Advisor Content Mastery: Steps to Creating the Right Content
About this session:
The discussion focused on how financial professionals can create effective and impactful content for their marketing efforts. It also focused on the importance of content marketing in financial advisory services, key content creation strategies, tracking and measuring success of content marketing initiatives, and leveraging social proof to establish trust with potential clients.
Insights Surfaced:
- Content marketing is crucial in financial advisory services as it builds trust with the audience and is a cost-effective customer acquisition strategy.
- The content should be engaging, relevant, and should address the needs and interests of the target audience.
- Calls to action are crucial in identifying success and establishing conversions. They should be compelling and clearly state what the audience will gain.
- Tracking and measuring the success of content marketing initiatives is essential. This can be done through SEO, analyzing open and conversion rates in emails, overall website traffic and a whole lot more!
- Repurposing existing content can save time and effort, and it can be optimized for different channels.
Meet the Speakers
Will Steiner, Head of Content Marketing, Altruist
Will Steiner is the Head of Content at Altruist, leading the team responsible for producing Altruist’s podcasts, webinars, blog posts, case studies, downloadable guides, and social media. Prior to joining Altruist, he left a career at Salesforce to start a company called Big Later, which offers an email-based financial literacy product geared toward Millennials. He enjoys content marketing (a lot).
Grace Bryan, Corporate Marketing Manager, Nitrogen
Grace Bryan, orchestrates content for Nitrogen – across blogs, social media, website updates, white papers, video scripts, and PR efforts. Her heart lies in the financial advisory industry, where she’s leading Nitrogen’s pioneering Growth Survey. Grace holds a Masters in Communication Management from the University of Southern California and a BA in Journalism from Baylor University. A California native now based in Texas with her husband and two feline companions, she once harmonized in a barbershop quartet, showcasing her diverse talents.
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Takeaways
Takeaway 1: Content Marketing is a crucial aspect of financial advisory services
Will and Grace emphasized the importance of content marketing in financial advisory services. They noted that it helps to build trust with audiences without resorting to hard sell tactics and is particularly effective for hyper growth firms that invest heavily in marketing tactics.
“Content marketing encompasses so many different kinds of thought leadership content from digital content, promotional content, white papers, ebooks, podcast, videos, etc. It really serves to build trust with your audience. It’s not really a hard sell tactic,” pointed out Grace Bryan. Will Steiner added, “Content marketing is a marketing tactic that skews educational with the objective of establishing credibility and trust without expectations.”
They agreed that the key to effective content marketing is understanding what the client is interested in and aligning it with the advisor’s expertise. According to Steiner, “If you have an idea for a screenplay, you want to organize a community volunteering effort, you want to start a meet up, all of those things will contribute to your ability to think creatively and to build something from scratch.”
Takeaway 2: The Importance of Calls to Action in Content Marketing
Will and Grace discussed the importance of establishing strong calls to action (CTAs) in content marketing initiatives. They suggested that the most effective CTAs are ones that are compelling for the viewer and clearly outline what is in it for them.
“The main thing you have to ask yourself is – whatever I want this person to do – am I making it compelling for them to do it? Which is basically just answering the question, what’s in it for me?” said Will Steiner. Grace Bryan expanded on this, suggesting that advisors look at creating different CTAs depending on where the viewer is in the marketing funnel. “How do you optimize for the channel that you’re going to repurpose it for and then what’s the next step?” she asked.
They also discussed the idea of using softer CTAs to capture leads, such as downloadable pieces of content or risk questionnaires that capture viewer information while providing them with valuable content.
Takeaway 3: Measuring Success in Content Marketing
During the webinar, Grace and Will discussed how financial advisors can track and measure the success of their content marketing initiatives. They suggested that while there are many metrics that can be tracked, the ultimate measure of success should be revenue.
“Every channel has different measurements and also different goals associated. Will brought up the funnel, so how you’re going to measure the effectiveness of your social media will be different than the effectiveness of email, than your website,” noted Grace Bryan. Meanwhile, Will Steiner advised focusing on one thing at a time and optimizing each piece of the marketing funnel before moving on to measuring success on other channels.
They agreed that understanding search engine optimization (SEO) is a valuable skill for advisors looking to increase the effectiveness of their content marketing efforts. “Doing some cursory keyword research is helpful. To know what is being searched for most often in my area, in my region, in this demographic, I think is helpful,” Bryan said.
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