While common business advice used to focus on “location, location, location,” today it is shifting to the chanting of “content, content, content.”
There’s no denying that content and where you publish it is gaining momentum as THE way to do business.
Without that quality content, you may just find yourself sinking in the sea of online platforms and search engines.
How will your potential customers or prospects find you if this happens?
When it comes to financial services, we get that what you offer is your main focus. And we know it involves serious and complex topics for both you and your customers.
What you may be overlooking is that your content is what draws new customers in and helps you maintain their loyalty over time. It also keeps your current ones right where they are.
That means your content marketing strategy is one of the most powerful resources for building trust.
In this blog post, we will show you how investing in content marketing in financial services is an effective way to reach the results you want.
What Exactly is Content Marketing in the Financial Services Context?
Content can be expansive or narrow, depending on what you need it to do.
While those in the financial sector focus on perfecting the pitch for offered products and services, your content marketing strategy needs to offer more than that.
You need to meet your potential customers where they are along their buyer’s journey.
First, what exactly is content marketing in the financial services context?
In a nutshell, content marketing begins with your business creating relevant content for your targeted audience and focusing on particular goals, such as:
- Increasing brand awareness.
- Connecting with new potential customers.
- Retaining your present customers.
- Building relationships.
- Educating the public.
- Generating leads.
- Increasing your conversion rates.
- Fostering trust.
Essentially, financial services content marketing involves creating high-quality content relating to the particular products and services you offer to reach prospects as well as retain your current customers.
In other words, content fuels your inbound marketing strategy.
Resist the urge to use your content marketing as a way to pitch the financial products and services you offer. Instead, focus on providing value to the viewers.
Address their pain points and provide helpful and engaging content to answer their many questions and provide the information they need and want.
An essential segment of your overall digital marketing plan, content strategically created and applied across various channels is incredibly beneficial.
Examples of the types of content to create include:
- Blogs
- Social Media posts
- Infographics
- Videos (including interactive videos)
- Podcasts
- White papers
- Case studies
For your specific financial services content, consider sharing information such as how-tos, industry news and your take on it, product or service reviews, money-saving tips, and customer experience highlights.
You can also create useful tools for viewers to use, such as calculators.
Your content marketing strategy needs to always focus on providing education, building relationships, and developing deep trust.
Think about what you can offer to solve a potential customer’s problem. By doing so, you will motivate those customers to learn more about you and even do business with you.
Financial Services vs. Other Sectors
There are distinct differences when it comes to financial vs. other sectors.
Financial services involve complex topics and terminology, and finding a way to convey these to keep your audience engaged is the challenge.
In other words, don’t shy away from topics just because they are complicated. Instead, find a method to present the information in a helpful, conversational way.
Another factor complicating content marketing for financial services is the existence of restrictions, compliance requirements, and regulations.
Resist boring your audience to death. Skilled content creators today know how to work around complex topics, terminology and restrictions, so seek out the ones you need to get going and be successful.
What are the Benefits of Content Marketing in Financial Services?
Gone are the days of limited overall choices when it comes to financial services, so getting noticed and staying relevant is a priority for your business.
You know you can no longer sit back and wait for customers to come to you if you want to be successful.
Not only is competition fierce in this sector, but consumer preferences and behavior are also shifting, requiring you to find and meet them where they are currently.
Check out what some of the benefits of content marketing in financial services are today.
Increases brand awareness
Protecting and promoting your brand is imperative to your success.
With a plan in place for your content, including financial topics to include and where to publish each one, you can increase your brand awareness across demographics and platforms.
Branding is an essential element, and increasing brand awareness will take time. But with a planned strategy in place, you can start seeing results skyrocket.
Provides a format for educating current and prospective customers
The well-known saying that knowledge is power is just as relevant today, if not more so.
With content marketing, you can concentrate on educating your target audience, providing them with the knowledge to make more informed and beneficial decisions when it comes to their financial well-being.
Use your content marketing strategy to identify pain points, concerns, or where any confusion may lie for your audience.
For example, offering your services only online may make customers apprehensive, even anxious, particularly about the privacy and security of their information.
Address these issues with educational content and show that your company is aware of them and considers them important as well.
Add in a few customer testimonials and videos to increase trust and spur interaction.
Show that you are the go-to source for information people need and want when making their financial decisions.
Gives your business a way to reach customers in a more genuine way
Content marketing gives you a way to appeal to more prospects by retiring the overly salesy language of pitches, which can leave them anxious, and replacing it with helpful, non-promotional content.
By answering questions consumers have, you are building trust.
Soon they may be reaching out to your content to learn more and eventually become a client themselves. In other words, you’re starting to build a relationship.
Delivers just the right message to the right audience with personalization and targeting
Instead of throwing out broad advertisements and messages, content marketing helps you tailor your messages, connecting more with your targeted audiences.
Personalize each message to the audience you wish to reach, such as baby boomers or Gen X.
Include the topics they most care about, from investing to retirement to mortgage tips.
No one ever desires to feel like just another faceless number, so by spending time devising an efficient content marketing strategy, you can provide a more personalized and targeted approach.
Reaches the younger generations
Younger generations consume information in different ways and also think about financial services differently.
Millennials now make up a major portion of the world’s population. They, along with the younger generations, have different ideas and concerns when it comes to financial issues.
There is also the often-mentioned issue of increasing financial illiteracy among younger generations, and you may be able to approach this in a unique way.
Finding better routes to reach the younger demographics is a beneficial result of a solid content marketing strategy. Know your audience well and let them know you.
Differentiates your company from competitors
Providing engaging and helpful content can help differentiate you from your competitors and draw in more prospects.
Find your unique professional voice and share it with every piece of content you put out there.
6 Tips to Implement Content Marketing in Financial Services
Financial services are a serious offering.
Some may even say that those in this sector take an overly left-brain approach to everything, focusing on the facts, numbers, and statistics while neglecting the more creative side of things.
Yet, it doesn’t have to be one side or the other.
Combining a focused left-brain and a creative right-brain approach to implementing content marketing in your financial services business is not only possible but highly recommended.
To get started, here are the top six tips for implementing content marketing in financial services today.
1. Determine Your Target Audience
Before getting started, spend time getting to know who you’re directing your content towards. This involves getting to know your target audience by creating your buyer personas.
Your buyer personas, essentially, are fictional representations of your ideal customers, complete with defining characteristics.
Each persona will include specific demographics, related pain points, and other important information to use for directing your content marketing efforts.
Your marketing strategy will build upon these buyer personas, identifying and creating the content relevant to each one.
2. Identify Content Needs of Each of Your Buyer Personas
Each buyer persona requires content that speaks to their particular needs.
What are they looking for? What do they need to know? How do they prefer to consume valuable information? In what format is consuming information preferred?
You want to make your content stand out for your buyer personas. Ways to accomplish this include:
- Create relevant content that addresses the pain points of the persona, utilizing the preferred voice of the persona, and providing examples they can relate to.
- Create longer content, to provide valuable information and also get noticed by search engines.
- Use conversational language to engage your persona, and limit complex financial terminology.
- Conclude with a specific call to action tailored to each buyer persona.
3. Focus on the Different Stages of the Buyer’s Journey
For each of your individual buyer personas, you’ll need to create content that matches their needs in each stage of the buyer’s journey.
At the Awareness Stage, the act of learning is at the forefront. Types of content to consider using at this stage includes blogs, checklists, videos, and eBooks.
At the Consideration State, more in-depth learning or investigating is sought. Examples of content useful here include case studies, white papers, and webinars.
Finally, at the Decision Stage, your prospect is reaching the point of signing on for your financial services. To help them along, you may choose to provide customer testimonials, demonstrations, and service comparisons.
Different types of content will be valuable at each stage.
Your content’s goal is to skillfully guide them along their journey, addressing any hesitations along the way.
4. Create SEO-Friendly Content
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the strongest factor to being found by querying prospects, so spend time developing your SEO strategy for your content.
The goal is to rank higher up on SERPs, and SEO techniques can get you there. These techniques include:
- Targeting specific keywords and using those keywords to optimize every piece of content you create and publish.
- Link building, including backlinks and guest linking.
- Monitoring page speed.
- Optimizing images with alt-tags.
- Using meta titles and meta descriptions.
5. Establish a Content Governance Strategy
With all your buyer personas moving along the different stages of the buyer’s journey, combined with the numerous content types and available platforms, you can quickly become overwhelmed.
Consider establishing a content governance strategy to help you oversee everything involved in your content marketing strategy.
This may include brand guidelines, content matrix, editorial calendar, and various other tools that help you stay on track and be successful in your overall efforts.
6. Become a Thought Leader in the Financial Services Industry
To gain more trust in the financial services industry, consider ways to become an industry thought leader.
Build your authority as a way to assure your audience can trust you and the services you provide.
Thought leadership is a powerful position to be in. Customers and potential prospects always rely on knowledgeable and trusted sources to provide them with the services they need.
Wrap Up: Ready to Implement Your Financial Services Content Marketing Strategy?
Developing quality content and devising an effective content marketing strategy can do wonders for your business in the financial services industry.
Get started rocking your content strategy today by finding out what you need.
