Analyst relations (AR)

Analyst relations is the corporate function that manages a company's relationships with industry analyst firms, with the goal of ensuring those analysts describe the company accurately in the research that buyers consult.

The function typically covers briefings and inquiries with named analysts, participation in comparative evaluations, monitoring of what analysts publish about the company, and preparation of the executives who represent it. It sits variously under marketing, product marketing, corporate communications or strategy, and in smaller companies is often held part-time by a product marketing lead.

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Analyst relations vs. public relations vs. investor relations

All three manage relationships with third parties who shape how a company is perceived, and they are routinely confused because they share tools and often share a team.

The distinction is the audience being served. Public relations targets journalists, whose audience is readers. Investor relations targets financial analysts, whose audience is shareholders. Analyst relations targets industry analysts, whose audience is buyers — people evaluating a purchase, often with budget already allocated.

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Why it matters

Analyst relations is the only function in a company whose output is somebody else's description of you. Everything else marketing produces is self-description, and buyers discount self-description automatically.

That makes AR structurally different from the functions it sits beside. You cannot draft the deliverable. You can only supply the inputs and accept that a professional sceptic will decide what to make of them.

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Related: Industry analyst · Influencer relations · Coverage · Analyst influence