It has been aptly said that content is king. And there’s no denying that the type of content you publish and the location where it is published are gaining momentum as the ultimate way to carry out marketing strategies. However, without quality and impressive content, businesses will sink into the sea of online search engines and platforms.
When you leverage highly customised information to get beyond the boundaries of traditional marketing, you get to deliver contextual and valuable insights across multiple channels. A robust content marketing strategy can help you build loyalty and engagement without direct sales marketing. And when it comes to financial services, content marketing may be the key to reaching out to your target audience.
Read on to find out how content marketing can help financial institutions improve their brand visibility and ensure their services reach the right kind of people.
Content marketing for financial institutions – An Overview
Financial institutions offer different services and products to their customers. Marketing for these companies refers to the images, data, and words they use to engage with a specific audience to support or educate business goals. This can be in the form of finding cheap mortgages or as simple as opening a bank account. The impact of content can be defined as the aspirations, propositions and values that the product or brand seeks to convey.
Content within the boundaries of the financial industry is rapidly changing. This is because today’s customers are more well-informed than they were a decade back. They no longer respond to a comprehensive marketing strategy that is designed as a one-size-fits-all solution. They are also more aware today of environmental regulations and the emergence of different access points like mobile handheld devices like smartphones and tablets.
Thus, banks, advisors, insurers, and other finance companies have customer-centric content marketing strategies to address and respond to these changes.
So, what exactly is content marketing in terms of financial services? Let’s find out.
Content marketing for financial services
Content marketing for financial services can be defined as an editorial schedule that manages content as a financial asset to engage, persuade, and reach their target audience. This can be carried out using different types of content distribution strategies. Thus, content marketing in finance essentially means creating and distributing valuable and high-quality information related to different products or financial services offered to prospective and current customers.
When it comes to marketing financial services, customers expect to receive what is offered or advertised. Content here can help to draw in new customers and also helps to maintain their loyalty over some time. This means that content marketing is critical for financial services to build trust.
In a nutshell, financial services content marketing begins with a business creating engaging and relevant content for their target audience and also focus on a variety of goals like:
- Connecting with new prospective customers
- Increasing their overall brand awareness
- Building relationships
- Generating leads
- Increasing a business’s conversion rates
- Fostering trust
- Retaining present customers
Thus, content marketing for financial services involves creating high-quality content related to the particular services and products a company offers for reaching prospects and retaining their current customers.
In layman’s terms, content marketing fuels the inbound marketing strategy for financial services.
Financial institutions should avoid using content marketing to pitch different types of financial services and products, as this is done almost on every other marketing and advertising channel. Instead, they should focus on delivering value to their customers.
Some of the examples of different types of content, financial services can use are:
- Blogs related to financial topics that can educate their customers
- Social media posts that harbour engagement
- Financial infographics
- Interactive videos
- White papers
- Case studies
- Podcasts
Your content marketing strategy should always focus on building relationships, providing education and developing an intimate trust with your customers.
Benefits of content marketing for financial services
Now that you have a brief idea of what content marketing can do for a financial company, let’s look at the advantages of content marketing for a financial company.
- Increase brand awareness
Promoting and protecting your brand is essential for your brand’s success. Thus, you should have a plan in place to create your content. Include your financial topics and decide where to publish each one of them. You can try to increase your brand awareness across platforms and demographics. Branding is a critical element of marketing and it takes time to build brand awareness. However, you can see concrete results when you have a planned strategy in place.
- Helps to educate prospective and current customers
It has been aptly said that knowledge is power. This is why with content marketing, brands can focus on educating their target audience and provide them with the knowledge to make beneficial and informed decisions that can affect their financial well-being. Brands can also use their content marketing strategies to identify certain pain points and concerns.
- Provides a genuine way for your customers to reach you
Content marketing can give you a great way to appeal to more customers by reducing the overly sales language of your marketing pitches. When you answer customers’ critical questions, you can build greater trust with them. Soon enough, they will be reaching out to you to learn more about your business.
- Appeals to the younger generation
Younger generations can consume information differently and think differently about financial services. In addition, a significant portion of the world’s population is made of millennials. Thus, with a proper content marketing strategy in place, you can appeal to them more. This can be in the form of social media posts, viral video content, engaging blogs and much more.
Final thoughts
Content marketing is essential for financial services as it helps them pitch their products and services efficiently to a broader audience group. Financial institutions should invest in robust content marketing strategies to improve their brand visibility and ultimately increase their sales.
Author Bio
Jennifer Lennington is a professor of finance at the University of South Australia. As a assignments help adelaide expert, she is also associated with Essayassignmenthelp.com.au and loves guiding young students with their complicated essay help answers.
