How to Effectively Use Content Marketing for Financial Advisors

Did you know 47% of consumers view 3-5 pieces of content before engaging with a company’s sales team? (Source: Hubspot) As more consumers use content to discover and engage with brands, honing your content marketing strategy as a professional financial advisor or wealth manager is vital to reaching today’s clients.

You see, content is the currency that puts you in front of your audience, increases social followers, builds your subscriber list, and fosters sales. Spending time crafting a well, a thought-out content marketing strategy will position you to be effective online…getting your message to the right people at the right time.

Why Create Branded Content

Branded content gives you credibility in the financial advising and wealth management industry. It helps you attract and build relationships with an audience who may become future clients for your business.

By sharing your story, offering free advice, answering common questions and sharing solutions, you will be viewed as the go-to source. When they’re ready, your prospects are likely to come to you because of the valuable information given.

Simply put, content marketing is the best and preferred way to do business online with future clients. Here’s how to create a content marketing strategy for financial advisors to effectively reach and engage your audience.

How to Create a Content Marketing Strategy for Financial Advisors

1. Have a Clear Understanding of Your Audience

Having a clear understanding about the specific group of people you aim to reach in your marketing ensures your content relates and appeals to this audience. Every content piece published is geared towards attracting, engaging, and adding value to your intended market. It’s important to understand who they are, their likes and needs so you can deliver more of what they want.

The best way to get clear on your target audience is by establishing buyer personas. During this process, you’ll paint a clear picture of your ideal client. You’ll glean data such as their career and job responsibilities, pain points and problems they’re experiencing, role in the buying process and keyword phrases they’re likely to use in search.

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2. Create Content for Each Phase of the Buyer’s Journey

Clients attracted to your financial brand will be at different stages in the buyer’s journey. While some may have had previous interactions, others are in the discovery phase. Creating content for each stage strategically moves your prospects through your sales funnel and towards setting an appointment.

The three major stages of the buyer’s journey include the Awareness, Consideration, and Decision Stage. You’ll want to use content that best compliments each stage for maximum effect. Therefore, the goal of this step is to begin brainstorming the content types and topics you’ll leverage for the complete buyer’s journey.

Here’s a guide to get your creative juices flowing:

• Awareness – Prospects are aware they have a problem and are simply researching content. Positioning your firm as a solution and increasing awareness is key. Blog posts, social media content, infographics, and whitepapers perform well here
• Consideration – Prospects are actively seeking solutions. They’re exploring different options and start to focus on one as the possible answer. You want to capture leads as they land on your content and nurture them in your email campaigns. Content types to consider include video series, helpful guides, and customer testimonials.
• Decision – Your prospect is leaning towards booking you for a consultation. You want to make this an easy transition towards the sale. Show your value by offering a special discount offer, implementation (how-to) guides, a webinar and product/service demonstrations on video as your content types.

3. Create and Publish Your Content

Once you’ve brainstormed your different content topics and types that fit each stage in the buyer’s journey, it’s time to organize, create and publish remarkable content to go live. A key tool to use is an editorial calendar such as Google Calendar or CoSchedule to help you plan out your strategy.

The good news is, there are a plethora of content ideas to fill up your calendar. Once your content is published, you’ll be able to test which ones best resonate with your market so you can focus on sharing more of that content (we’ll expand on testing content in the final step).

You can also consider outsourcing your content creation if you’re tight on time and resources. Content services like BlogMutt, Constant Content and WritersAccess can ensure you remain consistent in your content strategy, giving you a slight edge in the industry.

4. Measure Your Results

The final step to a practical content marketing plan for financial advisors is measuring your results to test effectiveness.

You’ve invested too much to hope that your content sticks. Having a simple system in place that analyzes and gauges your results gives you ammunition to make the necessary adjustments towards improvement. As you consistently tweak your strategy, you’ll formulate the perfect formula that produces favorable outcomes every time.

Use these questions as a guide to test your content marketing efforts:

• What keywords are people using to locate my content in search (on Google and social media)?
• Which content type is read the most (i.e. blog articles, visuals, etc.)
• Which content type generates the most shares?
• How long are readers staying on my page (what’s the bounce rate)? Are they visiting other pages on my website?
• How many page views did my content receive?
• Which content type produced the most social engagement (a combination of likes, shares, and comments)
• How many leads did my content generate?

Conclusion

Implementing a strong content marketing plan today positions you for success in your digital marketing tomorrow. Start by using this guide for your financial advising firm. Continue to test your results to gauge what’s working and modify what isn’t. With consistency, you’ll notice a surge in traffic generation, more leads flowing in your sales funnel, better follower engagement, and, ultimately, an increase in your bottom-line.

Photo by Ilya Pavlov on Unsplash