Shortly after the ball drops to signal a new year, many people resolve not to drop the ball on their New Year’s resolutions. And since analyst relations (AR) pros are known as tenacious, task-oriented and strategic superheroes (it’s true!), they’re the type to make AR resolutions and see them through: bettering both their AR programs and their businesses overall.
Six expert AR practitioners shared their resolutions with us — and, in turn, we’re excited to share them with you. As analyst relations and the business landscape in general continue to advance and evolve at a rapid pace, these goals, ideas and benchmarks from leading experts may spark inspiration and ways to enhance your program.
Cheers to a new year, new strategies and tactics, and bolstered results in the year ahead. Read on for AR New Year’s resolutions:
Connect the Dots to Demonstrate Impact
Beth Torrie, Founder, Torrie Communications
“My 2024 New Year’s resolution is to showcase value. Being included in research and being recommended by analysts is important, but this year, I’m going to focus on connecting the work we do with the value we provide. Product recommendations, influence on sales, and partner or M&A recommendations are incredibly valuable. This year, we will improve how we connect the dots between analyst interactions, analyst insights, market research and the balance sheet.”
Be More Strategic in “Who” and “How”
Rica Squires, Senior Global PR Manager, ComplyAdvantage
“When you work for a scaleup, you’re constantly dealing with the challenge of ‘not enough hours in the day’ — there is always too much to do because everyone is wearing multiple hats. So, my focus this year is to be more strategic — both in the analysts we’re briefing (the ‘who’) and the way we approach responding to briefing requests and RFIs (the ‘how’), with a goal of making the best use of everyone’s time and expertise.”
Fueling Demand Gen and Staying on Top
Meri Christenson, Director of Product Marketing, BillingPlatform
“Analysts have always played an important role in our customers’ decision process, and we track inbound leads from analyst references as a key metric – in fact, we saw $3M+ in pipeline last year alone from analysts. We were also rated the #1 vendor in key reports from Forrester, MGI, Ventana and Quadrant last year, so a big focus for 2024 is leveraging the full value of those reports as the centerpiece of our demand gen campaigns. In addition, we’re focused on expanding our interactions with our core analysts to showcase our longer-term vision and AI-driven innovation plans, and on having the analysts interact directly with our customers to solidify our leadership position for future reports and on reference shortlists.”
More Face-to-Face Engagements
Chris Manfredi, Analyst Relations Director, Sprout Social
“While I love being able to connect with analysts at any time and in any time zone from home, my favorite and most memorable interactions happen in person. So this year, I’m resolving to meet more with analysts face-to-face: not just at events, but also for coffee, informal meet-ups, lunches or dinners. In addition, we’re going to be tracking more analyst activity on LinkedIn and also using LinkedIn as another place where we can comment and discuss marketplace trends with analysts and other influencers.”
Develop a Consistent and Measurable KPI for AR Impact on Revenue
Jerry Weltsch, Head of Analyst Relations, Asana
“My resolution is to work with my marketing and sales analytics teams to understand available metrics for measuring the impact of analyst interactions, conference sponsorships, and content on pipeline generation and deals won. Then, we’ll apply these metrics to an Asana dashboard to track as a KPI in an OKR within a topline marketing team and/or corporate goal.”
Expand our Analyst Network!
Jessica Munoz, Senior Manager, Global Analyst Relations, Veeam
“One of our key priorities for 2024 is to expand our analyst network into adjacent technology markets. With the rise of emerging technologies like AI, it will be imperative to stay on top of the evolving trends and work closely with industry experts to enhance our strategies, products and messaging. We plan to use ARchitect to track the impact of our new analyst relations efforts, stay informed on industry changes, and adapt our strategies and analyst engagements accordingly.”
