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About The Investor Relations Group

We are The Investor Relations Group (IRG), a full-service corporate communications firm that provides investor relations and public relations services to nano-, micro-, and small-cap companies providing them with the equivalent in-house services of a large-cap company.

Our History
Dian Griesel founded The Investor Relations Group in October 1996 after conducting a survey of four hundred fund managers to determine what makes them invest. During her research, she discovered that it was not market cap, price, liquidity stage of development or revenue that was the most important factor effecting an investment decision. Without exception, each fund manager told her that it was the management of the company that mattered most. If these financial professionals believed in the ability of management to deliver, no matter how small the company, they were likely to make an investment.

Beginning with publicly traded clients under $500 million in market cap--and most trading below $100 million, with products in very early development--IRG was formed. By setting up one-on-one meetings for clients with fund managers, analysts and brokers who had anywhere from $1 million to $5 billion under management, IRG watched as clients’ trading volume, sales of products and services, and new partnership opportunities increased.

The public relations department at IRG has been equally responsible for its clients’ overall success. The media outreach effort is also focused on increasing the trading liquidity, sales of products and/or services, and the opportunities for partnerships and acquisitions. Media placement highlights secured by IRG’s public relations executives during the past twenty-four months include cover or feature articles in: The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The New York Times, Bloomberg, Newsday, The Chicago Tribune, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, Time, Fortune, Forbes, Business Week, Newsweek, Allure, W, Reader’s Digest, Crain’s, Barron’s, PharmaVOICE, R&D Directions; broadcast segments on CBS’s 60 Minutes, ABC’s 20/20, FOX News, Bill O’Reilly, Tech TV, NY1, Bloomberg TV, CNBC’s Power Lunch; and thousands of other print, online, radio and broadcast media placements nationwide. Each year, IRG delivers millions of dollars in advertising equivalency for its clients.

Since its inception, IRG’s goal has been to raise the profiles of its small publicly traded client companies, by highlighting their disruptive technologies and best of breed management teams within the investment community and media-at-large. Over 90% of IRG’s business has resulted from referrals by fund managers, bankers, consultants, advisors, board members or corporate officers.

Philosophy
The Investor Relations Group (IRG) is a full service corporate communications firm. IRG blurs the lines between investor relations and public relations, so that every service provided meets at least one or all of the following three goals: 1) build trading volume 2) produce sales of products or services 3) help originate partnerships. IRG has particular experience with companies whose market caps are $500 million or less and have gone public via Alternative Public Offering (APO) including reverse merger, ADRs and SPACs.

IRG’s tripartite focus enables us to: create messages that connect, schedule pre-qualified road shows, originate news, transform management teams into thought leaders, reach out to traditional and new media, and design programs tailored to suit smaller companies. In order to ensure a productive and transparent working relationship with our clients, executive management teams receive a daily work summary every business day.

Investor Relations

Targeted one-on-one investor meetings and conference calls with the top nano-, micro-, and small-cap decision-making analysts and portfolio managers of corporate, business, and family funds, using our proprietary competitive analysis approach (road shows). We secure a minimum of eight to fifteen-plus pre-qualified meetings per month, for a total of 150 to 200+ unique introductions per year per company.
Access to IRG's MicroCaptivations Wire of 240,000 + professional investors. Effectively IRG's inhouse, proprietary news service, this is a triple opted-in, fully compliant list of 134,000 registered representatives, 13,000 registered investment advisors, 103,000 buy-side fund managers and analysts. (We use an outside vendor that is fully compliant legally for e-mailings to recipients in all fifty states.) Cost per use is $2,500, with the first wire compliments of IRG.
A Comprehensive Peer (competitive) Analysis Report that provides detailed information about peer group companies including: covering analysts and all reporting institutional investor holdings with full names, titles, addresses, and other related contact information once contact is confirmed.
Development of wire-house analyst research coverage and inclusion in peer reports as a comparable company.
Corporate message refinement that is flexible, according to ongoing developments.
A Fact Sheet that is flexible, in terms of ongoing developments.
Investor presentations in PowerPoint/slide formats & PDF.
All written and edited shareholder communications, such as earnings releases, quarterly reports, and other developments.
Postcards custom designed and mailed via traditional mail to brokers every month (six hundred per month).
'Red-Cell' coaching for investor meetings and conference calls.
Conference call coordination, including scripting, Q&A preparation, and all details for execution, including Webcasting.
Frank feedback collected from all road show meetings in order to help fine-tune corporate messaging.
Annual report production: writing and assisting in the selection and hiring of graphic artists, designers, and printers for the complete management of the publication.
Handling and screening investor inquiries.
Nurturing relationships with current and potential investors.
Mail and request fulfillment processing.
Introductions in the investment banking world.
Help in developing a Board of Directors--particularly "independent" directors.
Annual meetings, organizing as appropriate.
Peer group/industry analysis provided on a regular basis.
Perception audits gathered from the investment community.
Strategic planning and implementation.
IRGnews.com Features: Free search engine optimization of your news releases, placements, podcasts, and videos. Your company's personal RSS feed, download section (Fact Sheets and Presentations), links to your website, and personalized market data on every release.
Access to our contact base for traditional mailings under our MicroCaptivations Fact Only, No Hype newsletter. Cost is $1.25 per piece for a printed, four-page U.S. Postal First Class print/label/mail. IRG databases for traditional mailings include: 100,000+ buy-side fund managers/analysts; 540,000 registered representatives (brokers); 34,000 registered investment advisors; 120,000 High-Net Worth Individuals.

Public Relations

Unique news pieces and media pitches originated and written by our award-winning, well-published editorial staff (approximately twenty+ pieces per year)—above and beyond writing normal "material" news announcements.
Ghost-written/bylined white papers and other high-level trade articles written by our staff PhDs (one minimum per year).
Corporate, product, and technology related stories placed in targeted trade publications to build sales and partnerships.
National and regional trend pieces written and placed in leading magazines and newspapers.
Syndication stories and feature feeds to more than sixteen thousand newspaper and other print editors nationwide.
Original "feature-feed" stories tying your company’s product or service to trends and national/world events.
Web Marketing: New Media/Web outreach via profiles on various online services, including Twitter, Google Buzz, Vimeo, del.icio.us, Digg, Flickr, YouTube, etc.
Social Aggregation: We will release all of your news and content through our website that is connected to many social networks; this will enhance your company’s visibility on the web and help you move up in search engine rankings.
On-camera media training.
Satellite media tours booked in the Top Twenty U.S. markets.
Financial news formats targeted: CNBC, PowerLunch, Cavuto Report, Bloomberg TV, etc.
A :90 second to 2:30 minute CEO interview television quality production reel for TV/cable and Internet that is produced and edited in the IRG studios.
Background materials (B-roll) production for television, cable, and trade events.
Profiles written of CEOs and other top company officers.
Headshot in our studios—JPEG print ready.
Crisis management plans.
Discounted clipping services — to document media coverage.