Fintech Content Marketing

Advertisements full of blunt calls to action deliver very poor results because people often don’t even notice them. Today, a customer takes their time to think about a potential purchase, study the brand they are going to buy from, read and watch reviews. There’s one thing that can motivate them to get closer to a brand, win their trust, and affect their decision. It’s helpful content where you describe benefits of your products or services and invite customers to use them.

Content creation is about generating ideas relevant to your community, clients, users, prospects; implementing these ideas in text or graphic forms; presenting this information to your audience in the format they like. Designing helpful content is the cornerstone of marketing efforts for businesses and the most labour-intensive work for marketers.

Types of content

By classifying content, marketers can build content plans. We classify all materials into two categories: by the way they are presented and by what they comprise. Inside each category, there are 4 types of content. And each piece of content can be attributed to one of the types within each category.

By way of presentation, content is categorised as follows:

1. Text. Description of a company or project, description of a product or service, white papers, press releases, interviews, SEO texts, blog posts, email newsletters, messages on social media.
2. Visual. Company photos, diagrams, roadmaps, infographics, GIFs.
3. Audio. Podcasts, audio interviews, audiobooks.
4. Video. Animations, webinars, video guides, video interviews, event recordings, viral videos.

By what it comprises, content is categorised as follows:

1. Informational. Master classes, overviews, answers to frequently asked questions, testimonials, guides, checklists.
2. Selling. Announcements of deals or discounts, cases, proposals, reviews, landing pages, selling posts on social media.
3. Engaging. Quizzes, Q&A sessions, polls, opinion texts, hot-button issue texts, tests.
4. Entertaining. Puzzles, riddles, interesting facts, comics, memes, motivational and demotivational images, provocative texts, quotes.

Content goals and objectives

The purpose of creating and publishing any content is to attract new and repeat customers. Using content, you familiarise your audience with your brand and provide readers with information that will motivate them to buy from you.

Companies use different types of content marketing at each sales funnel stage. At the top are optimized blogs that source new visitors from search engines. In the middle are landing pages called to maintain reader interest. And detailed content (e.g. articles on the company’s website) contributes to conversions.

Creating content, you supply your audience with free and helpful information, attract prospects to your website, and retain the existing clients. The effort you put into your content is directly proportional to the value you get from it.

Good content helps you tackle the following tasks:

• Stand out as a respected opinion leader
• Showcase your company’s expertise
• Enlarge your audience
• Attract new members to your communities
• Boost website traffic
• Engage clients

Marketers are convinced that content delivers great value to companies. A recent survey reflects their opinion:

• 40% say content is an important part of their marketing strategy
• 81% say their company considers content an element of their business strategy
• 10% of those using blogs in content marketing say this activity pays off the best

Data from the B2B sector suggests that content marketing has become a powerful tool to attract prospects (60%), generate revenue (51%), and form a follower community (47%).

Creating content for a website and social media

When creating unique content for your website, you should conduct research to understand how your visitors make their decisions and what content they prefer.

All content published on your website must act as a lead generation mechanism. This means that your website must be optimized and indexed so that search engines rank it highly. As for content quality, it must be flawless — to ensure that your content provides initial value to visitors. When adjusting to search engines, don’t forget about people.

However, your website itself only promotes your brand. For a greater effect, you need to enhance your presence on social media, partner with influencers, and employ other content marketing channels. In combination with skilful SEO, such an approach will drive new—and returning—customers to your website.

Social media is also useful in content marketing. You can share some text excerpts to promote your blog posts. In the B2C sector, new customers mainly learn about products from social media. This makes them a perfect place that provides social proof to marketers.

When creating content for social media, remember that you have very little time to grab a reader’s attention. All you have is a short period during which a user moves their finger to scroll down their feed. No more than 2 or 3 seconds. Use catchy headings and images, emojis, hashtags, and visual effects — everything that could help your post stand out.

Creating SEO content

In terms of SEO, content is created for two audiences: search engines and people. While it is easier to write for natural readers, it may be a big deal to satisfy the algorithms of Google and Bing.

Before 2010, SE optimizers and writers could pack their pages with keywords to get to the best SERP positions. Today, such a trick won’t take you to the top, especially for commercial queries from people who are ready to buy.

For example, a query like ‘buy bitcoin for cash’ means a user wants to find a bitcoin ATM nearby or make a P2P/OTC transaction with someone from their town. The search algorithm will check the user’s location and other factors to determine which web pages to show first. And if your crypto exchange doesn’t offer cash transactions in that town, your landing page about bitcoin won’t appear on the SERP. Even if you add the same keyword to it.

In the B2B sector, or if your fintech company offers online services, things may be a bit trickier. Location isn’t the only factor shaping a user’s decision here. You will need content adapted to each stage of the customer journey — right from their search query.

You need to create content at the top of the funnel (e.g. blog posts) and make it relevant to the intent of visitors coming from search engines. After that, optimize this content for search engines so users can easily find information they need.

Polygant renders content creation and SEO services. Contact us on Telegram or use the feedback form to discuss what your website needs to get promoted and convert visitors into buyers.

Content creation principles

The first stage in content marketing is when you define the goals. Articulate the goals your strategy is called to achieve. For example:

• Generate leads
• Boost conversions
• Increase brand awareness
• Improve the company’s reputation

Show this list to your content authors and make sure they understand these goals. Revisit the goal list regularly to check if you still go the right way.

The content creation process must be consistent with your fintech business. It usually consists of 8 steps:

1. Remember the goals. Always keep your goals in mind when brainstorming content ideas.
2. Define your content’s place in the customer journey. Review the customer journey and reflect on where your content could appear. Content at the top of the funnel must answer the questions and showcase your expertise. More detailed content at the bottom must catalyse a user’s decision to buy.
3. Generate ideas. The first idea can be a brilliant one, but that doesn’t happen every time. Come up with several ideas, review the pros and cons of each of them. Share your ideas with your colleagues to get a fresh take. Listen to their ideas.
4. Do some research. Having come up with content ideas, take your time and study. You will need a kit of SEO tools to identify missing keywords and frequently asked questions. If your subject is intricate, you may need to interview an expert.
5. Pick a format and design content. Are you going to keep a blog, design infographics, or record podcasts? Think of the way your audience likes to consume content and how to present your information. You may need some extra research.
6. Publish and promote your content. If you just share something on your website and leave it, don’t wait for your prospects to find your content. Getting featured on the SERP takes a while. Embark on promotion on social media, send some email newsletters. They will help you attract new customers faster.
7. Analyse content performance. Use analytics tools to evaluate your content. Blog posts and landing pages may need up to 3 months to show real results, so be patient.
8. Update and optimize your content. If your content doesn’t align with your expectations, do some analysis to find what should be improved. You may have to use other keywords, answer additional questions, or cover more topics.

Content publishing

Content marketing is all about consistency. The pace at which you publish your content will depend on your experience and expectations of your audience.

If you are only starting a blog, it is better to keep it low-key, publishing 1 to 2 posts a week and speeding up a month later. But if you rush from the beginning and shoot off 4 to 5 posts a week, you are likely to burn out soon.

After you set the pace, start building your content plan. It will help you visualise the post schedule so you can plan each phase of your process. Be sure to include the following elements in your plan:

• Topics, ideas, events
• Post headings
• Types of content
• Dates of publishing
• Statuses

When planning, be guided by your content marketing goals. For example, if you have three principal goals, alternate your posts to maintain the balance.

Content team

Some brands were built by a single influencer. There are wizards who can develop a content marketing strategy, publish content on a regular basis, analyse performance, and influence the process. All on their own.

However, most brands have teams behind them. Managing content marketing efforts efficiently is a huge deal that requires a lot of energy and creative power. You might want to form your own team or hire an outsourced crew to distribute the tasks.

Think about who your team needs. Maybe you are missing one of these content marketing specialists:

• A strategist. Creates content strategies according to business goals and market trends.
• A writer. Researches topics, composes texts.
• An editor. Generates ideas, draws up ToR for the writer, edits texts.
• A graphic designer. Develops corporate identity, designs layouts, edits images.
• An SMM manager. Creates content for social media, publishes posts, monitors the performance.
• A video editor. Creates videos from user-generated and stock media, makes animations.
• A team lead / project manager. Supervises the project, manages deadlines and assignees, identifies bottlenecks.

How to find out whether your content works

Talking about new content makes no sense unless you measure your performance. Always use analytics tools to inspect each article you publish.

Analytics will show you what you are doing right or wrong and help you find growth points. You can redo or optimize your content until it meets your expectations.

Polygant creates powerful content for fintech projects it manages. But if someone sent you poor materials or they are out of date, we are ready to revamp them. Call or write to us, and we will tell you more about what content for fintech must look like.