Create awesome content for the finance sector

What’s the secret to a successful finance content marketing strategy? Find out with our 8 foolproof tips.

The finance world can be a tough place for a marketer. Creating inspiring finance content marketing that communicates your brand’s messages, engages customers and keeps the compliance team happy is a tough nut to crack.

But fear not – there is a way to tick each of those boxes, and it’s all about taking a planned content-led approach.

Finance content marketing for brands

We’ve found that telling stories delivers particularly brilliant results for finance brands. Combining crucial strategic vision with user-friendly design opens up big possibilities for creative, shareable and high-impact finance content marketing.

Financial services marketing trends guide

Learn what latest trends have emerged in the financial services sector so you can take advantage and stay ahead of your competition. By knowing where the newest trends are heading, you can inject your marketing plan with effective campaigns that will show you’re at the head of the pack.

Access the Financial services marketing trends guide

Want to know how you can achieve this too? Take a look at our eight best-practice guiding principles when creating any kind of content marketing for a finance brand.

1. Directly answer customers’ financial questions

Using search insight and research data to find out which finance topics customers are struggling to understand is arguably the most powerful starting point when planning finance content.

Breaking down detailed financial information in a creative way means you can directly answer these queries in truly consumer-friendly ways – which is great for users and search engines alike.

Example: Interest Rates Explained infographic

Research carried out by the Money Advice Service (MAS) revealed that 75% of homeowners hadn’t considered how an interest rate rise would affect their mortgage repayments. We worked with the MAS team to create a question-based infographic that worked to fill a wide range of customer knowledge gaps to create a static infographic, which was also used by RBS.

2. Make complex financial information accessible

There’s no way around it – quite often, financial data or messaging can sometimes be mind-meltingly complex.

The big opportunity with visual content is to present a distillation of the technical, complicated or, dare we say it, sometimes boring in a way that’s instantly accessible. The best finance content marketing pairs clean, bright design with a clear editorial flow, visually guiding the user through the key points quickly and accurately.

Example: Remortgage Your Home infographic

With remortgages on the rise, the need for clear information about the processes involved is greater than ever. This linear left-to-right infographic for Google and the MAS succinctly presents the main steps to the complex process of remortgaging in a way that is intuitive and easy to digest.

3. Create interactive financial content

According to the Content Marketing Institute, interactive content provides ongoing support and ensures long-term satisfaction for existing customers, supporting retention goals. This highlights how effective interactive financial content can be for finance companies in communicating their key messages to customers.

We’ve found that interactive content marketing and tools can deliver impressive results in terms of finance marketing engagement. By its nature, the format draws the user into a branded online space in a personal way. For finance brands, this is an invaluable opportunity to positively connect and offer value to the customer, as well as an effective way to improve sentiment.

Example: Protecting Your World interactive microsite

This interactive visual tool helps people understand what insurance they need depending on their lifestyle and circumstances. After working through a series of scenarios, they’re then offered highly tailored advice on the policies that best suit them.

4. Plan to use content marketing assets across multiple channels

The key word here is ‘plan’ – ensuring from the very start that finance content marketing is created in a way that makes it easy to atomize and repurpose will (pun alert) pay dividends when it comes to distributing your message to users at different knowledge levels.

A long-form explainer piece about ISAs might be ideal for your website, for example, but don’t forget about creating a cut-down version that’s ready and waiting to post on social channels a week before the ISA deadline.

Plus, approving a suite of content along a theme – rather than creating it all individually – can make legal and compliance signoff go much more smoothly.

Example:  Save £3 a Day multi-format visual content

Since 71% of people experience high unexpected costs at some point in their lives, this content was designed to help people save £3 a day for a rainy day fund. We contributed to a suite of aligned visual content for web, social, outdoor and print PR, centred on a practical, data-led infographic.

5. Tell short finance stories that are quick to digest

Let’s face it – many of us struggle to fully understand the more detailed side of finance, and that can make the whole topic seem overwhelming. But, whether about personal finance or the bigger picture, ‘short stories’ are a great tactic for delivering intimidating-seeming data in a bitesize snapshot.

We regularly use data cards to visualize key finance stats and figures – ultimately, to turn them into a story. These cards can be easily understood in seconds, and leave a high impact, especially on social channels – after all, people remember 65% of information in text and images three days later, compared to only 10% of information in text.

Example:  Housing Data Stories

This series of data cards were developed for use across social channels. With UK housing costs continuing to rocket, especially in London, these cards visualize the latest data and trends in an easily consumable way that is particularly suitable for mobile users.

6. Use print in creative ways

To achieve impact in the physical world whilst also reaching less digitally-savvy customers, printed content offers a solution. But that doesn’t mean it has to be dull finance information presented in endless pages of text. Using original print formats that are attractive to look at – and even interact with – can really achieve cut-through. 

Example:  What’s your Money Goal? physical (printed) interactive content

Research by Asda, the Tinder Foundation and MAS showed that some of the UK’s least digitally confident consumers live in the North East. They asked us to create an interactive printed wheel that Asda shoppers could use in-store to help them plan their money goal.

7. Create topical content with PR potential

To drive up sentiment and brand trust, positive PR is an essential part of the mix for most financial brands, who often battle negative media on a daily basis. Topical visual content can be one of the most likely formats to be picked up by publishers, and can go a long way to boosting the volume of positive coverage.

Using exclusive proprietary figures or research about the financial hot topic within the content will make it even more compelling for publishers to reference, especially if it’s integrated with a PR campaign.

Example: Mortgage Checklist micro content

In April 2014, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) introduced tougher affordability checks on mortgage lenders. Working with the MAS PR team, we created a micro checklist explaining the new mortgage paperwork requirements.

The piece was featured on Rightmove and This Is Money, where it earned 137 comments, as well as the government’s ‘Housing Matters’ magazine. Facebook and Twitter versions of the graphic got 65,000 and 174,000 clicks respectively.

8. Establish clear visual content guidelines

Last but by no means least, it’s essential to work to content guidelines. This applies to all sectors, but especially for finance companies, where brand control and consistency is crucial in maintaining customer trust.

Having a set of content guidelines is also helpful for internal brand teams and agencies alike, making the content creation process simpler, faster and more likely to comply with brand and legal standards. Plus, it ensures that all of your content hangs together effectively, wherever it’s published.

Example: Money Advice Service infographic guidelines

Content guidelines should include advice on typography, responsive grids, hybrid content and the style and labeling of data. All these ensure designers have the flexibility to visualize information on a wide range of topics, while keeping the same look and feel.

Key takeaways for your finance content marketing strategy

Ultimately, all content marketers put the customer right at the centre of their decision-making process. This frame of mind applies equally, if not more so, to content marketers in the finance industry, due to the high level of trust needed to form relationships. With these tips, you can create awesome content marketing for your business and convert and retain more customers, efficiently.

Thanks to Richard Silvester for sharing his advice and opinions in this post. Richard Silvester is one of the emerging leaders behind the visual content movement having founded infogr8 one of UK’s most successful data led content agencies in London.