How to Make Finance Content that Doesn’t Suck

Or, how to make sure your content doesn’t fall into the 96% unread webpage slush pile

The Reality

96% of content published online gets no traffic. No clicks, no engagement. Nothing. Yikes.?

Tim Soulo, the CMO of Arhefs, shared that their main web crawler discovers 10 million new pages every two minutes.?

That’s a lot of new content. Every minute. That nobody is reading.?

These findings track with a 2021 research paper published by Typeset that found:

“38% of professional writers struggle with understanding what their audience wants to read.?Another 32% have trouble writing consistently.?30% have a hard time with deadlines, and 27% wrestle with maintaining writing quality over time.? 70% of respondents said they’re only somewhat satisfied or not satisfied at all with the performance of their written content in the past 12 months.”

It's a perfect storm. Even experienced writers in the study, with most having over 8 years in the field, are struggling.?

They report finding themselves unsure of what to write, unable to keep up a steady writing pace, wrestling with deadlines, and having a hard time maintaining high-quality work consistently.

It’s little wonder that such a huge majority (70%) said they find their own writing ‘meh’ at best.?

“There’s a strong sense of giving up in all this: of settling for less,” said Doug Kessler, Creative Director and Co-founder at Velocity Partners

But there’s more (sorry)

Only 12% of marketers believe their content marketing targets the right audiences, according to research from the CMO Council.?

Velocity partners did a really cool slide deck on this very problem. In it, they highlighted how content marketing is in fact content marketing’s worst enemy -? thanks to the proliferation of mediocre rubbish that is flooding the internet.?

AI has ramped up the spreading of this content fungus, making it quicker, easier, and cheaper than ever before to whip up thoughtless, valueless blather and smear it all over websites, blogs, ads, social media, ad infinitum.?

In this context, it makes sense that 1) most of the internet is not getting read, and, 2) content marketers feel overwhelmed.?

The Way Forward

So what do we do about all this?

We know that wealth managers and financial services need quality people creating quality work; people that understand the specific context of fintech, who can actually write, and can make stuff that audiences actually want to look at.?

With such an overabundance of quantity, our best bet is to double down on quality

Stealing directly from the Velocity slide deck, they’ve summed it up well here:

Velocity argues that businesses with a really strong brand will still win big despite the deluge of poop that content marketing is undergoing.?

Let’s break down each of their highlighted points here.

Famous - well known is not enough. Go for famous in your market.?

The more niche you are, the easier this is. The niche doesn’t have to be your offer.?

The niche can be your brand, your thought leadership, your messaging, a broad investment offer (alternatives) that you target at a very narrow market (wealthy doctors looking to build an alpha self invested pension).?

Whilst you can get famous with a one-off super successful PR or marketing campaign, much more often getting famous is like getting fit - it takes consistent, regular effort over a long period of time.

Intelligent - never condescending or oversimplified

Writing conversationally is such a good place to start.

I know that fintech and financial services businesses need to show that they are serious, legitimate, trustworthy institutions who are capable of handling serious sums of money on behalf of their clients.?

But you can do this conversationally. Maybe not conversationally like you and your best friend at 1am at a birthday party, but conversationally like a professional lunch with clients. Friendly, clear, open.?

Chances are, your readers are smart people. Chances are also very good that they are fed up of jargony, GPT-y, sales-y BS.?

Basing your content on actual conversations is a really valuable approach here.?

Record case studies / use cases / reviews / help desk calls / sales and onboarding calls.

Use the language your prospects and clients are using.?

Useful - utility is the essence of content marketing. Make yourself useful.?

If you are creating content thinking first about your businesses need for traffic, clicks, conversions, you are leading yourself astray.?

Your content will be 100 times better if you start from the leads’ perspective rather than from the business perspective.

The kind of content that starts “5 things running a marathon taught me about B2B SaaS” reeks of a brand who knows they need to create content marketing, so that’s what they’re doing. Making stuff so they can feel reassured that they have made some stuff.?

No shade to these good folx. They are doing their best. But we want to do better.?

Compare that with content that starts “Not all private market strategies are created equal. Here’s how they compare.” (one I wrote recently for Moonfare) has such an obvious purpose in terms of answering specific questions of a prospective client.?

Create your content rooted in the questions your leads are asking.?

Plan out your content calendar anchored in actual conversations with the people you are serving. Research first. Write after.?

Entertaining - It doesn’t mean a laugh a minute. It means confident, clear and easy to read with a bit of attitude and energy.?

This is where finance and investment content can struggle most. Fintech companies seem to have more licence to do it better; have a bit of pizazz, style, personality.?

It’s the wealth managers and financial services who seem to find it harder to relinquish the inherited, fusty, corporate diet of ‘innovation’ and ‘solutions’ and ‘agility’.

I think this is rooted in fear. I think those companies are afraid that they won’t be taken seriously if they show too much (any) personality.?

Change is hard, and it’s not what older institutions are used to.?

Somewhere I think does this really well is Redington. They are not a client of mine, just a really good example of a big, serious financial institution with an energised, conversational content style that really works.?

Always - if you fail once, you damage the brand

Every bit of comms you release is making a promise. You're promising value of some kind - in an offer, in your commitment to quality, in your inclusion of fun memes.

When people break promises, it harms the relationship. This is bad news because people have a fundamental need to feel safety.?

Broken promises feel unsafe and that makes us upset.?

Do you have that one friend who always cancels last minute, is super flaky, says they will do thighs and then doesn’t? It sucks right. It’s hurtful and it makes you want to disengage from that person.?

Equally, do you have that friend who always remembers your birthday, who checks in on you, who knows when you’ve had a job interview / chiropodists appointment and makes the effort to ask how it went? It feels really good.?

It feels safe, supportive, loving.?

I know you are not dating your leads and your clients but you also kind of are. Take it that seriously.?

I explore the idea of real personalisation, what it means beyond corporate niceties, and how it can make you hundreds of thousands of dollars here.?

Worth consuming - even if each piece doesn’t nail their info needs, they’ll be glad they invested the time

People absolutely hate feeling like they’ve wasted their time.?

There’s this fascinating study that behavioural economist Dan Ariely did.?

He got participants to build a simple kind of lego toy (a Bionicle). Participants earned just over a dollar for every Bionicle they built.?

There were two conditions to this experiment.?

In the first condition, when participants had completed their Bionicle, their creation was popped onto the table in front of them and they were asked if they wanted to make another one.?

In the second condition, when participants had completed their Bionicle, the experimenter destroyed the model they had just made and asked them if they wanted to build it again.?

In both conditions, participants were being offered the chance to build a little toy for the same amount of money each time.?

Logically, it should make no difference whether they build another version of the Bioncle they just built, or if they build the exact same Bionicle they just built.?

But me oh my, did it make a difference.?

The participants in condition one created an average of 11 Bionicles.?

The poor souls in condition two who had their efforts destroyed in front of their eyes were 1) sad, and 2) they created only 7 Bionicles on average.?

Having their work broken down in front of them and being asked to rebuild it again felt like a colossal waste of time, even though it was functionally no different from building another toy from scratch.?

If you waste people’s time, they will 1) be sad, and 2) do the business equivalent of only building 7 Bionicles, which is that they will disengage from your brand, your company, your content and go elsewhere.?

The Final Word

You and I and all of your leads and all of your clients exist in a digital world drowning in content. Standing out requires a lot more than just hitting publish.?

The data shows most of what gets put online goes unread, and even smart, experienced writers find themselves grappling with inconsistency and intermittent quality.?

The path forward for finance content is clear: prioritise quality over quantity.?

This means investing in skilled writers who understand the specific context of fintech and can create content that speaks directly to your audience's needs, using your audience's words.?

Check your own content. Does it showcase a strong brand voice, intelligent writing, and genuine usefulness?

Remember, every piece of content is a promise to your audience. Make sure it's worth their time.?

Get us to research, design, and write your content for you.?