Based on the response during our webinar on this topic and the subsequent interest many of you have shown, we thought you would appreciate if we devoted this newsletter to write about how to use ARchitect to produce comprehensive analyst lists and then to rank your analysts by importance and create groups of Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3 analysts. 

Dual Challenge

There are more than 6000 active analysts working for more than 600 firms and most AR teams understand that they can neither manage such a large universe of analysts nor do they need to.  But the question is how do you pick the most influential analysts from such a vast universe?  You want a short list but at the same time do not want to miss that one elusive analyst who might end up saying something not so positive to a prospect and cost you a deal. The other daunting task is to keep these lists current in the face of  an ever changing analyst landscape as they change firms, coverage areas and geographical locations. Success depends on identifying relevant analysts and then maintaining and managing the list for optimal results. 

ARchitect provides just the right information and the tools necessary to perform this critical task. You can build a process utilizing ARchitect functionality so that you can repeat the task on a quarterly basis to make sure that you meet the dual challenge

That is the million dollar question.  It is very easy to create subjective lists based on who you think or hear might be most important. You can make your decisions based on past relationship history or be influenced by executives to add an analyst or include those analysts that are the "squeaky wheels", always requesting information.  The obvious question: Is a list built like this the most effective way to ensure you are influencing the "right" analysts and allocating resources to maximize success?  Probably not.

The ARchitect process that we are going to describe ensures that your lists are objective, relevant, current and are defensible to those questioning the focus of your AR program.

1)  Gather long list of relevant analysts-this is done by creating a list using the "find analyst report" based on your chosen criteria available in the menu (i.e. industry, coverage) ARchitect contains a long list of analyst coverages based on what those analysts are saying they cover.  You may need to choose multiple coverages to fit your specific area of interest.  Once you run this report, this becomes your long list.  You can then go to the bottom of the page and click on "select subset".  This allows you to uncheck any of the analysts that you know are not relevant.  If you like this list then you can create a group based on these analysts or download to an excel spread sheet to further hone it.

2)  Establish ranking criteria-the list that you have produced in step one is based on coverages.  But there are several other criteria that determine the importance of these analysts such as their visibility, reputation, objectivity, geography, experience and maturity.  These set of criteria are specific to your organization.  After you have chosen the criteria you must weight them in order to rank your list of analysts.

3)  Research analysts for criteria information-once your criteria are determined and weighted you will have to do research on the analyst and determine what value (from 1 to 5) to assign for a particular analyst for a selected criteria.  This research can be done by going back to ARchitect to check the analyst publications, blogs, bios and perception.  ARchitect provides all the "written word" research which you may have to augment by "spoken word" research.  .  . 

 

4) Sort analysts by influence-once you assign value to each analyst for each criterion then sort the spreadsheet by the weighted average score of influence.

5) Tier by available AR resources-based on your ranking results you can then divide the list into tiered lists by weighing your resource factors.  What is my staffing level, realistically how much time can I spend with each analyst?  Where should I put the majority of my relationship building efforts and where should I keep in contact with just a newsletter?  Typically your Tier 1 list is the list that you are going to manage by proactive personal relationship building efforts.  But do not make the mistake of ignoring Tier 2 and Tier 3.  Use social media resources, newsletters etc. to manage the Tier 2 and Tier 3 lists. 

6) Create or update ARchitect Tiered Groups-after dividing your ranked list into tiers, based on your resource allocations, you can then go back to your long list in ARchitect, reflect the ranking and tiering and create your Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3 groups.  As ARchitect updates the analysts in its database, your lists will get automatically updated.

To view the entire webinar click here or contact us at support@arinsights.com or call Patricia Cooper at 720.231.2950.