How AR Managers Can Get the Most from a 30-Minute Analyst Briefing (+ the 3 Mistakes to Avoid)

Get firsthand advice from three senior ABI Research analysts on how to make every minute of your next briefing count.

Arranging and delivering vendor briefings is the heart of a successful Analyst Relations (AR) program. The insights shared with ABI Research and other analyst firms can shape how the market perceives your company and its products, including through Artificial Intelligence (AI) answer engines that increasingly influence Business-to-Business (B2B) purchase decisions.

Though analyst briefing formats and timings can vary, ours typically last about 30 minutes.  Making the most of that time requires thoughtful preparation, clear messaging, and a focus on the information most relevant to the analyst.

A well-structured briefing not only helps position your company accurately and effectively, but it also facilitates a more productive discussion. In turn, our analysts gain a clearer understanding of your company and its offerings, as well as how best to represent you in our research.

Unfortunately, we have seen our fair share of analyst briefings that do not go according to plan. To help you avoid common pitfalls and make the most of your time with our analysts, we asked three senior ABI Research analysts to share tips for ensuring a successful briefing. Vice President Michela Menting and Senior Research Directors Dimitris Mavrakis and Ryan Martin bring more than 5 decades of combined experience in the market research world.

How to Extract More Business Value from Your Analyst Briefings

AR managers can unlock greater value from an analyst briefing by first sharing customized information. “We are not investors or the end customer,” clarifies Menting. “We deal in market intelligence. Tell us something about how you think you are uniquely positioned in the market.”

This means delving into things like:

• Competitive dynamics
• Company wins
• Unique Selling Point (USP)
• How you will sell the product
• Key industry verticals
• Customer insights
• Revenue projections
• Commercial challenges

Mavrakis tells us that he more easily recalls briefings where AR professionals came prepared with solid data and a brief SWOT analysis of their company. This gives analysts a clearer picture of the company's competitive position, including where it excels and where challenges remain.

I like hearing about a company’s wins, but I’m equally interested in who they’re winning against and why. If a supplier is finding success with a particular solution, who are they displacing? What makes their offering better? Competitive insights like these help us become a stronger partner in their buyer journey. I want to hear why your solution outperforms a competitor’s, backed by real customer examples that demonstrate those advantages.

Ryan Martin, Senior Research Director ABI Research

Common Analyst Briefing Mistakes Hindering Value

Our analysts identified three common mistakes that can limit a briefing’s value: overwhelming analysts with high-level information, limiting two-way communication, and failing to maintain regular contact.

Information Overload

Each analyst cited information overload as a roadblock to a successful briefing. Vendor representatives sometimes try covering too much in a single meeting. It’s like trying to explore a new city in one afternoon—you may see a lot, but you won’t get to know any one place very well.

“Most vendors have an all-encompassing deck that's 30+ slides, covering everything from company history and market trends down to the whole feature set of every product,” notes Menting. “While this is fine to have, remember that you are talking to a market consultant. We probably know most of this stuff, and you’ll achieve greater business impact if we focus on a particular angle.”

Mavrakis echoes this sentiment. “The most common mistake companies make is that they go over their marketing slide decks, which are sometimes good enough, but in most cases are too high-level and only touch the surface of the topic for industry analysts,” he said. “We can deliver more value when we get specific information about your strategy and market position. This should be in combination with allowing analysts to ask their own specific questions.”

Sharing too much information can also create time constraint issues, as Martin points out. “If we were taking hour-long vendor briefings every single time, we wouldn't be able to do other core aspects of our job.” He adds, “It's always better to have two 30-minute calls over the course of 3 weeks versus one 1-hour call every 60 days.”

One-Way Communication

Another common pitfall is treating the analyst briefing like a sales pitch rather than an equal conversation. Industry analysts are advisors, not prospective customers or journalists. You’ll capture additional value when both parties exchange ideas and offer their perspective in addition to learning about your solutions.

“Ultimately, a two-way exchange of information is the best route to take,” says Martin. “As analysts, we’d like the SME to walk away having learned something new from the call.”

If you spend 29 minutes of a 30-minute briefing continuously sharing PowerPoint slides without analyst input, you've left no room for discussion. Analysts may walk away feeling like another name on your media outreach list (which we are not!), with little insight worth taking from the meeting.

Inconsistent Communications

Successful AR programs depend on consistent analyst engagement. Without regular outreach, your company risks getting lost among the many vendors analysts evaluate.

According to Hermann Ebbinghaus’ Forgetting Curve, people tend to forget newly absorbed information over time unless it is reinforced. While analysts can revisit notes from previous briefings, that doesn't guarantee your company will be top of mind when they begin new research.

Ideally, one briefing should lead to another meaningful conversation before too much time passes. Short, relevant touchpoints keep analysts familiar with your company's latest developments and give them more reasons to consider your perspective when new research opportunities arise.

Analyst Briefing Checklist for AR Managers

AR managers can drive optimal analyst briefing outcomes by using the following best practices at each stage:

Before:

• Ask the analyst up front how much they already know about your company and which two or three specific areas they would like to take a deep dive into for the briefing.
• Menting advises AR managers to do a quick background check on the analyst they will be speaking with—who they are, what they cover (e.g., blogs, whitepapers, etc.). This helps make the briefing more tailored to the areas where the analyst can make the biggest impact.
• Martin suggests that AR professionals coach their Subject Matter Experts(SMEs) before an analyst briefing. Emphasize that we are not their customer, but rather someone who influences their customers’ behavior.

During:

• Focus on the question “why should a customer choose you over someone else?” Present the specific business outcomes that customers are achieving with your technology, as well as competitive differentiators.
• Allow company reps and the analyst to have a back-and-forth discussion without interrupting. Mavrakis observes that briefings sometimes become over-scripted. A mix of predetermined questions and open dialogue leads to a better reflection of your company in subsequent research.
• Share links and documents in the chat if a rep refers to them (we check that!).
• Time check 5 minutes before the call ends to make sure everyone can wrap up their last thoughts without coming to an abrupt conclusion.

After:

• Follow up with the analyst consistently to foster the relationship and support the broader AR program. For example, Martin prefers four emails with a little bit of information over one email packed with a ton of insights and links. To him, this relentless follow-up is what distinguishes really good briefings from the mediocre ones.
• In a similar light, Menting recommends scheduling a check-in for the next quarter to brief us on new updates. This regular cadence is essential to industry analysts profiling your organization in the most accurate way possible across syndicated research and articles.

How to Structure a 30-Minute Analyst Briefing

The agenda above is a flexible guide, not a script. Tailor the topics to the analyst’s interests and welcome questions throughout the briefing.

Conclusion

The best briefings enable analysts to accurately pinpoint your market position. Stuffing too much surface-level information into a 30-minute call and failing to establish a two-way dialogue are two of the biggest mistakes that inhibit AR managers and their reps from realizing maximum gains from a briefing. The goal is to exchange useful information between both parties.

What happens after an analyst briefing matters just as much as what happens during one. Consistent email follow-up and scheduling subsequent calls demonstrate a commitment to ongoing engagement. After all, analysts are not members of the media, nor are they potential buyers; they are neutral third-party professionals whose job it is to assess global technology markets. The occasional, self-promotional briefing is unlikely to earn your company third-party validation in future analyst research. Nor can it support a lasting partnership where both companies deliver maximum value for one another.

Schedule a Briefing

If you need to brief a research analyst on your company or a new tech product, request a Vendor Briefing with ABI Research.