Fintechs come in all shapes and sizes.
Some are looking to drive brand awareness, others to launch a new product or service, and you have the ones that simply want to get some skin in the game and carve out some initial market share.
Wherever they are in their business journey, content marketing can offer the keys to the kingdom for all fintechs.
Why?
Because fintech content marketing is one of the best ways to differentiate in an increasingly crowded space. In fact, projections show the fintech market will become a $1.5 trillion industry by 2030. That will make standing out a Herculean task.
The sooner you kick off your content marketing strategy, the sooner you can position your fintech to weather the competitive storm on the horizon.
To help you prepare, we’re covering the ins and outs of content marketing for fintech: why it’s important, how to craft a strategy around your business goals, and best practices for managing compliance and forever-changing content trends.
But First, What Is Content Marketing?
By definition, content marketing is the process of creating and distributing valuable and relevant content to your ideal audience. The goal is to move your audience through key stages of the buyer’s journey from awareness to conversion.
In other words, content marketing gives your prospects the information they need to become confident customers when they need it most.
But how does it work?
Old-school content marketing favored a “spray and pray” approach, or mass content blasts to large audiences. Think TV or radio commercials, print ads in high-circulation magazines, direct mailing to huge lists…you get the idea.
Today, successful content marketing is much more personalized. It champions targeted content that addresses prospects’ unique pain points, challenges, objections, and motivations at all stages of the marketing funnel.
Plus, content marketing is about more than just blogging—content is everywhere. Every search you run, most social media you consume, it’s all “content.”
And while content marketing isn’t new (there was a time we couldn’t escape “content is king”) its significance in fintech cannot be overstated. Fintech companies face unique challenges, including building trust and addressing data security concerns. Given the sensitive nature of financial transactions, establishing a sense of trust with potential customers is crucial.
Content marketing helps fintechs tell their story and position their brands as trusted partners. By providing relevant and transparent information, fintechs can demonstrate their expertise, build confidence with their audience, and, most importantly, deliver value.
Big picture: if you want to reach the right people at the right time with the right information, then content marketing will help propel your fintech to marketing success.
Why Is Content Marketing Important for Fintechs?
In an industry where money changes hands, data concerns are top of mind, and trust is earned, content is a vessel for credibility and security.
Content marketing has a seat at the table no matter where your fintech is in its growth journey. From funded startups to large enterprise organizations, all can all benefit from strategic content marketing.
That’s because content:
- Builds brand awareness.
- Positions you and your brand as an authority.
- Educates the market and your target audience.
- Fuels lead generation and conversion.
But don’t take our word for it—the numbers speak for themselves.
According to Semrush, 97% of marketers surveyed in The State of Content Marketing 2023 Global Report have found success with content marketing. Of those who have seen success, 77% plan to increase their content marketing budgets.
Clearly, the return on investment is there—organizations just need to be willing to invest money, time, and effort into developing a customized content marketing strategy.
Eight Steps To Build a Fintech Content Strategy
As with any well-laid plan, your “why” should inform your “how.”
At CSTMR, we follow an eight-step process to ensure our fintech clients’ content marketing strategies are comprehensive and drive them toward their goals.
1. Set Clear Goals
You can’t decide what steps to take until you clearly understand where you’re trying to go. It’s like going on a trip without a destination; you wind up wandering around aimlessly without direction.
Understand what your fintech wants to achieve. It could be increasing lead generation, improving conversion rates, reducing churn, or something else. What you’re trying to achieve will inform your marketing messages, channel distribution, and how you measure success.
Above all (and this gets into the next few points), remember that your content marketing goals can’t exist in a vacuum.
To move beyond the “spray and pray” mentality referenced earlier, it is important to understand all of the elements that come together to make content marketing work.
2. Understand Your Audience
To create content that solves your audiences’ concerns, you must first know who they are, what they want, and what drives them.
This is where buyer personas come in handy. By defining and documenting the characteristics of your ideal client or customer, your team can be on the same page when marketing to your audience.
3. Analyze Your Competition
Looking at what your competition is doing can help you understand the areas they are finding success.
While you never want to copy your competitors’ strategy, analyzing your competition’s marketing channels, key messages, and frequency can give you ideas and help inform your strategy.
For example, if your competitors occupy a lot of digital real estate in the Google SERPs (which you can easily see with a tool like ahrefs or Semrush), it would be wise to pay attention to what they are doing and how they are doing it.
4. Button Up Your SEO Strategy
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a big part of the content marketing process, especially with respect to blog article production.
Your SEO-related work will be crucial to your content marketing efforts because it ensures that your content reaches the right audience.
By understanding what your target audience is searching for, you can create content that answers their questions, solves their problems, and meets their needs. This increases the likelihood that your content will rank higher, driving more organic traffic to your website.
High-ranking content, especially educational content that delivers actionable guidance, not only attracts more visitors but also builds your authority and credibility in the eyes of your target audience (and Google).
Here, your SEO work will mainly focus on identifying trending/priority keywords and topics relevant to your audience.
5. Understand Your Distribution Channels
While it feels like you need to be everything, everywhere, all at once to be successful with content marketing, that’s not true if you want to maximize your ROI and resources.
Ask yourself: where is it worth planting and watering seeds for future growth? Examine where your audience lives online today to pick the channels you want to promote content.
6. Build a Content Editorial Calendar
Now, the fun can begin.
Before you draft content, build an editorial calendar that organizes content topics, distribution channels, and publication dates.
Remember, content marketing is not just posting blog articles. It involves visual and interactive elements, like videos, infographics, and images. These content formats are beneficial to SEO, and they appeal to a wider range of audience preferences and learning styles.
Add all content formats you plan to use to your editorial calendar for a holistic view of your content plan.
Need ideas? Leverage data-driven insights from your platforms. Look at Google Analytics to understand how past content performed. Look at email open and click-through rates. Look at social content with the most engagement.
You may also want to talk to your fintech’s sales, customer support, or product team to learn about the problems your audience encounters. This information can guide your topic brainstorming process.
7. Create Content
Isn’t it interesting how content creation is not number one on this list?
That’s because creating an intentional content marketing strategy requires a lot of research and understanding up front.
Once you have the editorial calendar, distribution channels, personas, competitive analysis, and goals in front of you, it’s time to create, post, and repurpose content.
8. Measure Content Marketing Success
You can’t know what’s working (and what’s not) without consistently looking at the metrics and measuring success.
Remember those goals we set earlier? Set aside time to analyze metrics and performance data regularly. Use those insights to iterate and optimize your content marketing strategies.
For example, for blog content, your KPIs could be keyword rankings, organic traffic, engagement rate, impressions, clicks, CTR, and more.
Compliance and Regulations: Content Marketing Best Practices
While the fundamentals of content marketing remain consistent whether you’re marketing a B2B or B2C brand, there are some unique considerations for fintechs that you should be aware of before diving in feet first.
No matter what corner of the financial services market you serve, your company will surely encounter regulatory hurdles.
Several regulatory agencies, including the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), SEC, FINRA, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), and others, oversee all things fintech and financial services. Your firm’s specific regulatory requirements depend on your offer, products or services, and affiliations.
Familiarizing yourself with laws—like the FTC’s Truth-in-Advertising Law, the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, the Investment Advisory Act, and Anti-Money Laundering/Know Your Customer (AML/KYC)—can save you a lot of headaches.
Any company using content marketing must also comply with other laws, such as data privacy and security regulations like CAN-SPAM in the United States, GDPR in Europe, and CCPA in California. These laws protect consumers from unlawful use of their data and are especially relevant to fintechs that engage in email marketing.
The bottom line?
Work closely with your compliance department and legal teams to understand changing advertising and marketing compliance requirements so your fintech doesn’t end up in regulatory hot water.
Trends in Fintech Content Marketing
Content marketing trends come and go in two shakes of a lamb’s tail. Staying current can feel like a full-time job. But deciphering between game-changing innovations and passing ships can be even more difficult.
Here are a few trends and innovations in the fintech content marketing space we’re watching:
All Eyes on AI
While generative AI is all the rage in headlines, it is not the silver bullet solution so many believe it to be. It certainly has its uses, but AI is not the end-all-be-all solution for content creation.
We could go on and on about AI, but that’s not what we’re focused on today. If you want to know our thoughts on AI, our CEO shared his opinion recently.
Here’s a preview: it’s a complement to human creativity and subject matter expertise, not a replacement.
More Demand for Personalization
From personalized e-commerce product recommendations to the inundation of nail-on-the-head Instagram ads, we are getting used to and demanding more personalization in our daily lives.
How valuable is personalization in modern digital marketing?
Well, according to McKinsey, “it can reduce customer acquisition costs by as much as 50 percent, lift revenues by 5 to 15 percent, and increase marketing ROI by 10 to 30 percent.”
Appealing to your audience’s needs in a tailored manner will make them feel cared for and understood, and will boost the bottom line.
Staying Current on Social Trends
Anyone who frequents social media knows how quickly trends change. While it may seem like a good idea to jump on the latest fad, it may not always be the best idea.
Getting derailed by shiny object syndrome can distract you from higher-impact tasks.
Of course, not every trend is worth pivoting to. But knowing which trends, innovations, platforms, and technologies have emerged is critical to confidently evaluate content marketing strategies for your fintech.
CSTMR: Your Partner in Fintech Content Marketing
The foundation of any successful fintech content marketing strategy is a robust understanding of the industry’s complex mosaic.
Sure, creating a fintech content marketing strategy can feel overwhelming—especially if your priorities are not quite there yet. But that’s where a partner like CSTMR comes into play.
CSTMR helps fintechs juggle all components of a successful content marketing strategy. We understand the little details that deliver big results, and our deep fintech marketing expertise means that excellence comes as the standard. If you want to see how we can help, learn about our fintech content marketing services today. You can also visit our deep vault of fintech marketing insights and educational resources, or reach out to learn more.
