Download How Financial Services Firms Can Get Creative with

How Financial Services Firms
Can Get Creative with Content
A 6-Step Framework for Boosting Trust
and Building an Engaged Audience
© 2014 NewsCred / NewsCred.com / (212) 989-4100 / [email protected]
Content is marketing’s
biggest asset
Now more than ever before, brands have an opportunity to build
genuine and authentic relationships with their audiences through blog
posts, guides, infographics, and even video. The creative possibilities
are limitless, and the ROI potential is proven.
For banks and financial services
firms, content is especially important.
According to NewsCred’s 2014 Trust
Transaction Study, there is a major
disconnect between consumers and
their financial services providers. The
survey revealed the following:
› A third of surveyed consumers don’t
trust their own bank. Half of this group
said that they would trust banks more
if they provided helpful content.
› 50% of respondents said that helpful,
useful content delays potential
desires to switch banks; in other
words, content can help a bank’s
customers stick around longer.
The numbers point to the fact that
content can dramatically influence
consumer perceptions. The rationale
makes sense — after all, clients are
human beings. The financial services
industry is an extremely complex space,
and time-strapped consumers often
don’t have access to resources that
illuminate what’s happening behind the
scenes.
Table of Contents
4
18
The Importance of Content Marketing
Step 4: Rely on Trusted Providers Help
Your Program Scale
5
The Challenges
6
The Opportunity
10
Step 1: Involve Legal and Compliance Teams in
the Planning Stages
13
Step 2: Create a Sophisticated Strategy
Designed to Educate and Inspire
16
Step 3: Never Stop Learning About Your
Customers’ Passions
19
Case Study: Bloomberg—Building One-on-One
Relationships with Executives Through Content
23
Step 5: Plan Your Distribution Strategy
25
Step 6: Measure ROI
28
Conclusion
How Financial Services Firms Can Get Creative with Content
The Importance of Content Marketing
The Importance of
Content Marketing
If you’re reading this guide, you may be well-versed about the finance
sector and can confidently explain the difference between IRAs and
401Ks. You have access to proprietary data and an arsenal of resources
to develop clear, compelling, and authentic marketing messages.
Regular consumers, on the other hand, are
limited to what they encounter in the media,
which often paints an extremely narrow picture
of what’s happening with the world’s money.
They crave transparency, industry insights,
and high-performing portfolio management
strategies. They’re eager to learn, but often
they’re not sure where to turn.
© 2014 NewsCred
It’s mission-critical that banks and financial
services firms bring thought leadership and
dialogue to the media landscape. Brands that
aren’t producing content are isolated from their
target audiences. That’s why having a content
marketing strategy in place is so crucial -- to
reach consumers at natural touch-points in their
decision-making journeys. It’s important for
financial services firms to convey their opinions,
worldviews, passions, and vested interests in the
well-being of their consumers.
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How Financial Services Firms Can Get Creative with Content
The Challenges
The Challenges
Content marketing in finance is easier said than done, with the major
barrier being compliance. Financial institutions are governed by strict
regulations about what they can and cannot say. FCC and FTC laws
make it challenging for corporate branding and social media teams
to speak freely, and within some organizations, legal teams have
to approve every single detail down to 140-character tweets. It can
take a long time for a single piece of content to make it through an
organization’s large, complicated approval queue.
Not to mention, there are comparatively few
content producers and agencies that understand
the unique needs that financial firms face. It can
be tough finding vendors and partners who have
experience in finance and know what questions
to ask. There needs to be a fair amount of R&D
work done upfront, a process that some vendors
are likely to ignore in considering the unique
considerations of your brand.
© 2014 NewsCred
Marketing leaders at banks and financial
services firms often find themselves wondering
whether it’s even possible to get creative with
content, given that their teams face significant
messaging restrictions.
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How Financial Services Firms Can Get Creative with Content
The Opportunity
The Opportunity
Banks and financial
services firms can’t afford
to take any chances.
© 2014 NewsCred
But the opportunity cost of not building a content marketing program is
much bigger than any potential compliance risk. That’s because today’s
consumers are becoming increasingly research-driven and self-directed
in their buying journeys. If your brand isn’t present, you’ll miss out on
potentially valuable consumer interactions and touch points. These gaps
will evolve into opportunities for your competitors.
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How Financial Services Firms Can Get Creative with Content
Content is the most
valuable investment
a company can make.
Here’s why, according to Rishi Dave, CMO
at commercial data firm Dun & Bradstreet
and former Executive Director of Global
Marketing at Dell.
The Opportunity
1
Today’s buyers are entirely self-driven
In the non-digital era and earliest days of
online marketing, it was up to sales teams
to discover pain points, uncover customer
needs, and build business-to-customer
connections.
Today’s buyers are completely self-driven
– they’re 60% through their journey before
they engage with a brand or salesperson.
Content helps customers self-nurture,
self-research, and forge their own paths to
conversion. It’s only after they’ve made a
decision that they’ll connect with a sales rep.
Content marketing empowers buyers with
information at key decision points, just when
they need it. Blog posts, white papers,
resource centers, case studies, and guides
are today’s solution sellers.
© 2014 NewsCred
2
Content embraces the customer’s
day-to-day life
Through content marketing, brands connect
with buyers on both practical and emotional
levels.
Dave recommends marketers use analytics
to split platforms by persona and person.
In addition to providing product-based
resources, Dell inspires thought leadership
through what Dave calls “content porn”:
irresistibly clickable content that’s lifestyle
based.
If all goes well and customers enjoy what’s
produced, content will spread across the
web, show up in search, and pull even more
prospects into the conversation.
But content doesn’t stop at discovery. In
addition to helping consumers enter the
funnel, content provides a tool for navigating
key decision points. When readers opt-in to
your content, they send user-level data back
to marketers who can then respond with the
right message at the right time.
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How Financial Services Firms Can Get Creative with Content
3
The Opportunity
The content marketing ecosystem is a
revenue engine
The key to success in content marketing relies
on velocity, quality, and volume, says Dave.
Customer management software,
personalization, and curation technologies
make it possible for brands to produce
content at massive scale. Companies
that deploy a mix of content production
strategies through original content creation,
licensed content aggregation, micro-content
and user-driven conversations are more
likely to retain and engage their audiences
long-term.
As long as companies keep creating content at
a faster rate than it becomes outdated, there
are massive opportunities for lead generation.
Creating content as quickly and efficiently as
possible means more and better leads as buyers
are moved through the funnel at a faster pace.
© 2014 NewsCred
This momentum is amplified through social
media exposure and community dialogue.
Branding is a natural by-product but is
secondary to revenue and growth.
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How Financial Services Firms Can Get Creative with Content
The Opportunity
Content has a clear impact on trust, loyalty, and engagement. Our Trust
Transaction study found financial services companies can change public
perceptions through the strategic use of content.
Even though consumers are hungry for content, financial services
companies are hesitant to jump in. Some may not be sure how to get
started, and others are unclear about how to best navigate complex
compliance challenges. Just 20% of respondents surveyed in NewsCred’s
Trust Transaction study agreed that their bank writes and posts interesting
articles on financial matters and products.
Financial services companies have
a tremendous opportunity to build
thought leadership, generate value,
and grow revenue.
© 2014 NewsCred
We created this guide to give marketers and executives a
solid framework to get started with a clear, compelling, and
impactful content strategy. This guide was inspired by today’s
most innovative finance brands and will give you a clear set of
actionable tactics that you can start pursuing right away. Here’s
how to build an engaging and high-performing content strategy
that truly resonates with your audience:
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How Financial Services Firms Can Get Creative with Content
The Opportunity
STEP 1
Involve legal
and compliance
teams in the
planning stages
“Success in content marketing means being
nimble — and that’s where finance brands often
find themselves struggling. You need to pay close
attention to legal and regulatory issues, but you
also need to be responsive to what’s happening
in the world around you right now. Every time
that I listen to the news, I find opportunities for
Dun & Bradstreet to have a voice. There are a
number of opportunities for financial firms to
weigh in with a compelling perspective.”
Brad Young
Head of Content at Dun & Bradstreet
© 2014 NewsCred
10
How Financial Services Firms Can Get Creative with Content
The Opportunity
Content marketers in finance are balancing two
seemingly opposite worlds — the ever-changing
media landscape and strict regulations. There
is a way however, to align these two equally
important interests.
Involve legal and compliance teams at the
planning stages of your content marketing
plan. Work with them to create a style guide
for content that you can produce with minimal
oversight, and create a simple approval
workflow that allows for swift execution. By
getting legal and compliance teams involved
early, you’ll be able to avoid unforeseen
challenges and start creating a steady stream
of content. You can leverage technology
(like NewsCred’s software) to make sure that
workflows are centralized and that you aren’t
going back and forth in emails or Google Docs
that you can easily lose track of.
© 2014 NewsCred
Content Marketing Cloud editorial calendar
11
How Financial Services Firms Can Get Creative with Content
The Opportunity
One way that your brand can avoid compliance
challenges is to produce content that is
unrelated to finance topics. These articles
can be pieces related to entrepreneurship,
retirement, home ownership, and other life
stages. Banks and financial firms can build
instant affinity with their audiences by choosing
topics with strong human interest. After all,
finances touch every aspect of consumers’ lives.
Another way for brands to avoid compliance
challenges is to source licensed content.
Because these pieces are verified journalism
from established third-party sources, they will
already be legally compliant.
Content Marketing Cloud dashboard
© 2014 NewsCred
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How Financial Services Firms Can Get Creative with Content
The Opportunity
STEP 2
Create a
sophisticated
strategy
designed to
educate and
inspire
© 2014 NewsCred
“Investing can be complicated and confusing.
Financial companies have a great opportunity
to position themselves as educators and help
their audiences feel empowered.”
Catherine New
Content Manager at Betterment
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How Financial Services Firms Can Get Creative with Content
Whatever you do, don’t fall into the sales trap.
Consumers are constantly bombarded with sales
messaging and as a result, crave information
that can help them improve their financial health
without a hard sell. Your content should aim to
solve key consumer pain points and questions to
help your audiences learn how to become more
self-directed in their financial futures.
The Opportunity
The value of content marketing boils down to
one fundamental concept: reciprocal altruism.
When brands give something away for free,
they get much more in return. When marketers
stop chasing sales and instead offer valuable
information, the ROI is more substantial.
That concept is the heart of content marketing,
explains Scott Roen, Vice President of Digital
Marketing and Innovation at American Express.
“We’re not out there trying to win our next
customer,” he says. “We’re trying to take on a
higher order need.”
OPEN Forum’s editorial strategy was built on a
foundation of listening and learning, according
to Roen. The company spent time offline,
researching what small business owners in its
target market were seeking out. OPEN Forum’s
team spent time researching mentorship
programs, incubators, and industry associations,
ending up with 25 content categories, which
became the foundation for what OPEN Forum is
today.
That was seven years ago. Today, OPEN Forum
is a top media destination for small business
owners, driving tens of thousands of website
visits per month.
American Express launched OPEN Forum, a
content-driven community for entrepreneurs,
to empower small business owners with
peer-driven knowledge. When small business
owners succeed, American Express gets paid.
© 2014 NewsCred
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How Financial Services Firms Can Get Creative with Content
In 2013, the financial crisis may have seemed
like a distant memory for some, but Bank of
America’s perception continued to suffer. That
year, the American Customer Satisfaction Index
ranked Bank of America under JPMorgan Chase
and Citigroup in customer satisfaction.
Bank of America knew it was in serious trouble.
Their response was threefold. First they
conducted a survey with Harris Interactive
called “Bridging The Gap” and found that “89%
of Americans believe that better management
of their personal finances would go a long way
toward bolstering the US economy.” They also
found that: “69 percent of people cite money
as a top stressor. College graduates today are
averaging nearly $30,000 in student debt. 32
percent of US adults recognize their lack of
financial knowledge has led them to make poor
financial decisions, and 43 percent feel they
have missed out on good financial opportunities
for this reason.”
© 2014 NewsCred
The Opportunity
With this in mind, Bank of America launched
two initiatives: the “Life’s Better When We’re
Connected” campaign, and an alliance with the
Khan Academy to create the “Better Money
Habits” portal. The new campaign centered
around a series of emotional, family-focused
video ads, was intended to inspire some humility
on behalf of the bank. Speaking with AdAge at
the launch of the campaign, Meredith Verdone,
Bank of America’s SVP, Brand, Advertising &
Research Executive, said: “We are a facilitator.
It’s not about us. We need to focus on customer
needs first and we know our place. We know
we’re not the center of your life, but we will
connect you to what it is.”
In an effort to build that connection, Bank of
America also partnered with the Khan Academy,
a free online learning for kids and adults that
covers everything from basic arithmetic to
physics to build “Better Money Habits.” Better
Money Habits is described on site as: “A free
service that enables everyone to understand
finances through objective and unbiased videos
and tools. We want to ensure all consumers have
access to all the information and resources you
need to have informed conversations with your
financial institution and make the best decisions
for your situation.” Aside from a few logos, the
portal is essentially commercial-free in addition
to being interactive, customizable, and helpful.
The site was a huge success with instructional
videos on personal finance racking up nearly
three million views within the first three months
according to DailyFinance.
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How Financial Services Firms Can Get Creative with Content
The Opportunity
STEP 3
Never stop
learning about
your customers’
passions
“We’re always studying our
performance and tweaking our
strategy. One of our biggest
pain points involved creating
the strategy to begin with —
creating a content program
that was truly meaningful.
We looked at some of the
key issues in investing that
our audience wanted to learn
about most — that was the first
few months of the program.
That foundation gave us a
springboard to keep iterating
— to bring our content program
into a larger ecosystem.”
“Here is the beauty of
content marketing. People —
millennials in particular — are
open to content from a variety
of channels. It just needs to
meet the needs that they have
and come from a trustworthy
source. The opportunity is
enormous because people are
hungry for knowledge.”
Brad Young
Head of Content at Dun & Bradstreet
Catherine New
Content Manager at Betterment
© 2014 NewsCred
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How Financial Services Firms Can Get Creative with Content
It’s important to understand what your
customers care about, on an emotional, human
level. Many are frustrated with how the world
of finance is operating today, with minimal
transparency and high levels of uncertainty
about consumers’ assets. Finance companies
don’t need to necessarily write about finance.
They should leverage data to understand what
their audiences want to read, rather than create
content they think their audiences want. Data
can be derived from search and social data
to track content discovery, consumption, and
sharing patterns.
© 2014 NewsCred
The Opportunity
Take millennials, as an example: 18 to 24-yearolds are the most likely of all age groups to
engage with their bank on Facebook. According
to NewsCred’s Trust and Transaction Study, 25%
of them say that they do this, compared to the
survey average of just 11%. Thirty-seven percent
say they’re likely to share interesting articles
from their bank on social media.
Financial institutions can better connect with
millennial audiences by taking the time to learn
what they care about and creating content
around these key passions. Finance is a concept
that touches every aspect of millennials’ lives,
and now more than ever there is a key area of
opportunity for finance brands to connect the
dots.
But here’s the thing: while millennials are the
most socially engaged demographic, they’re
reading finance articles less often than other
age groups — a few times a year or never at all.
They’re much more likely to consume lifestyle
content related to travel, careers, and music. But
as they advance in life, have families, and begin
to acquire assets, they may begin to increasingly
seek out finance-related content as well.
17
How Financial Services Firms Can Get Creative with Content
The Opportunity
STEP 4
Rely on trusted
providers to help
your program scale
A powerful content strategy needs spectacular
content to come to life. That’s why you need
to build an army of freelance writers, brand
journalists, designers, and syndication partners
who have the expertise to bring your vision to life.
This process aligns closely with the previous
steps, from compliance to education and
inspiration. Great content providers will have
experience in each of these three areas and will
be well positioned to help your brand’s content
program grow.
© 2014 NewsCred
Look for experienced financial experts and
content providers — ones who are extremely
familiar with the themes and compliance topics
that are foundational to your industry. Involve
them early, at the planning stages, and rely on
them to pitch topics that represent your brand.
Established financial journalists and independent
finance experts are naturally more trusted
as authors of finance content than general
journalists, as our Trust Transaction Study points
out. Licensed content provides additional value,
conveying name recognition from some of
today’s top media brands including The New York
Times, Forbes, and Investopedia.
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How Financial Services Firms Can Get Creative with Content
The Opportunity
CASE STUDY
Bloomberg:
building one-onone relationships
with executives
through content
“We value everyone in the industry — not just
our prospects and clients. We want to provide
information that we think will benefit them
because it makes the overall industry stronger
and it helps us increase awareness about our
knowledge and expertise on relevant matters.”
Caroline Corrigan O’Hare
Head of Content Marketing Strategy, Bloomberg L.P.
© 2014 NewsCred
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How Financial Services Firms Can Get Creative with Content
Bloomberg for Enterprise was looking to
generate awareness and establish credibility
with the IT audience within institutional
financial services firms. They intended to
highlight their enterprise services that help
clients leverage technology to turn data into
actionable insights. Doing so can help these
organizations lower total cost of ownership,
maximize workflow efficiency, comply with
ever-changing regulatory requirements, enable
smarter governance, and ultimately, free up
critical resources to invest more in innovation.
Bloomberg worked with NewsCred to launch
“Bloomberg for Enterprise” in the fall of
2014, a microsite focused on the technology,
workflow, and regulatory issues facing the
financial industry.
© 2014 NewsCred
The Opportunity
They came up with the concept of “CaaS” —
content as a service — and NewsCred helped
Bloomberg turn that content marketing vision
into reality. “This is a B2B program in one of
the most complex industries undergoing a
complex transformation,” says Caroline Corrigan
O’Hare, Bloomberg’s Head of Content Marketing
Strategy. “Having a company like NewsCred
who was able to quickly jump in and get us
going was amazing.”
By launching the “Bloomberg for Enterprise”
portal, Bloomberg not only created useful
content for other players in the industry, but
found their content informed and assisted their
sales teams as well. “This content helps sales
and marketing form a mutually beneficial bond,”
says Corrigan O’Hare. “You can demonstrate the
value of marketing with digital metrics, and sales
appreciates having content to share that helps
them have more meaningful conversations.”
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How Financial Services Firms Can Get Creative with Content
The Opportunity
Bloomberg uses NewsCred’s software to access curated, on-brand,
licensed finance content that they publish every week as well as
experienced financial writers who write original long-form content.
Immediately after launching, one of Bloomberg’s original content
pieces on technology-related regulatory challenges was picked up by
Tabb Forum. This piece was written by Brian O’Connell, a NewsCred
NewsRoom writer and former bond trader who now freelances full
time. Since 1996, he has authored over 20 business books, and has
been published in Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune,
and TIME. He has also penned original pieces for Liberty Mutual,
Fidelity Investments, and IBM. The combination of the NewsRoom
and NewsCred’s licensed content library helps Bloomberg reach their
niche audience with speed, scale, and minimal
impact on their in-house staff.
Corrigan O’Hare says she knows the licensed
content is working because they can see it
spread organically across social channels. In
terms of their nascent success with original
content, “NewsCred found us the writers who
know the industry and live and breathe it.
Brian actually worked as a trader before he
started writing about the industry. NewsCred
brings value to us with writers who actually
know the stuff we deal with every day.”
© 2014 NewsCred
Corrigan O’Hare says the process has been
nearly seamless working with a dedicated
NewsCred editor who curates their licensed
content as well as their hand-picked writers.
It also helps that NewsCred is a LinkedIn
content partner, as that is where Bloomberg
conducts a large part of its outreach.
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How Financial Services Firms Can Get Creative with Content
“I think what makes NewsCred successful
is that they understand my pain as a digital
marketer” says Corrigan O’Hare. “NewsCred
understands that it’s the overall experience —
how the content looks and feels and travels and
how people engage with it — that’s the most
important part.”
© 2014 NewsCred
The Opportunity
When it comes to building a strategy, Corrigan
O’Hare advises marketers to clearly map out
their personas before jumping into the content
creation game, and to understand the difference
between being topical and actually relevant.
“Understand the overall story — don’t just throw
content at the wall like spaghetti,” she says.
“Some of the engagement and data we see
suggests what we’re doing well or might want
to change as it relates to our brand theme, but it
has to come together and mean something larger
for your audience. The content has to be relevant
and useful — I can’t stress useful enough.”
22
How Financial Services Firms Can Get Creative with Content
The Opportunity
STEP 5
Plan your
distribution
strategy
“Distribution is about filling
knowledge gaps and ‘white
space’ — an opportunity to
facilitate a self-directed, selfnurtured process. You have
the potential to build one on
one, personal relationships
with a wide range of
audiences. It’s critical to
create content that meets
real needs.”
Brad Young
Head of Content at Dun & Bradstreet
© 2014 NewsCred
“Content marketing consists of
two parts — production and
distribution. Once you produce
the content, you have to make
sure people are reading it.
When it comes to marketing
success, there’s no magic bullet.
Content works in conjunction
with all paid, earned, and owned
efforts — all three categories work
together collectively.”
Sarah Kaufman
Growth Manager at Betterment
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How Financial Services Firms Can Get Creative with Content
The Opportunity
This step should come at the beginning. As
you’ve probably suspected and experienced,
the process of building an audience is incredibly
challenging, especially since more brands are
venturing into the content marketing space.
Finance brands are competing for audiences’
increasingly limited attention spans, but
once you are able to scratch the surface, the
relationship-building potential will be immense.
A mix of paid, earned, and owned channels
will help finance brands build connections with
highly engaged audiences.
Distribution strategies will vary from brand
to brand. To get started, take a look at the
channels where your target customers are likely
to be spending time. These will likely include
top blogs and social media channels, as well
as paid distribution platforms such as Outbrain,
Taboola, Twitter, and paid spend on LinkedIn.
You might also share these resources with your
client-facing teams. At some companies, this
crucial link between marketing sales is known as
‘demand generation’ and can be an extremely
valuable point of connection between brands
and audiences.
Ask your customers where they like to discover
new information and how they like to learn.
The answers to these questions will be the
distribution channels that you will want to tackle
first. Start with a series of small experiments,
and scale where you uncover successes.
© 2014 NewsCred
24
How Financial Services Firms Can Get Creative with Content
The Opportunity
STEP 6
Measure ROI
To be successful, your marketing team needs
to unite around a common set of marketing
KPIs. For content marketing, these metrics
connect to all stages of the conversion funnel
from discovery to engagement, conversion,
and retention. The following breakdown
(originally published via CMO.com) can
help you identify the metrics that are most
important to your company’s bottom line. You
can also read more about content marketing
ROI by downloading this guide here.
© 2014 NewsCred
1 Reach
When thinking about reach, it’s important to
understand the quality of your audience and the
intentions behind those who are reading and
sharing your content.
Word of mouth is powerful. When people value
your services, they are more inclined to make
their perspectives known. Given the nature of
today’s social web, the level of exposure is that
much greater, with the potential to generate
incremental business through organic traffic.
At face value, shares and tweets seem hard to
measure from an ROI perspective. However,
social media metrics are important, as they
reflect your brand’s level of influence among
certain audiences.
2 Engagement
This concept relates to stickiness – in other
words, how much and how often your prospects
and customers are engaging with and returning
to your site. Pay attention to the following
metrics to understand areas where engagement
is strong:
› Unique Visitors: The total number of distinct
visitors, or individuals, that come to your site in
a given time period.
› Page Views: The total number of pages
viewed on our website in a given time period.
› Average Visit Duration: The average time
spent on your website, per visit. This number
is determined by dividing the total duration of
all visits by the number of visits in a given time
period.
25
How Financial Services Firms Can Get Creative with Content
› Return Visits: The number of total visits
from users who have visited your website
previously.
› Bounce Rate: The percentage of visitors who
enter your site, view one page and exit, or
“bounce,” without viewing additional content.
You should also track pages per session,
noting how many pages on average your
readers visit before moving on.
Be sure to pinpoint areas of low engagement
so you can make improvements, but also look
beyond the numbers to fully understand why
performance may be weak. Is the your copy
engaging, to-the-point, and interesting to your
end-user? Is your content easy to digest? Are
you publishing topics that align with the needs
and interests of your target audience? Make
sure your content is converting to align with
your goals: how many people reach sign up or
contact forms after engaging with your content?
© 2014 NewsCred
The Opportunity
3
Leads and Conversions
As a marketer, driving leads to the sales team is
your primary goal. Content marketing is crucial
when it comes to building awareness, attracting
new interest and driving leads through the sales
funnel.
It’s important to measure the number of leads
coming in through content marketing, which
contributes to tracking your overall content
marketing ROI. This can be accomplished in a
variety of ways, as we addressed earlier. It’s
crucial that every “entry point” into your content
marketing is tagged with some kind of analytics
code or munchkin. This allows you to see exactly
where the leads are coming from, such as social
media, blog content, or email marketing.
It’s also important to measure the quality of
these leads by forecasting a dollar amount
on how much the lead will be worth based on
things like company size, revenue, and level of
interest. A lead that comes from a white paper
might be less valuable than a lead that fills out a
form requesting more pricing information.
Next, it’s important to measure how leads
are interacting with your content throughout
the purchase funnel. Do they first become
interested through high-value content such as
a white paper or detailed guide? Do you offer
up case studies later on in the buying cycle?
It’s necessary to map buyers personas against
the full purchase funnel, this way you plan what
content gets served at each step of the way,
ensuring that content is appropriate for that lead
at that specific point in the decision process.
When you strategically control the volume and
type of content a lead receives at each step,
you can then determine ways to improve your
content marketing efforts down the line.
26
How Financial Services Firms Can Get Creative with Content
4 Revenue
Tying revenue to your content marketing efforts
is incredibly difficult, but, at the end of the day,
it’s absolutely necessary to prove your value as
a content marketer.
In order to measure this, you must know the
total amount of sales deals closed that can
be attributed to content marketing. This can
happen both directly (i.e. a user first engages
with your business through content, either by
downloading a white paper, subscribing to a
newsletter, requesting to talk to sales after
reading the blog, or signing up for a webinar)
and indirectly (the lead was nurtured with
content during the decision making process).
What to look for:
› Revenue attributed to content marketing
› The percentage of revenue from content
marketing in relation to other marketing efforts
› The percentage of revenue from content
marketing as a portion of total revenue
© 2014 NewsCred
The Opportunity
5 Lifetime Value
The lifetime value of a customer is the expected
revenue you will receive from a customer
until they churn. You want your customer
relationships to last for the long-term, so adjust
your revenue expectations accordingly. How
much revenue do you expect your clients to
bring in until they churn or until their contract
expires? Make sure to address this question over
the span of multiple years, across your various
user segments.
Now comes the fun part. As a content marketer,
you need to make the most of a finite budget for
developing content and recruiting eyeballs. With
so many marketing solutions available through
channels such as email, social media, and paid
advertising, you need to make sure your content
plan attracts your highest-value customers.
Marketing teams should unite around one or two
KPIs to help align the entire team or department.
The more laser focused you are around your
metrics, the better positioned you’ll be to grow
your content program.
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How Financial Services Firms Can Get Creative with Content
Conclusion
Conclusion
The value of content marketing can be distilled to the following stat
70%
of individuals want to learn
about products through
content rather than through
traditional advertising
That’s why marketers, across the board, are placing so much
value on business blogging programs and native ads.
© 2014 NewsCred
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How Financial Services Firms Can Get Creative with Content
Conclusion
The opportunity for finance companies to jump in and start
building authentic customer bonds is strong. Make sure that
your content program is designed to reach audiences at multiple
touch points in their buying journeys — across devices and
marketing channels. Content will be your brand’s bridge to
consumers seeking knowledge, advice, and ultimately, an ally.
Ready to get started with Content Marketing? NewsCred offers the most
comprehensive content marketing management software tool that includes
workflow, distribution, and social media management tools, high-quality
licensed content from brands like Dow Jones, Bloomberg, and The Economist,
and access to the NewsRoom — our pool of heavily vetted, experienced
freelance writers. Get in touch and start making connections with new
customers through content.
NewsCred.com / (212) 989-4100 / [email protected]
© 2014 NewsCred
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© 2014 NewsCred / NewsCred.com / (212) 989-4100 / [email protected]