Ready for your IPO? Marketing Best Practices for Before, During & After

At some point, market conditions will allow a plethora of companies waiting patiently in the wings to file for their initial public offering (IPO).

As marketing leaders, how can you be ready? How and when do you start preparing? What do the most successful IPOs require from employees, customers, press/media/analysts and more?

Last Friday's CMO Coffee Talk featured a robust discussion about managing IPOs - before, during and after. And there are numerous ways to leverage the public markets as part of your go-to-market motions even if you aren't yet public.

Below are chat highlights from both CMO Coffee Talk sessions last week.

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Two years before we went public our CEO had us “practice being public” — i.e., treat our revenue goals as unmissable

Going public requires a ton of cleanup of existing contracts.

Getting the website cleaned up well in advance is pretty critical.

We’ve been open with everyone that we’re planning it - they know.?We just went through a sale to private equity and my leads all knew we were in the process even though they weren’t involved.?I just tell people - it’s nothing bad - I can’t talk about it - I will tell you when I can.

Different from an IPO but we were acquired by a private equity firm last year and have been doing acquisitions since. It was top secret. Team members didn't understand my requests, why initiatives were being accelerated, etc. I found it was important to discuss the following during and after - trust within the team, growth of the business, culture, and change management. Our people get nervous when the business is quiet. Referring to Kotter's 8 step change model is also useful.

https://www.kotterinc.com/methodology/8-steps/

A good piece of advice I received from another CMO is that you want to have your marketing ramped to pre-IPO levels BEFORE you enter the quiet period.?That way it’s not a change and you stay out of trouble.

https://www.insightpartners.com/ideas/be-in-the-room-where-it-happens-cmos-guide-to-a-successful-ipo/

Don’t ever let the bankers write the S-1

Regarding the party - Nasdaq has a great space that they give you on your IPO day. But, you want to decide who is coming to that party. Exec

We just went through a merger end of last year and completed in January.?In addition to the marketing metrics, I spent a lot of time, data points, references, etc. on the partner ecosystem we built.

Just asked ChatGPT for a 6 month checklist for a CMO pre-IPO. It’s not bad.

Nasdaq and NYSE will deliver proposals to you with lots of marketing perks - in an effort to land you

Things like commercials, WSJ ads, Time Sq exposure, use of event space, etc.

In my experience, the marketing perks from Nasdaq are better, but the bell ringing at NYSE is really special - so much history

Eloqua went public in August 2012. Four months later we were acquired by Oracle. Energy went from celebratory and excitement to skeptical and apprehensive. A handful of deals in flight died. Customers and partners were concerned. Communication was key, especially with Salesforce, our most strategic customer and partner.

Be ready for competitors to read your S-1.

be prepared for competitors to read your SI - they will. And we should all be reading the S1s for competitors and prospects - so much good info in there!

I spoke to a CEO recently who took his company private after being public for only two years. I asked why he did it - he said being public in this market was a massive distraction for his employees

I've been through public-to-private, but was just a Director PMM at the time. anyone remember the stock option back-dating scandals? yeah, that was fun times . . . and the reason we went private.

I remember aging 10 years in 6 months during the IPO process. Girdle up - and get your crisis comms in place.

Nice reference site for some of those metrics: https://saaskpibenchmarks.com/

For IPO roadshow videos and presentations - https://www.retailroadshow.com/

The biggest change for your execs is the flip from saying anything hyperbolic to pump up the company when private to being super conservative in the run up to and post IPO… hard to orchestrate that!

If you don’t already, I recommend keeping a standing benchmark of how your SaaS unit economics compare to avg IPO of same year. Here’s a good source here for your comps: https://www.meritechcapital.com/benchmarking/comps-table

I like that you should start thinning about it 18 months in advance

https://www.insightpartners.com/ideas/pre-ipo-planning-today-yes-cmos-have-work-to-do/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ez90RC-sd9k

IPOs are an amazing opportunity to raise visibility in the market. They are the best platform for marketing

Can NOT emphasize enough the need to start early.????Also - the sales team will want to use the Roadshow video for their content (once they see it).?Be prepared with adjacent assets that are for customers as stakeholders (vs. investors).?It's a different but related story.

We used a company called Blue Shirt Group out of SF that was extremely helpful.

We used ICR for PR/IR

I've watched many Roadshow vids.?Check out Peleton's if you're interested in seeing something pretty special...

Had a firm that specializes in roadshow PPTs too that was invaluable.

One thing to discuss is what happens if your IPO is canceled and you have done all that leg work, etc. Contingency plans are key

Check out NetRoadshow to view roadshow videos

If you own internal comms as a CMO (and/or employer brand) do NOT underestimate the amount of work and prep it takes to educate the employees on what an IPO means, what they can/can't do, trading windows, quiet periods (especially for marketers!)?etc

even on the buy side in Strategy function, I use financial language to justify business cases for investment.?Then I pivot to marketing speak for how we would execute, PMI implications, etc.

I keep hearing 2x 2x 3x (revenue) before IPO... does this have any merit?

We used Blueshirt on both IPOs to help project manage. The first IPO, we had an IR person internally which was so helpful. There are specialty PR firms for day of PR and also roadshow video firms. We used Glass & Marker for the video.

Never had an IPO cancel but had an acquisition of us cancel and it was definitely something. Led to huge changed over the 30 days after. Definitely curious to hear what happens if an IPO doesn’t happen

We had one cancelled hours prior to launching. No story from my role, but fascinating to understand that is very possible

Think about internal communications too. Employee morale

Went through entire S1 process, selected bankers, and sold co. to biggest competitor on the goal line. A ton learned, some scars but biggest blow was to employees that who were a bit demoralized TBH

We had the CEO do most of the comms. The CHRO communicated the employee stock changes

Write the comms coming from CEO - but the internal comms team writes it, the FAQs, etc.???(like other content)

Always have plan B. You never know when you will be sent back down to the minors

Make sure you are looking at analyst and views leading up - subscribe to S&P’s Capital IQ or even something like AlphaSense can really help - plus you see what the views are on your peers/comps

Media training 100000% .??That should start months ahead with lots of practice at events, company meetings, etc.??Have your PR firm run a practice session and throw every challenging thing at them

there’s so much good info on the web…look up companies that IPO’d in the prior year and check all their info (S1, website, resources, etc.) check NetRoadshow for videos

Contingency plans and crisis mgmt is key

Working with your CFO on internal comms plans and educating them on the tax implications early and often

Quote of the day “IPOs is not the time to cowboy it"

Highly recommend Class V Group (Lise Buyer) if your CEO is willing to pay for deep expertise on all things IPO - from full process, prep, selecting the bankers, negotiating /selecting your listing partner, etc. I worked with her on the Adaptive Insights run up to our IPO (we were acquired by Workday a few days prior to ringing the bell!)

I did not do that, but if I had someone to lean on (CMO, coach) I would have used them

More on Class V Group: https://techcrunch.com/2020/09/02/its-not-just-airbnb-an-ipo-expert-pushes-back-against-the-spac-frenzy-and-other-new-ways-to-going-public/