10 Steps to More Confident Fintech Content Marketing
Fintech content marketing teams remain under constant pressure to commission, approve and distribute quality marketing content. That can be a struggle, if the foundations for content marketing were not laid before you took on these responsibilities.
It’s never too late to revisit your content strategy and improve your content marketing processes. Here are 10 suggestions to help you do this.
1. Document Your Content Strategy
Marketers with a documented content strategy are more confident in their content marketing. Documenting your content strategy gives you something to refer back to and use as a standard. The Content Marketing Institute (CMI) suggests strategies include:
- Your business case for content. You need to identify and reinforce the benefits of content marketing. But instead of focusing solely on ROI, zero in on how content marketing can support brand awareness, lead generation, and customer conversion.
- Personas and content mapping. Specify who your target audience is beyond their demographics. Develop a customer persona answering why they need your product and what it can do for them. Then map out their sales and buying process, if you can.
- Your channel plan. How are you going to reach potential customers with your content? Here, you can explain your key sales channels and identify where you will distribute your content.
A documented content strategy helps everyone align content with business goals. It should be a north star for your content marketing team, your agency partners, and freelance writers.
2. Organize Your Content Team
Content teams are the storytelling engines of fintech companies. They find topics and angles. They interview customers and experts. And they publish useful content that aligns audience interests with business goals.
67 percent of marketers are now being asked to do more with the same resources. — Content Marketing Institute
Many fintech content teams start out small, sometimes with one person. If that sounds like you, you probably have hands-on involvement in content creation. And you may need some outside support from experienced fintech copywriters, graphic designers, and other independent content creators.
Larger content teams tend to follow the make-up of a communications unit or small newsroom. Here, you may need a managing editor and content strategist, with direct reports in content creation, social media, distribution, and reporting.
3. Assess Your Production Capacity
Big or small, content teams have a lot on their plates. Content creation and collaboration take up an estimated 55 percent of a marketer’s work week. This is why planning production capacity matters. Assign too much and your team may struggle with content burnout. Take a step back and:
- Document your content producers by strengths. Some will be fast writers, others will be great editors. And others still will be able to use data to improve content performance and impact.
- Look at who creates content at your fintech. This may be ghostwriters, editors, copywriters, graphic designers, or illustrators.
- Assess your in-house experts. They may be able to work with ghostwriters or provide quotes for your interview-based content.
4. Establish Your Production Processes
Content programs from the likes of Bank of the West, Ramp, and Wise have built audiences by producing content that informs and engages people. They can do this because they have strong production processes.
For example, look at your processes for content revisions, approval, distribution, and repurposing. Ideally, your processes will help you scale production output, as the business grows.
5. Partner With Fintech Writers or Agencies
Analyzing your production capacity and setting up your production processes should help you understand if you can handle everything in-house or not. If you realize you can’t, consider outsourcing projects and repeat work to B2B fintech writers or content marketing agencies. Be clear about your needs and expectations. Be sure to:
- Provide clear briefs. Your content brief should include your expected word count, primary and secondary keywords, internal links, your preferred tone, and research sources.
- Agree on deadlines. A short article of 500 words may take a day or two, but a whitepaper with extensive research will need weeks.
- Consider using outlines. Outlines will help you understand how writers sequence their ideas and nip any potential misunderstandings in the bud.
- Give clear feedback. Feedback lets writers know what works and what doesn’t. Ideally one person will vet internal feedback and then communicate with the writer. Usually, it’s your head of content, content marketing manager, or product marketing manager who takes the lead on these revisions.
Finding writers and agencies who understand the nitty-gritty of fintech can save your team production time and ensure you’re producing highly specialized content.
6. Balance Quality and Quantity
Readers are consuming fintech content because they ultimately want to make better financial decisions. — The New York Times
Remain realistic about what you can achieve at your fintech’s current stage. Seed stage companies can achieve much less than those who have just secured a sizable amount of Series C or D funding. You may need to explain these limitations to some ambitious founders. To balance content quality and content:
- Move away from volume goals
- Plan topics and your unique angles
- Identify which formats will deliver most value
- Decide which formats can be repurposed
7. Refresh Older Content
Improving content quality can mean simply updating the content you already have. For example, pieces can be updated to reflect current financial trends, new high-intent keywords, or more authoritative insights and expert opinions.
You can even update content to take on more compelling headlines and include more useful internal and external links for the reader. All of these show your audience you care enough to give them content that stays relevant.
8. Repurpose Top Content
We’ve just talked about updating your existing content. So now let’s talk about repurposing — another useful way to squeeze more value from your content production efforts, that can also boost the overall quality of your output.
Think about it. You have many different potential sources for repurposing.
- Whitepapers and ebooks can be reworked into a series of articles
- Conference presentations can become thought leadership pieces
- Panel talks can be repurposed into reported coverage
- Case studies can be cherry-picked for testimonials
- Listicles can be converted into infographics.
The real value of repurposing content is how it allows you to reach audiences with different content preferences. Because not every potential technology buyer who’s willing to read a blog may be willing to go through an entire whitepaper too.
9. Create Content Distribution Plans
You can distribute content in so many places. You might be tempted to try them all. But few fintech companies have the marketing resources to be effective on every channel. As a guide, almost 80 percent of financial brands are already on LinkedIn. Most LinkedIn members are there to network, jobhunt, and learn. But it may not be the right channel for your fintech.
10. Coach Internal Stakeholders
Coaching is another way to make an impact with content marketing. Content leaders can provide coaching to help fintech brands:
- Show founders how to deliver clear ideas to investors, customers, and the media
- Hone expert thinking and writing, to build personal and professional brands
- Train other content marketers to improve the impact of content marketing
- Ensure freelance writers and agencies understand and bolster the brand.
Coaching your stakeholders and colleagues can ultimately create a company-wide understanding of why content marketing matters.
Originally published by Genuine Communications on March 1, 2023.
