting.” Koncenton is also working with Euronext Securities Copenhagen to minimise the delay between the live event and the feed that investors watch. One of Obton’s requirements was being able to integrate the VGM solution with their order books, so the two systems could communicate with each other. They were able to find a solution to this requirement as well. Both investment firms have used Company Webcast as an integrated part of their VGM solution.

Virtual format has its advantages

While the shift to virtual AGMs was made out of necessity, both Obton, Koncenton and their investors have discovered the advantages of meeting virtually. “One of our goals as an investment firm is to keep our investors as informed as possible and give them insight into their investments and how they’re performing,” says Kenneth Klitgaard. “The virtual format gives us more options so we can have as many attendees as possible. Some investors who might have been hesitant to spend an entire day in transit just to attend a 1.5-hour meeting, can now attend virtually. Our hope is that this will increase the overall number of attendees. And, generally speaking, investors appreciate not having to attend physically.”

The virtual format also eases the administrative burden, as Mads Wejdemann points out. “When we had paper-based voting, we had to manually collect the votes and count them, which took a great deal of time. Now everything is handled digitally, and that makes the process a lot easier to manage.”

Going forward, both investment firms will use a hybrid approach, offering investors the opportunity to attend virtually or physically. “Some people like to know who the other investors are, and by offering a hybrid solution, we can meet everyone’s needs, whether they prefer the physical or virtual format,” Mads Wejdemann says.

FACTS

VGM is a tool for companies that wish to foster active ownership and see a higher participation and interaction than in a physical meeting.

VGM includes:

Flexible set-up for issuers
Fully or partially virtual meeting
Static, dynamic or live video stream & audio
Ability to add and modify agenda points
Secure back-up of data and functionality

Read more about how we can support your Annual General Meeting and your VGM.

Originally this article appeared on Euronext Securities.

Blog: 7 Key Strategies For Promoting Sustainability In The Workplace

Increased awareness of the climate crisis has led to a boost in the levels of responsible investing since the 2016 Paris Agreement. With a combination of evermore desperate news about the rise in world temperatures and the increase in shareholder funds flowing towards environmental, social and governance (ESG)-related assets – expected to hit US$53 trillion (€48.8 trillion) by 2025 – it is no surprise that companies are interested in promoting sustainability in the workplace.

However, both internal and external stakeholders demand authenticity when it comes to the environmental programmes of businesses. Accusations of greenwashing – erroneously branding something environmentally friendly when it isn’t – can be damaging for a company, so you have to commit to sustainability in everything you do.

This means getting your own house in order, so to speak, and creating an environmentally conscious workplace. This article explains why and how to go about creating a sustainable workplace.

Why engage employees in sustainability?

When you try to build a company culture, you need buy-in from all parties, starting with senior leadership and moving on to all other employees in the organisation. This does not happen by dictating how internal stakeholders will behave but rather by engaging with them and winning over their hearts and minds.

If you want people to adopt environmentally friendly practices in the workplace, they need to understand what they need to do and why they need to do it. They must believe in the vision that the organisation has and want to work to fashion it into reality.

Staff engagement on sustainability involves a two-way conversation about the best ways your company can cut out damaging practices and integrate sustainability into the working day seamlessly. If employees help shape the policies, they will be more willing to implement them and work at them until they become successful.

Instil a green(er) culture

Company culture is key to driving positive changes, so the first step to promoting sustainability is to promote a green culture within the organisation. Here are some ways to achieve this goal:

Update your mission statement

Your mission statement holds your business responsible for delivering on its promises, so creating a sustainability statement is essential to show you are serious about green issues.

Be clear and concise in your statement, explaining why sustainability matters to your business, what you want to accomplish and what your success criteria will be. It should appeal to all staff and provide them with a rallying call to help the business meet its aims.

Update your company newsletter

Your company newsletter is one of your biggest internal communications channels and should be utilised to update employees on your sustainability push. Showing staff what you want to achieve and documenting your efforts to make a real change helps them to understand your policies more clearly and see that you are serious about your targets.

Sharing your goals and results can inspire employees to set up their own green working practices and provide recognition for those who are already doing their part.

Run employee awareness campaigns

It must be clear to employees how they can improve their sustainable working practices before your strategy can bear fruit. This means running campaigns to raise awareness of what practical steps they can take. For example:

Aim	Practice
More efficient recycling	Signage explaining clearly which common materials found in your offices, kitchens and other common areas can and cannot be recycled and how to do so.
Lower energy consumption	Screensaver messages on office computers providing tips on ways to reduce energy consumption (turning off the lights, reducing the use of air conditioning, etc.)

Source ideas from employees

Your employees are a great pool of ideas. With so many experiences combined, asking them to share ideas for green activities to increase your sustainability should generate a large number of suggestions.

In addition, having been engaged in the process, they will feel valued and have one more reason to get behind the green strategy that you intend to implement.

Host sustainability workshops

Sending emails and other written communications about your sustainability plans is a good start, but some people are kinaesthetic learners and need to engage in practical activities to really take them on board.

A workshop environment can really bring to life the strategies that you want to put in place and help your employees understand how they benefit them and the world in general.

7 key strategies for promoting sustainability in the workplace

1. Encourage remote and hybrid work

Researchers in Spain have found that implementing remote working for two, three or four days a week can cut the amount of Nitrogen Dioxide polluting the air by 4%, 8% and 10% respectively. Nitrogen Dioxide can irritate the eyes, nose, throat and lungs and worse — areas with particularly high levels of NO2 report increases in cases of asthma and more people requiring hospital stays for respiratory complaints.

By encouraging employees to work from home full time or on a hybrid basis, you can help to improve the air quality in your local area. And it is not only beneficial to have employees dialling in to complete their regular work; there are many areas of the business which you can take online in order to cut your environmental impact. Here are some examples:

Area	How to perform remotely
Company town hall meetings	Present in a fully virtual or hybrid format with some employees in-person and others watching online through a professional webcasting platform. This allows staff working remotely or utilising flexible working to attend without travelling to the venue.
Board meetings	Use a board portal to take board meetings online. The portal allows them to collaborate from anywhere and use the video function to attend the virtual meeting.
Investor relations events	Whether it’s an online roadshow or a cutting-edge experience, such as the ESG Days we’ve been organising at Company Webcast, there is a lot you can do with virtual and hybrid events to engage your current and potential shareholders. A great benefit of this is that you eradicate the need to send executives out on the road.

2. Go paperless

Paperless technologies are becoming ever more effective for organisations, allowing them to cut their carbon footprint. Taking advantage of programs like Google Workspace, on which you can collaborate in the cloud, means that it is entirely feasible for organisations to cut down on their use of paper, and even eradicate it completely.

And, for the environment, that is great news. It takes a lot of energy and water to produce paper, not to mention the problems that deforestation brings. The World Counts states that “from 2001 to 2019, a total of 386 million hectares of forest were lost globally (in all forest types combined). This loss represents an almost 10% decrease in tree cover since 2000”. In addition, paper accounts for around 26% of total waste at landfills. Still, offices across the world are using trillions of sheets every year.

This is not necessary. With all of the digital tools at our disposal, it is easy to at least reduce the amount of paper that your organisation uses.

3. Conserve energy

In large companies, it is common to waste energy. Employees might leave their computers on overnight, for example. Simply shutting them down at the end of the day, rather than leaving them on standby, could save a significant amount of energy when you consider implementing this policy across a large business.

Other ways to save energy in the office include turning down the thermostat or reducing the power of the air conditioning, depending on the season. As long as the room temperature is still comfortable, even slight adjustments can conserve energy and lessen your impact on the environment.

4. Conserve water

Water is a precious resource and we should ensure we do not waste it unnecessarily. With the effects of climate change becoming ever more pronounced, we must guard against droughts and ensure we use the resources that we have wisely.

In an office, you could install waterless urinals and encourage employees to fill a sink when washing up in the kitchen, rather than keeping the taps running as they wash. You can also check for leaks in the plumbing of the building and collect rainwater to water any green areas you have and more.

5. Encourage sustainable transportation

The European Environment Agency states that “transport…leads to releases of pollutants, which can spread beyond the reach of transport networks. They can contribute to background concentrations of particulate matter, ozone and nitrogen dioxide, affecting people, plants and animals. Some areas, including mountainous regions, coastal zones and seas, can be particularly vulnerable to pollution from transport.”

Cutting down on the amount of travelling your employees do for work, particularly by car or aeroplane, is important for your sustainability. You could encourage car sharing for employees commuting to the office or incentivise cycling or walking to work.

Another way to cut down on the impact of transportation relating to your business is to encourage remote or hybrid practices. Taking meetings online, rather than travelling to attend them, is a much more sustainable way of working. For example, using Company Webcast’s professional webinar platform to host events, such as all-hands meetings and training sessions, is a way to eradicate unnecessary travel.

6. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

An environmental mindset is key to becoming more sustainable, and advocating Reduce, Reuse, Recycle as a mantra is part of this.

You should have intuitive recycling processes on-site so that recyclable materials go to recycling plants, not to landfills. Encouraging employees to use only what they need, whether that is water for hot drinks or electricity when charging devices is also important, as is reusing materials and resources when there is still life in them, rather than throwing them away.

7. Become involved in the community

Your quest for sustainability does not need to end at the lobby of your building. You can show your commitment to the environment by getting out into the local community and becoming involved with environmental projects on your doorstep.

You could plant trees, clean up the local river or parkland, go litter picking or do any other activity that makes your community a better place and helps protect the environment for other people.

8. Light it up with humour

Using humour can be effective in maintaining the thrall of the audience. Laughter is one of the universals in life, as it is a release and a communal experience. It improves the mood and keeps you engaged with the person delivering the humour. These are all great qualities if you want to combat webinar fatigue and increase audience engagement.
A well-placed and pitched joke here and there certainly adds to the experience for the audience, but you do need to be careful. The jokes you use must be appropriate for the audience in terms of their age, background and beliefs. If you are trying to sell products or promote your business, you don’t want to risk alienating those in attendance.
Similarly, you should remember that your brand can come across as jovial, but must never be the butt of the joke. British businessman Gerald Ratner discovered this to his peril in 1991 when he jokingly told a conference of the Institute of Directors that his jewellery company’s products were “total crap”. Ratners Group lost £500 million from its value following the fallout of the speech.

Why sustainability in the office is the future

Your external and internal stakeholders are more invested in sustainability than ever before, and that will only increase with the next generation. This is not a fleeting trend that will go away; it is here to stay, and the only way to future-proof your business is to embrace it.

Not only is it the right thing to do when the data shows that the environment needs our help like never before, but it is essential for your business reputation, too. Consumers and investors have shown they are more inclined to think fondly of sustainable organisations than those that do not have environmental policies in place.

In addition, the cost savings from cutting down on transport and reducing your energy consumption can add up to a significant amount. With these powerful arguments in favour of sustainability, now is the time to engage your employees and empower them to do the right thing.

FAQs

Do employees prefer sustainable companies?

77% of workers would like their company to be more sustainable, according to the 2021 Corporate Climate Crisis report from PLAY. Companies must take sustainability seriously in order to placate not only investors and customers but also employees.

Should you set sustainability targets for employees?

Implementing sustainability targets can add some clarity to the role that employees play in helping a business be more environmentally friendly. However, good internal communications for spreading the word of the organisation’s green policies also helps to this end, meaning that targets are only part of the answer.

Conclusion

Encouraging sustainability in the workplace requires engagement with employees and good internal communication. It is a two-way street that involves canvassing opinions and then working with employees to develop systems and strategies that will have an impact on the way you look after the environment.

Taking meetings and training sessions online or in a hybrid format is a key element of this. You can achieve this with Company Webcast’s secure, professional webcasting platform. You can try a free demo of Company Webcast now.

References and Further Reading

Webinar Fatigue: Myth Or Reality? (And 9 Steps to Engage Your Audience)

The rise in prominence of remote working has had more than just an effect on internal business operations. External communications strategies have also had to adapt to people’s new ways of working. For example, holding a press conference in a single location and expecting all the journalists you want to engage to travel to that venue seems outdated now.
Even in 2019, 29% of companies that used webinars for marketing were hosting between 50 and 150 events a year. With the COVID-19 pandemic, travel restrictions and social distancing measures in place since then, even that figure seems modest now. In fact, MarketWatch expects the global webinar market to reach 800 million by 2023, a rise of more than 250 million since 2015.
That’s why external comms embraced the webinar and its many benefits, providing virtual and hybrid briefings for the press, shareholders, customers and other stakeholders. However, now there is a concern that this new way of working could lead to what some people are branding ‘webinar fatigue’.
With webinars becoming an ever more present part of our external comms package, do we really need to beware of webinar fatigue, or is it just a myth? This article offers practical advice to keep your webinar audience engaged and ready to consume your message.

The benefits of webinars for external communication

Webinars have revolutionised the way companies talk to external stakeholders. Here are some of the major benefits:

You increase the reach of your message by allowing your audience to attend from wherever they are based. They don’t have to incur transport and accommodation costs, and they only have to clear a window for the actual meeting itself, rather than having to factor in travel time. When it is easier and more convenient to attend, people will be more likely to do so.
Webinars also allow you to expand into new territories with low risk. Rather than sending an executive team on a tour of another continent, for example, they can engage the audience from the office and get a better understanding of whether it would be worth travelling in the future to meet in person.
Your company can save on travel and accommodation expenses for staff and speakers, as well as the costs of hiring a huge conference hall and providing refreshments.
For ESG-conscious companies, the reduction in travel shows a commitment to climate action.
Webinars are ideal for gaining leads. 73% of business-to-business (B2B) marketers say webinars bring them high-quality leads.

Is webinar fatigue a myth?

‘Webinar fatigue’ is a phrase used by some people to describe the feeling that some viewers experience after attending numerous video meetings and webinars. It usually refers to a malaise at the thought of attending more online events. But is this the fault of the webinar itself?
If you spend time in uninspiring webinars, of course, you will begin to tire of them and dread the next one. Just like an unsatisfactory face-to-face in-person meeting would lead to similar outcomes relating to in-person events. However, if you are engaged, interested and gain value from attending a webinar, you are more likely to welcome the idea of more webinars.
Webinar fatigue is a myth because not all webinars cause it. It is more accurately described as ‘disappointing meeting’ fatigue.
The problem is that some webinars are unengaging and disorganised, or they are simply not tailored to an online audience whose needs are different from an in-person crowd. It is not enough to simply open a standard video conferencing program, invite attendees and start talking. Professional and engaging webinars take planning and thought to ensure they keep their audience interested in them and, therefore, the message they are trying to convey. It is important you have an awareness about webinar fatigue being related to the product and the presentation, not the platform or the medium.
Your virtual meetings need to feel professional and special so that they are not a chore to attend, but instead create a valuable experience for your target audience. This is how you prevent attendees from experiencing the feeling that has been branded as webinar fatigue.

The 9 steps to engage your audience and avoid webinar fatigue

1. Pick the right time for your event

The right timing is key for engagement and combating fatigue. There are factors to consider, such as whether there are other similar events happening on the same day. If they are aimed at some of the same people, those attendees might have to hop from one webinar straight into another, which can fuel fatigue.
In addition, if you have key attendees in another timezone, you don’t want to make them wake too early or stay up too late to hear your message. And then there are factors like not holding the webinar late on a Friday afternoon, when people are thinking about stopping work for the weekend and will not appreciate having to concentrate on your event before they can do that.
It needs to be a comfortable experience for attendees if they are going to enjoy it.

2. Connect with your audience

Audiences want value. They are not obliged to sit at their digital device and consume your messaging; you have to give them a reason to want to listen.
Understand who your audience is, what value you want them to take away with them and how you want them to interact with your company. Whether it is a shareholder engagement event or a press conference for industry journalists, you should tailor your webinar content to that audience specifically. Think about what they are interested in and cut out any information that is not relevant to the stakeholders in attendance.
If everything you present is relevant, you will make that connection and retain engagement more easily.

3. Use storytelling

Humans have told stories to each other for centuries. There are cave paintings from 30,000BC that depict rituals and hunting stories. This is because we love to hear stories. They capture our imagination and help us to make sense of our world.
Businesses should leverage the power of storytelling in their webinars because that is how you enrapture the audience, guide them through the points you want them to hear and leave them happy with the information they received. You can have your audience imagine the ‘what ifs’ that your product solves in your story, weave in your brand story and sell without it sounding like a sales pitch.
Effective webinars take their viewers on a journey that eradicates the risk of webinar fatigue.

4. Improve broadcasting quality

One of the reasons people invented the concept of webinar fatigue was as a reaction to confusing video conferences. This was happening in the early days of the COVID-19 lockdown when some companies had only just moved online; the speaker image flicked between multiple attendees whenever someone coughed, and no one knew where the mute button was.
To prevent such frustrating experiences at your webinars, you can use a professional platform like Company Webcast. This enables you to create a studio-grade online broadcast with subtitles, graphics, high-quality vision and sound, and slick presentation tools. With a professional look, you instantly improve the experience for attendees and allow them to focus on listening to what you have to say.

5. Share helpful resources

With a webinar, you can send attendees all the resources you mention directly to them as the event happens. They have them stored in their inbox, ready to use when they need them. They don’t have to write them down and look them up later; they hear about the benefits of these resources and instantly gain access, receiving real value for their time.

6. Make your slides simple

Your presenter and your slideshow are two separate factors for the success of your webinar. They should complement each other, not distract from each other. If your slides are cluttered, your audience will spend the time they are on screen trying to decipher them and not listening to your webinar host or hosts.
Slides should illustrate the presenter’s point and give a visual representation of the key points. You should not use large amounts of text, and you certainly shouldn’t just duplicate the presenter’s script — that would be an unnecessary detail that will distract from what is important. Too much writing makes for a boring presentation and can make your attendees switch off.

7. Include different types of media

Using a variety of media helps to hold the interest of your audience. Simply showing graph after graph can become tedious, but showing a graph, then a video, then an infographic, then a photograph keeps it interesting for the eye and maintains engagement.

8. Light it up with humour

9. Make it interactive

An engaging webinar is not a monologue but a conversation. One way to achieve this is by making the most of the interactive features of a webinar platform, such as Company Webcast. Rather than attendees sitting passively as the presenter talks, you can take the opportunity to set up polls for attendees to vote on. You can ask questions relating to the topic or subject of the event and then update the audience with the results later on.
Attendees can also submit questions that the presenters can answer, allowing them to dig deeper and gain even more insight from the event. If they feel an active part of the meeting, they will be more likely to enjoy it.

FAQs

How to know if fatigue affects your audience?

You can tell if your audience is feeling fatigued by the webinar when they start to leave the event. Remember, using a webinar as an external communication tool is not the issue — it is the way a webinar is developed and presented. If you find you are losing audience members, you need to review your presentation and try to work out why people are not engaging with it.

How many days in advance should you announce a webinar?

You need to give people enough warning about your webinar so that their calendar does not get filled up in advance. At least two weeks is a good timescale to announce your event. Any more and they might sign up and forget about it. Any less and they could have too much on their plate. Send out an initial email and then retarget those who have not responded a week ahead of the event to remind them that it is happening.

Should you follow up after the event?

Following up after a webinar helps you work on those leads you generated with the event. They have had time to go away and think about what they saw and consider your proposal so it makes sense to talk to them again. You can also gain valuable feedback on your virtual event so you can tweak it and improve it further.

Conclusion

Webinar fatigue is a phrase that you will hear being used, but it doesn’t tell the whole story. Webinars are a hugely popular and beneficial tool for businesses in their external communications. However, bad web-based meetings are an issue. They disappoint and irritate viewers, something which is obviously damaging for the host brand.
Combating webinar fatigue is actually a question of improving your audience’s experience and increasing the appeal and value of your webinars. If you deliver an excellent presentation and include your attendees in it, no one will be fatigued by your webinar.
Company Webcast’s high-end webinar solution is trusted by major corporations who want to look and sound professional and take advantage of interactive features that bring the event to life. Request a demo of Company Webcast today.

References and Further Reading

Infographic: Virtual events, the “how” of demand generation in 2022

Take a look at this infographic and make a plan for the most effective marketing tools that will help elevate your events.

News: New webcast studio opening in London

Company Webcast opens a brand-new webcast studio in London, United Kingdom on 14 April 2022. With the addition of our sixth state-of-the-art webinar studio, we are strengthening our market leading position in Europe.

By opening this studio in London, we are now able to provide our British and Irish customers even better with studio experiences of the best quality. Additionally, we are the only organisation with six professional webinar studios in Europe. In addition to London, Company Webcast also has own studios in Amsterdam, The Hague, Rotterdam, Brussels, and Paris.

Watch the replay of our opening ceremony of our London studio, where the following thought leaders discussed topics related to communication and technology:

Piers Linney, entrepreneur, non-executive director of the British Business Bank
Nikki Dean, experienced tech event presenter for brands like Apple and Samung
Chris Topple, CEO of Euronext London
Patrick van der Geest, Managing Director Company Webcast

You’ll find our new studio at the beautiful 16 Finsbury Circus, right in the financial heart in the City of London. Come and discover how easy it is for organisations to record and broadcast webinars of the highest quality via Company Webcast’s innovative and interactive platform.

High demand for studio broadcasts

In recent years, there has been exponential growth in the number of professional webinars broadcasted from a studio. A webinar is an opportunity for organisations to achieve high-quality engagement with their employees, customers, prospects and/or stakeholders. Besides holding the viewer’s attention for an average of 57 minutes, a webcast is also personal and interactive – making webinars an amazingly effective tool for communicating complex messages or information.

Blog: The Essential Video Conference Presentation Tips For IROs

With the rise of the online and hybrid forms of investor communications, as an IRO, you will most likely find yourself having to present at video conferences. To help you with what might be a new venture for you, we have put together a list of essential video conference presentation tips that ensure an engaging and informative experience for your audience.

Presenting online vs. in-person

Presenting a video conference differs in many ways from presenting at an in-person event, where you might already feel comfortable. Here are some of the main differences:

In-person event	Online event
You can see how many people are in attendance.	You might not be able to see how many people are watching. This could lead to discomfort and nervousness due to the ‘fear of the unknown’.
You can gauge reactions easily from the behaviour of the audience in the room.	The online audience is likely to be muted, meaning you do not always know how they are reacting to what you are saying.
Body language is important.	People see less of your body, so your voice is key to imparting your message.
There are very few distractions to prevent your audience from focusing on what you are saying and etiquette encourages audience members to refrain from performing other tasks.	You need to engage the audience more, as online attendees have many potential distractions. These can include activities happening in their house, answering emails, checking social media and even online shopping.

Video Conferencing Etiquette

As there is an etiquette for in-person meetings, so there is online. Following these three tips will help ensure a professional approach to your investor engagement.

Put yourself on mute when not talking

If you have to pass the floor to other speakers during your video conference, ensure you mute yourself when the other presenters are talking. You might think you can stay quiet, but there is nothing more distracting than those tiny throat clearances, the typing from your keyboard if you are making notes and the general background noise of your home, office or wherever else you are working from.

It usually takes a single tap of a button to mute yourself during a video conference. Just remember to unmute yourself before you continue with your presentation.

Dress appropriately

Even if you are hosting the event from your home, it is a business function and investors will want to feel it is professional. The way you present yourself in the call is representative of your company in the eyes of attendees, so make sure you are dressed as you would be to meet shareholders in person during your regular investor outreach.

Start on time

It is true that your attendees might log in from their desks, where they would have been working from anyway. However, that is not an excuse to keep them waiting. As you would endeavour to start an in-person meeting on time, you should also do the same with a video conference.

Your attendees will have set aside the time to join your meeting, so it is up to you to respect that and make sure they are not sitting and staring at a blank screen when they could be working.

Video Conference Preparation Tips

Much of the success of a video conference depends on the preparation you put in ahead of time. These video conference preparation tips will help you set yourself up for a successful event.

Choose the proper software and hardware

If you are hosting the conference from your office, you will likely already have access to most of the conferencing hardware that you need. For IROs who broadcast from home, you must make sure you have the essentials in advance.

Hosting a video conference requires a strong, secure internet connection and a computer capable of handling the streaming. You also need a webcam, and you want to make sure that the picture it creates is as clear and stable as possible.

In terms of video conferencing software, you should find a dedicated solution, which has added features for easy engagement and is simple for attendees to use when they encounter it for the first time. Company Webcast provides these features and also offers insights and analytics for you after the event to help you hone your IR endeavours.

Ensure your technology works correctly

Before you meet with investors and potential shareholders at a virtual conference, you should make sure that the technology works and you understand how to operate it.

You don’t want to have to delay the meeting because you cannot get the session to go live, and you don’t want to be worrying about which button to press next when you are trying to present.

Run through the technical tasks beforehand in the same with colleagues as mock attendees and guests to make sure everything runs smoothly. You should ensure your technical test happens in the same environment and with the same equipment that you will use on the day. That way, you know that it will work as desired.

Send an agenda before the meeting

One key element of meeting preparation is to send out the agenda in advance. This helps to keep the conference on track and lets attendees know what to expect from the proceedings.

An agenda can keep investors engaged with your video presentation, as they know what is coming up and when. This helps cut through the distractions that many of them face wherever they have joined from.

Craft a story

Another tip for increased engagement is to tell a story with your presentation. When everyone is gathered in the same room, device-free and all facing the presenter, it is natural for them to sit and listen, but that is not always the case with remote attendees. This is why you have to work on other methods to keep them interested.

The Harvard Business Review reported on the engaging and influential power of stories, as proven in multiple research projects and case studies. Rather than writing an informative but dry speech, try to encase your point in a narrative that will take the audience on a journey with you.

Your equity story can serve as a solid foundation upon which to build your argument. If you are unclear about it or haven’t created one yet, we strongly recommend prioritising this, as it hugely benefits your investor communications as an issuer. In case you need help drafting a captivating equity story for your business, you can reach out to the experts at Euronext Corporate Services Post-Listing Advisory.

Keep slides visual and minimal

If you are creating a slide presentation for your audience, make it more visually appealing, rather than plastering it with text. Too much writing can be distracting from what you are trying to say, whereas an image or a table can enhance your presentation and help you communicate your points more clearly. Use your voice to convey the message and the slides to back up your arguments without taking the attention away from what you are doing.

Warm up your voice beforehand

Your voice and intonation is key to portraying your message during your virtual conference. As you would warm up your body before physical exercise, you should also warm up your voice so that it is ready for a presentation session. There are many different vocal warm-ups that you can practice to make sure you are ready to go once the presentation begins.

Having a glass of water close at hand is another great tip for helping maintain the quality and consistency of your delivery. It is easy to get a dry throat from using your voice so much, as well as from nerves. A glass of water nearby offers peace of mind that you can remedy the situation if it happens.

Carry out a dress rehearsal

In addition to testing out the technical aspects of your presentation, you should also run through the agenda at least once before you do so in front of investors. This allows you to feel more comfortable with your script and the transitions involved in the conference. You can also use colleagues to pose as investors and ask questions to allow you to practice your answers.

Video Conference Presentation Tips

When it comes to presenting at the event itself, here are some tips to help you make the most of the opportunity.

Look into the camera

Eye contact is essential when meeting with associates, and you have a great opportunity to do just that on a video conference. Many people make the mistake of watching the video on the screen as they speak, but the problem with that is that to viewers, you are looking away from them. This can seem distracted and aloof. If you look at the camera at eye level as you talk, your attendees see you looking directly at them with the equivalent of eye contact. This is much more engaging.

Know your slides

Knowing which slides you will present and when keeps the momentum of the presentation going. If you have to stop and look at them to spur your memories, this will cause uncomfortable pauses and take away some of the professionalism that you have worked hard to achieve.

Engage your audience with your voice

Your voice is a powerful tool when it comes to engaging your remote audience. Vary how you talk to match your message, emphasising the positives with excitement and delivering important messages with gravitas. Adjusting your energy levels keeps people focused on what you are talking about and helps prevent it from becoming audio wallpaper.

Practise reading your script to understand the peaks and troughs of the story that you are telling. This will make it easier to work out when you need to add expressions and how to deliver the message in the most enticing way possible.

Other tricks include speaking slowly when you have important information to impart, as well as enunciating so that your audience fully understands. Pauses can also be powerful tools in your arsenal, adding emphasis to what you are saying.

Encourage audience participation with a Q&A

With the potential distractions of an online event, you need to engage your audience throughout. Running polls, as well as question and answer sessions, are perfect ways to keep them involved with the topic at hand. It also provides handy research data for you to log and consider when looking at your investor relations strategy going forwards.

With Company Webcast, these interactive tools are available to you on the platform, helping you to make your video conference an engaging and immersive experience.

FAQ

How do you engage the audience in a virtual presentation?

Engagement in video presentations comes in many forms and shapes. From how you speak to the interactive features you add to the presentation and how you use images and slides, there are many ways to grab the attention of your audience and to get them to listen and participate.

What are some of the challenges you need to consider when presenting in an online environment?

One of the biggest challenges when presenting online is that you are not the only party demanding your audience’s attention. You have to work as hard as you can to take them away from the many distractions around them and have them focus on your presentation. Whether it is background noise or children running around, you have to maintain their attention.

How do you introduce yourself and group members in an online presentation?

The audience will have a copy of the agenda, so they will be able to find out more information about you and the other speakers. A simple introduction including names and positions will suffice unless there is a detail that your audience really needs to know about a presenter.

Conclusion

There are some challenges to hosting a video meeting or conference presentation over a live, in-person event. We hope this blog has shown you how to overcome them to provide an engaging and successful event. Video presentations are here to stay, given the rise in hybrid working in recent years, so we should all prepare for a future where we have to become comfortable with them.

To take your video conferences and virtual presentations to the next level, request a demo of Company Webcast today.