If you are a financial advisor and you are aware of the importance of digital marketing for your business, you may have asked yourself already this question: how can I generate content ideas that are useful and relevant?
You may have some idea of the importance of search engine optimisation and how content marketing plays an important role in optimising your website for searches in google and other platforms.
In this contribution I will address this issue. For me there are mainly four approaches to content marketing and you can think of these as drivers of a financial marketing content strategy. So let’s start.
Brainstorm: The Geek Approach
The geek approach is the most important approach you can take when thinking about writing a blog post or develop any other piece of content on the internet. It basically implies that you really need to understand what you are going to write about.
The most important aspect of the geek approach is that you fundamentally structure the different topics under discussion in the industry you are working by themes. Core themes and other. This will give you a clear understanding of what is going on.
Where can you collect information to start generating blog post ideas? Well amazon is a great place to start. If you buy a technical book about a particular subject you can not only answer the question you want to clarify, but also you can come up with other topic ideas that can be developed in future blog posts.
Once you find this structure, you can then move on and do your keyword research. And when you are developing your content you need to try and make sure that your text is adjusted so it becomes SEO-friendly.
Brainstorm: The Buyer Persona/FAQ Approach
The second approach that you can start developing is what could be called the “buyer persona” or the FAQ approach. What this means basically is that you need to start making a list of the main questions that your customers have about your financial services.
For me this approach is the most useful to develop intent-based marketing. Brainstorming what your client’s main problems are and what sort of questions they can have is therefore an important stage for the type of marketing I like to develop.
Where to get ideas from? Rather than using a keyword tool you would rather go to places where the communities you are interested in hangout. For example Quora is an awesome place to find frequently asked questions. Also, places like BuzzSumo and even your competitor’s websites can give you great sources of inspiration.
This type of brainstorm will help you develop your top-of-funnel content strategy.
Of course once this list is done, it can be adjusted to an SEO-friendly content piece. What this involves is going back to the quantitative approach and seeing if there is somehow a keyword that fits the idea/question that came out from the brainstorm session.
Brainstorm: The “I Need More” Approach
Once you figured out what the main pain points and aspirations of your customer avatar are, you need to start thinking that they may need more details about what you are offering. They may need to more exactly understand what you have to offer.
And here enters the next approach to content development you need to take into account. You need to start developing more specific engagement pieces. For example, an e-book detailing precisely what you offer, or a webinar where you go into greater detail about your services could be two options to consider.
This is what is also designated as middle-of-funnel- content strategy.
It is very difficult for you to submit this kind of approach to an SEO keyword tool. Fundamentally it requires you to engage your audience differently. So SEO optimised content does not work for this type of approach.
The Case-Study/Testimonial Approach
A pure SEO approach does not work for the case-study/testimonial approach as well. This type of content is relevant, however, for your overall digital marketing strategy.
If you have a really powerful case-study to present you should do it. It provides a powerful reason you can give to a potential client of how you achieved results in practice.
Also, you need to start making an effort to create a nice list of happy clients that are willing to write a testimonial about whatever you are selling.
Case-studies and testimonials should be the core of your bottom-of-funnel content strategy.
Brainstorm: The Technical Approach
If I look at the content being developed on this website, most of it starts with a particular technical problem of mine and from this technical concern I develop content.
This type of idea generation is therefore much more based on answering doubts and questions that are much more specific than what could be expected from previous approaches. These technical questions should also play a key role in any content marketing plan.
What is being done when this is developed is provide specific answers to very specific problems. And the consumer likes to see this as well.
Because you are dealing with very specific features of your products or services this type of content is part of your bottom-of-funnel content strategy as well. Product/service features and details take central stage here.
Once you come up with this idea what should occur as well is for you to try and see if from the keyword research already develop you can target a particular keyword from that list with this technical concern.
You need to try and adjust so your idea becomes SEO-friendly.
The News Approach
The final approach to start generating content ideas departs from the assumption that writing about “hot topics” in a particular industry should also be relevant and important.
A digital content plan should also include “thought leadership pieces”. Different from “hot topics”, this pieces will present you as someone who is up-to-date with the major trends in your industry.
Also relevant in this last approach are blog articles and content about what goes on inside your company. The consumer likes to understand who you are and bond with your business as a whole. This is one important element of any marketing strategy.
Conclusion
Content marketing should be more than just search engine optimisation friendly. If, broadly speaking, the function that content plays in marketing is to show you as an authority with expertise around a particular topic, and you should have a concern for SEO when developing your content pieces, your content plan needs to be more than this.
You need to start thinking about the buyer’s journey and on being technical. Also, start including in your plan broad pieces of what goes on in your industry and in your company.
A content marketing strategy for financial adivsors should also understand the buyer’s journey while creating bonds with your potential clients.
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