Investor marketing is a form of marketing that public companies use to generate and maintain investor demand. It is the process of creating investor awareness of a company, building desire amongst prospective and current investors, converting that desire into buying pressure or, at the very least, a lack of selling pressure.

📈  Buying pressure: the volume of buy orders relative to sell orders. Strong buying pressure drives a stock price higher.

📉 Selling pressure: the volume of sell orders relative to buy orders. Strong selling pressure drives a stock price lower.

A common misconception of investor marketing is that it only focuses on attracting new investors, but the requirement to mitigate sell pressure results in existing shareholders being an equally-important target for investor marketing. In investor marketing, success is not only defined by the successful generation of an investor buy order, but also the absence of any subsequent sell order.

Investor marketing involves a combination of activities such as public relations, direct marketing, content marketing, and digital marketing to increase the desirability of a company amongst target investors.

Investor marketing is typically measured through the number of shareholders gained and the number of buy vs. sell orders generated. The importance of these outcomes, however, can vary depending on many factors, including the size of the company, its capital markets strategy, its maturity, and its target investor type.

For example, a new mining exploration company on the ASX may only have 400 shareholders, and in order to grow, it may prioritise growing its shareholder base. A more mature company, though, may focus on maintaining its shareholder base and preventing excessive profit-taking or position closure by its investors.

Investor marketing has become more important in modern times due to the increased influence of retail investors on the stock market.