Comms for Juniors
I am writing a memo on communications strategy for a new client and the first part of that memo is a general tour d’horizon of the current state of play for junior resource company communications. I think it might be of interest as we head into the July 1 long weekend.
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Junior resource companies want their story to reach a receptive audience who, with a bit of luck, will want to invest in that story. Which is communications strategy for juniors in a nutshell. But who is this “receptive audience”, and what is the “story”, and how do you “reach”? As ever, the devil is in the details.
Start with “the story”. The rules say your “story” must be based on publicly disclosed information. Essentially, a company’s press releases are the bones of its story, but publicly released information also includes presentations, corporate filings, financials and “Management Discussion and Analysis” - as well as 43-101 documents such as Mineral Resource Estimates and Technical Reports. Which, frankly, usually add up to a rather dull story left to themselves.
To flesh out those bones, companies and CEOs usually create a narrative to add some depth and direction. A narrative to answer, “Why this property?”, “Why this area?” “Why these targets?”, “Is there an exploration history?” “What do we hope to find?”, “Why do we think we’ll find it?” “Why, what we are looking for is worth finding?”
Planning and building a narrative actually means a company has to consider its audience. The company’s own shareholders are one part of that audience, but to encourage new investment, the company’s narrative has to be attractive to the wider, but still tiny, audience of junior resource investors.
Over the years, I have heard various estimates of the size of the investor pool for junior resource companies. Estimates which have ranged from 10,000 to 100,000, except when there is a bull run in a particular sector and the more general investing public jumps in. My sense is that the regular audience is no larger than 25,000 of which, perhaps 10,000 actively follow the Canadian junior market. So, realistically, a junior is not likely to see big numbers on its website or social media.
In fact, what a company’s communications strategy must be focused on is interested investors. People who are already paying attention to the junior resource market. Who can follow and, perhaps, invest in the company’s story.
Which may seem incredibly obvious, but it is surprising how many juniors miss this key point and go after general audiences. Once a company realizes what its target audience is, in general terms, it can set in motion a communications strategy to reach that audience. At which point it is confronted with a huge information eco-system which it has to steer a course through. And that eco-system is changing fast.
The internet has created countless opportunities for people to gather audiences for junior resource content: the various bulletin boards, YouTube channels, Reddits, LinkedIn opportunities, blogs, Substacks (like this one), dedicated websites, old school subscription newsletters, Twitter feeds, Investor forums, targetted Google Adwords, Instagram and TikToc and the list goes on. A communications strategy is as much about what you won’t do as what you will. Early on in my own junior resource journey, I was the communications consultant to a prospering junior and one of my key functions was saving the CEO from having to say “no” to the dozen or so serious pitches he received each week.
The criteria for saying “yes” is tough because a lot of juniors don’t really have a plan to attract and retain investors. Fifteen years ago, reaching out to brokers with significant retail “books” made a lot of sense. But that model collapsed as more and more junior investors do their own research and trade online. Reaching out to what in internet terms could be called “influencers” makes more sense but, well, influence is almost always paid for one way or another.
Choosing between influencers, advertising, video interviews and articles a company has to bear in mind the costs and the reach of a particular venue. There are no strict rules but two things to bear in mind: at least some of your communications spend should have a “push” element where the material is sent to opt-in subscribers and any venue featuring your company should have a social media element.
An article appearing on “Talking My Book” is automatically emailed to almost 550 people, all of whom are interested enough in junior resource companies to have subscribed. But it is also posted to forums, on Twitter, on LinkedIn (with a bit of secret sauce for reach) and often picked up by other Substack newsletters. The same is true of most of the junior resource-focused substacks.
The key here is content. Having the company’s story told, having the CEO interviewed. Content can spread and, gradually, a company begins to gain a profile. It is, to coin a phrase, on people’s radar.
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Now the rest of the memo is for my client. It is not “what to do” it is “how to do it”.
(Disclaimer: Not investment advice. Do your own due diligence.)