Investor Day Presentation Design
For IROs, getting your Investor Day presentation design and story right is critical for success.
After all, your Investor Day presentation gives you a rare opportunity to control the story you want to share with investors, analysts, and the media. And that story, of course, can move stock prices significantly and affect the long-term perception of investors.
Is your Investor Day slide deck up to the task?
IROs spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on these events—but presentation design often gets left to the last minute.
With so much at stake, many Investor Relations Officers (IROs) delegate the specialized, time-intensive work of presentation design to Outkreate.
You’re already wearing multiple hats—tackling event coordination, attendee invitations, and managing your leadership team to make your Investor Day a resounding success. Why add more to your plate by trying to develop and design slides on your own?
If you’re ready for an Investor Day presentation that works, book an introductory call—or keep reading.
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Investor Day Presentations Best Practices
Incorporate ‘Steak’ and ‘Sizzle’ to maximize impact
Crafting a winning presentation for Investor Day is crucial for every IRO. The key to success is striking the right balance between ‘steak’ (substance) and ‘sizzle’ (style).
We shared this “talk” at the 2023 NIRI Annual Conference in Chicago, and it was received well by attending IROs.
- Discover the essential ingredients for ‘steak’: identify your main message, structure your Investor-day agenda and story, and create easy-to-digest slides.
- Learn to incorporate ‘sizzle’ via modern, visually appetizing design. Real-world slides will be shared to bring the learnings home.
Download and get a winning recipe for your next Investor Day presentation
Smart IROs Delegate Investor Day Presentation Design
If you’re an IRO, we want to help you deliver a successful Investor Day by taking some of the work off your plate. Leave the presentation design to us—so you can focus on higher-value tasks.
Here’s why IROs delegate Investor Day presentations to us:
We understand analysts and investors
Having worked with IROs on high-stakes presentations (from clear Earnings slides to immersive Investor Days), we understand your audience of analysts and investors. We know their preferences for storytelling and aesthetics and put those into action when designing presentations.
We also enhance story and messaging
Besides visual design, we’ll advise you on how to incorporate your key messages and help you refine your presentation’s story and structure. We’ll also make your content more straightforward and easy to digest.
We free up your time so you can focus on the big picture
We free up your time so you can achieve the bigger goals you’re most equipped for—influencing your C-suite, interacting with analysts and investors, and staying focused on the strategic outcomes of your Investor Day.
From Our Valued Clients
"The OUTKREATE team took a very thoughtful and strategic approach with all our Investor presentations. They delivered smart and on-brand storytelling. Everyone loves the design and how the slides bring the story to life!"
"OUTKREATE redesigned ITT’s earnings release and 2022 investor day presentations. They created a modern, minimalist style for the presentation that matched the simple style our CEO desired. Our stakeholders were impressed by the sleek design and clear messaging. We have since deployed the new look throughout our IR materials. Highly recommend the OUTKREATE team."
"For AWI’s 2022 Investor Day, OUTKREATE delivered slides that were clear and visually engaging, and successfully communicated to our audiences. With OUTKREATE doing the heavy-lifting on slide-design, my small team was able to work on higher-value tasks -- resulting in a successful Investor Day."
Common Investor Day Presentation Mistakes
We’ve seen a lot of Investor Day presentations. Here are some of the most common places where IROs get tripped up.
Your company has a narrative to push—but your audience may care about something entirely different. That’s why staying in tune with your audience’s thinking is so important. Consider organizing an investor perception study to discover how your audience feels about your strategy, financial performance, and the specific initiatives your company is undertaking. The takeaways will be invaluable.
The media will look for an attention-grabbing angle that drives clicks—but there’s no reason you shouldn’t be the one to give it to them. Think in advance about the possible headlines you want to see after your Investor Day, then develop your messaging around your target headlines. You’ll make it easier for the media to pick up the message you want to emphasize.
Don’t make the common mistake of letting your speaker line-up determine Investor Day or Analyst Day messaging. Instead, get a handle on your I-Day’s main messages first, and then be intentional about the right topics and speakers to cover those.
It’s OK to deviate from the regular line-up of just the CEO, CFO, and business heads presenting. If your analysts want to know more about supply chain or digital capabilities, have the right SMEs speak to those.
It can be tempting to slip into “marketing speak” and rely on flashy design in investor-focused presentations. But don’t neglect meaningful, visual storytelling, or your carefully crafted messaging could get lost. Focus on making the information as clear and easy to understand as possible, and you’ll connect with your audience logically and emotionally.
Many management teams get stuck refining minute details on slides instead of practicing delivery. That’s a shame, because your team’s ability to deliver a polished presentation will directly impact the impression you’ll leave with investors and analysts. Switch your focus to rehearsing and delivery in the two weeks before your Investor Day, once your presentation is 80-90% ready. This deliberate shift will help you steer clear of the perfectionism trap.
Learn More About How We Create Impactful Investor Presentations
To view samples of our Investor Day presentation designs and learn more about how we work, download the OUTKREATE IR Solutions Deck.
How Outkreate Works with Clients
We’ll start working with you early in the planning process for your Investor Day. We can help you save time by avoiding common pitfalls when it comes to developing your main message, agenda, and initial story structure.
Our first goal is to understand how you define success for your high-stakes investor day event. That will influence how we handle the details in the subsequent steps.
Based on where you are with your main message, we’ll apply our external perspective to refine it further.
We can also advise on the agenda, high-level flow, and structure of your Investor Days, Analyst Day, or Capital Markets Day presentations.
We’ll also suggest proven frameworks and story principles to optimize the flow and structure of your presentation.
IROs and business leaders are typically left-brained, whereas slide design is a right-brain activity best left to specialized talent. Yet although in-house design teams can create great Sales and Marketing materials, they typically struggle with conveying strategic information clearly and logically to an IR audience. To communicate your important information most effectively, trust the experts that specialize in IR presentation design.
Investor Day Presentation Case Study
A mid-cap client in the Technology space contacted us for help with their upcoming Investor Day. Based on perception studies and guidance from the IRO, we established that their goal for Investor Day was to paint a clear picture of the company’s growing addressable market, and how it planned to capture untapped opportunities. It was also important to convey how their strategy would help them grow above market over the coming three years.
The client had a new IRO and a new CFO. It was this company’s first-ever Investor Day event, and they hadn’t publicly articulated a clear, forward-looking strategy before.
The existing presentations for the company’s Investor Overview and Quarterly Earnings were hard to follow, lacked story structure, and were visually dull.
We advised the IRO on recent I-Day best practices and what agenda would be optimal, based on their goals. For some key sections (e.g., CEO or CFO section), we developed outlines to give a strong starting point to the IRO. Next, the leadership team built the slides and we helped refine the messaging.
We redesigned a new look for the company’s presentations to tell their story better. By designing a smaller batch of “perfect” slides, we created a “gold standard” that the client’s team could follow. We also worked with multiple teams to standardize the design and messaging of the presentation—all while managing the project’s timeline.
Based on our experience across multiple Investor Days, we incorporated numerous elements to make our client’s hybrid (virtual + in-person) event successful.
During our debrief with the IRO, he said, “The presentation and articulation of strategy were well received by the Street. The leadership team was pleased, and internal employees got a lot of value from it as well.” A survey conducted at the end of the I-Day validated that the audience appreciated the messaging delivered by the presentations.
The company also experienced an increase in its stock price, which was more than expected. Beyond that, the company’s I-Day materials continue to serve as a strong foundation for enhancing all their Investor Presentations (Overview, Earnings, 1-on-1 Outreach decks, etc).
Verra Mobility
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More Investor Day Projects
How Do Your Investor Presentations Measure Up?
To upgrade your high-stakes Investor materials, request an OUTKREATE Presentation Assessment. This consultation is exclusively for Public Company IROs.
We’ll walk through your investor deck in a complimentary 45-minute call. You’ll get objective, actionable feedback to help you communicate your message more effectively.
