Good to Great: My 8 Tips for Fintech Content Marketing Excellence
In 2022, fintech content marketing teams remain under constant pressure to commission, approve and distribute quality marketing content.
That can be frustrating, especially when the foundations of excellent content were not laid before you took on these responsibilities.
94 percent of leading B2B content marketers measure content performance. — Content Marketing Institute.
Don’t worry, it’s never too late to revisit the fundamentals.
Here are eight ways to create a culture of quality content production at your B2B fintech.
1. Structure Your Content Unit
Content teams are best viewed as fintech’s internal storytelling engine. They find topic angles, interview customers and experts, and publish useful content that aligns with audience interests. They produce everything from blog posts, case studies, and eBooks, through to infographics, videos and podcasts.
Many fintech content teams are small, sometimes with only one person. In these situations, content marketers may have hands-on involvement in content creation. And they are likely to 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. They may have some combination of a managing editor and content strategist, with direct reports in content creation, social media, distribution, and reporting.
2. Assess Your Production Capacity
Managing workflow is a worry for 62 percent of companies, according to the World Federation of Advertising. More than 50 percent of companies also struggle with project prioritization.
Think about your bandwidth and your marketing colleagues’. The capacity planning process is essentially workload management. Assign too much and your team struggle with content burnout. You will all have less time to maintain high content quality standards. Take a step back and:
Above all, consider your team’s experience, knowledge, and workload when managing capacity.
3. Establish Your Production Processes
The most successful fintech brands of the decade so far have adopted a publisher. Content programs from the likes of Shopify, Square, and Wise have found success by telling stories that entertain, inform, and engage people.
For fintech content teams to tell great stories, they need documented processes that cover content creation, revision, and approvals. They also need frameworks and planning processes that can help them scale production output, as the business grows. Think content strategies, content calendars, distribution plans, and documents for briefing writers.
4. Focus On Quality Before Quantity
Next, be 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 — but stick to your guns.
At first, focus on content quality before you pursue a higher content output. Especially if some of your past content pieces have had little to no engagement. To adopt this approach:
For example, many people see insurance as a boring or complex area. Canadian online investment management service WealthSimple may have had this common objection top of mind when it produced A Totally Not Boring Guide to Life Insurance. The magazine feature is a good example of spending more time on the right ideas — to execute them better.
5. Decide Where to Distribute Content
You can distribute content through so many channels. Podcast platforms. LinkedIn. Youtube. Twitter. You might be tempted to try them all. But you then risk stretching yourself too thin. Not every fintech has the marketing resources of PayPal, Revolut, or Square.
For B2B fintech content, LinkedIn can be useful for building the profiles of your founders and executives. Fintechs such as Klarna and Varo Bank regularly post on LinkedIn. They are among the 80 percent of financial brands on LinkedIn. Most people on LinkedIn are there to network, learn, and do business. LinkedIn also has audience targeting tools to support B2B lead generation and sales.
6. Engage Fintech Content Experts
“Let’s go viral by the end of Q4!” Yes, it can be fun to make grand plans. But be sure your team has the capacity to deliver on realistic targets.
You might want to outsource some projects to B2B fintech writers, if your resources can’t handle your fintech content marketing goals. Yes, you may need to make the case for more content production budget.
Outsourcing content marketing to a dedicated writer can lend expertise to the subject matter. But it can be difficult to find writers who understand the nitty-gritty of niche B2B fintech areas, such as payment processing, ecommerce technology, and open banking.
You’ll also need to make sure you have a clear process for briefing freelance content marketing writers, handling any revisions, and getting final drafts approved for publication.
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 talked about creating new 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.
Solid Fintech Content Cultures
Every fintech marketer wants to produce quality content that helps them to build up a young brand, while nurturing leads, and contributing to future sales. And as this small selection of tips shows, getting this right starts long before a word is written.
