Citizens Kane

Your marketing team should look, think and act like a media company.

This is an extract from?IMTW Issue № 68.

Read on?to learn why:

①?Brands are becoming?media companies.

②?Your marketing team?needs to be adept at storytelling.

③?Wealth management is the gift?that keeps on giving.

④?Digital currencies?are inevitable.

⑤?Your job is safe?from artificial intelligence.

⑥?Swish offices are emerging as weapons?in the war for talent.

⑦?Democratic capitalism depends?on the probity and wisdom of elites.

What's new

Brokerage firm Robinhood announced this week that it’s launching a financial news subsidiary.?Finance Magnates reports.

In short:

• “On Tuesday, Robinhood, a California-based financial services company, announced the expansion of its business with the launch of a financial news platform, Sherwood Media. The company, which operates the major US commission-free stock trading and investing application Robinhood, also runs three other subsidiaries: a digital asset service provider, an institutional brokerage firm, and a broker-dealer and brokerage clearing services provider.”
• “Sherwood Media will provide news about financial markets, the economy, business and technology. The new financial news platform will build on the success of Snacks, its daily markets and business newsletter.”
• “The company [has appointed] Joshua Topolsky, Bloomberg’s ex-Chief Digital Content Officer, as the Editor-in-Chief and President of Sherwood Media. Topolsky is the Founder and former Chief Editor of The Verge as well as a one-time Vice President of Vox Media, Inc. Topolsky noted that the financial news platform will seek to serve a generation of news consumers with a different perspective on money.”

Why it matters

① As far back as February 2021, we talked about?why all brands need to be thinking like a media outlet. Robinhood’s move is the natural conclusion of this evolution: brands are literally?becoming?media companies. In Issue № 10 I wrote:

People are naturally sceptical, they are increasingly immune to ‘broadcast’ communications. Instead they rely on their networks - whether in person or via online social channels - and their guts. They respond to content that resonates with them. Brands that want to get noticed need to appeal to that emotional trigger with content that?informs, inspires and entertains.

Today, as the latest Edelman study - somewhat depressingly - shows that?journalists are among the least trusted people, the opportunity for brands to distinguish themselves through high-quality editorial content has never been greater.

Robinhood’s move matters because it’s the best illustration we’ve yet seen of how a fintech company’s commercial success is intrinsically linked to the quality of its content marketing.

What to do about it

Take action

Consider your current marketing content. Is it up to scratch? Could you, if you were so inclined, run your content marketing operation as a separate, revenue generating business? Is your content compelling enough to attract your target customers? Would advertisers want to reach your audience and be happy for their brand to co-exist with yours? The answer is likely ‘no’. But that’s what you should be striving for.

② How do you make it happen? Some thoughts:

• Prioritise?content creation and assign it to a specialised function within your business.
• Hire?people with editorial and production skills, then steep them in your brand’s culture and allow them to create without the expectation that every click will lead to a transaction.
• Accept?that content is not a marketing campaign or advertising. It’s a creative process of authoring, animating and expanding your brand story and, in doing so, cultivating a community of loyal and engaged fans.

In short, your marketing team needs to be adept at storytelling. They should uncover the?why?of your product in order to tell your customers the simple story behind often complex solutions.

Get help

• Visit InMarketing, my resource library?for leaders in finance or technology who want to innovate, interact and influence.
• Join the InMarketing community, either?on Twitter?or on Substack (you’ll need to?download the Substack app?and head to the chat tab). Either way, you can ask questions of me and fellow senior marketing practitioners.

Help me

If you found this useful?or know someone who would, please share it. It would really help me to grow the community of regular IMTW readers.

More...

For the rest of this issue, including points ③, ④, ⑤, ⑥ and ⑦,?visit my Substack >

About

Written for CEOs, marketers and other leaders in the financial sector,?InMarketing This Week?is a showcase for news likely to impact them - delivered with insight on why it matters and ideas on what to do about it. It’s published every Sunday to give you a head start on the week. Read it?here, or?subscribe?to?have it delivered straight to your inbox at six, before it's available anywhere else.