As businesses operating in a tightly regulated market, financial service providers face significant hurdles and a unique set of challenges when it comes to marketing. Finance brands need to overcome certain customer and market-related barriers to excel in their respective fields and stand out against competitors.

What’s more, the financial services industry is fiercely competitive globally. All sub-sectors within the industry — tax advisory, accounting, investment banking, or insurance companies — are subject to a hypercompetitive environment. Because everyone has the same access to marketing tools, talent and drivers, it can be challenging to stay ahead for long.

The majority of customers also have a digital-first mindset, expecting a seamless digital experience in their entire customer journey. This can be a challenge for financial service providers who lack the resources to develop a sophisticated digital experience.

So, what’s to be done, then?

We recently wrote a blog on why real estate agencies need to adopt a digital-first mindset, and this applies to finance brands as well. A digital-first mindset will allow you to adapt to your customers’ needs and your own business limitations. If you lack the resources to build a sophisticated app for your services, you focus your efforts on creating a seamless experience on your website instead.

A digital-first mindset also enables you to stand out in a hypercompetitive market because you understand that mastering your digital content marketing strategy and ensuring that it is consistently focused, relevant and valuable can help you stay on top of the game.

3 things that a good content marketing strategy can do for a finance brand

Still not convinced?

We’ve shortlisted three benefits of having a high-quality content marketing strategy for your finance brand.

1. Content marketing can increase brand awareness

You need to gain a high level of trust from your prospective clients before they decide that you are their provider of choice. One way of earning their trust is by developing a high-quality marketing strategy.

The majority of your prospects will be assessing your digital footprint before they even decide to contact you. So, your official platforms need to be populated with value-adding and educational content that engages your audience. Your content can do the heavy lifting when it comes to demonstrating your credibility and authority. 

Your content marketing can also help your finance firm increase brand awareness, which is crucial in increasing leads and conversion rates. You want to be the brand that people think of when they think of getting certain financial services. Content marketing can help you by creating strategic and targeted content that addresses your audience’s finance-related concerns and demonstrates your brand identity — your expertise and experience, your core values and your vision and mission.

When you have a solid content marketing strategy in place, you can create different content pieces for different purposes. 

For example, you can create blogs to demonstrate your thought leadership, providing a comprehensive and informative perspective on finance-related topics. 

Newsletters can be useful in nurturing existing clients and fostering more personal connections with your audience. Branded social media posts can help you cut through the noise online and make sure your brand stands out from the competition. 

When you combine these initiatives, you have a higher likelihood of increasing your brand awareness (as well as the prospects you convert).

2. Content marketing simplifies your message to your target audience

There’s a reason that the KISS method (keep it simple stupid) applies to almost any field.

Even if your prospects need your financial services, they may still give up on trying to understand your content if the information you provide is inaccessible or overly complex. Most of your prospects will be time-poor, and many things are competing for their attention. Yes, you can (and should) provide comprehensive, long-form content, but it still needs to be easy to understand in layman’s terms.

We understand that this can be challenging; you need to be a strong communicator, or at least partner with one, to be able to convey your key message simply while ensuring that you still demonstrate your expertise in the field.

The first step you need to take is to ask yourself, “Will my audience be able to understand my message and apply it to their lives?” If you answered no, or if you’re unsure, then your message may still be too dense.

There are several ways you can use content marketing to simplify and communicate complex finance ideas:

• Emphasise the key message. The essential elements of your content should be easy to remember. Structure your content around one main idea and build key takeaways from there.
• Minimise jargon and technical terms. This may seem like you’re showcasing your expertise, but it’s only alienating your prospects from engaging with your brand. Use jargon sparingly (if at all).
• Use visuals. Graphics and other design materials can help you explain your key message while also making an impact on your audience.

3. Content marketing provides opportunities to educate your customers and prospects

Content marketing is a great opportunity to share information and educate your prospects about different topics in your field. If you have a content strategy in place, you can further focus your content according to your audience segments. 

For example, a financial advisory firm has three audience segments: young investors who are just starting in their finance journey; more experienced investors who are building their wealth for post-retirement living; and savvy investors with a moderate to high tolerance for risk.

Each segment has a clearly defined customer persona, and they all differ from each other, so it’s important to develop content that is targeted at all three audience segments to ensure that this financial advisory firm is maximising its content marketing strategy.

Since all three segments have varying knowledge of finance and investing, it’s crucial to create content that meets them at their level of understanding. If you’re creating content for young investors who are just starting, it would be best to develop blogs that educate them about the fundamentals of investing. As you focus on more experienced audience segments, your content can adapt to become more specialised as well.

Educational, value-adding content is a powerful tool in your content marketing strategy. This type of content shows your audience how they can leverage their finances and enrich their financial journey, helping them fulfil their needs and address their concerns. 

Doing this can help you establish customer trust and loyalty as more of your audience comes to see your brand as a primary source of knowledge. 

How to implement a content marketing strategy for a finance brand

To make sure that your content marketing initiatives are successful, you need to develop an organised and documented strategy. This ensures that you have clear marketing objectives as well as an action plan for creating your content.

A documented content marketing strategy also allows you to monitor the progress of your initiatives. This can help you identify what you need to maintain and improve in your strategy. 

Content marketing is an essential tool in building client trust, loyalty and relationships. All of these are crucial to the success of a business, especially for finance brands looking to demonstrate their credibility and authority in the industry.

If you’re convinced of the power of content marketing, contact us and we’ll help you develop a content marketing strategy for your finance brand.