Successful financial services marketing isn't just about the numbers; it's about storytelling, and content strategy is your pen. A compelling content strategy helps convert prospects into clients by offering genuine value, building trust and forging an emotional connection.
So, where do you start? Let's demystify the process and chart a course to success.
Unravelling the DNA of Your Audience
To create content that resonates, you must understand your audience inside out. This involves more than just listing demographics. Dig into your audience's pain points, aspirations, financial habits, and decision-making triggers. Your content should speak to these factors, offering solutions, insights and establishing your firm as a trusted advisor.
Crafting Your Unique Narrative
In a sector filled with similar offerings who seem to do the same thing, your content needs to distinguish you well from others. It's your brand narrative that sets you apart. This narrative should weave through every piece of content you produce, whether it's a press release, whitepaper, blog post or social media update. From thought leadership to routine legislation updates, always relate your content back to your unique perspective and value proposition.
Material Impact Marketing Communications ('MIM&C') has a short but effective process for this exercise, which has been honed over more than a decade.
Navigating the Content Mix
The best content strategies for financial services leverage a variety of content formats to engage audiences at all stages of the customer journey. Blogs, podcasts, videos, webinars, newsletters and case studies can all play a part. The key is to match the content format to the nature of the information, the preferences of the audience, and the stage of the customer journey it targets. Remember: there's no one magic bullet that will fit all prospective clients. Just think about how you consume content and discover new brands - it's an iterative process that covers multiple channels over a medium to long period of time.
Staying Compliant without Compromising Engagement
Regulatory compliance is critical in our industry. But that doesn't mean all your content should be dry or overly technical (although there's a place for that too). You can create compliant content that's also engaging by focusing on benefits, providing real-world data and using the right tone that complements your brand.
Always consult with your compliance team before publication - knowing what they're looking for and avoiding those areas will help here.
Measuring Success and Adapting for Growth
Metrics should underpin every content strategy. Establish clear goals for your content and identify KPIs to measure them. Monitor performance using tools like Google Analytics, social media metrics and email marketing data. Material Impact has a proprietary tool called MiData which collates all marketing analytics into one dashboard, bringing the KPIs you want to track to the fore.
But remember, it's not just about numbers - qualitative feedback is also crucial. That's why MiData is offered as a managed service, combining both quantitative and qualitative data to help financial services firms on track with their campaigns.
Whether or not you use MiData, this process allows financial services marketers to refine their strategy, continually improve and better serve their audience.
Conclusion
Content strategy is a powerful tool for financial services marketing. By understanding your audience, crafting a compelling narrative, diversifying your content mix, staying compliant, and tracking performance, you can turn your marketing plan into profit. Take the leap and unleash the power of content strategy today.
Comments