Establishing trust is one of the hardest challenges a fintech brand faces. Convincing people to place their faith in someone else to manage their money isn’t easy.
This natural scepticism must be bridged if you are to succeed, and one of the most effective ways to do this is via an industry leading content marketing strategy.
Creating original content that builds trust and showcases expertise is one of the most important brand building activities there is.
As we look ahead to 2020, we’ve been giving serious thought to which content marketing activities are likely to thrive as we take our first tentative steps into a new decade.
Interactive content will thrive
Thanks to ever increasing broadband speeds and 5G connectivity, brands now have the power to make their content more immersive and engaging than ever before.
And as more brands rush to take advantage of this, we expect audiences to begin demanding it from their content too.
Whilst the entertaining and informative blog or whitepaper will always have a solid place in the content marketing pantheon, you can expect to see clever use of interactive on-page design and UX techniques to keep people engaging with content for longer.
Podcasts will continue to expand
Podcasts have a unique ability to place your brand inside your audiences’ head with an actual human voice.
As brands seek to establish an industry leading presence in increasingly competitive markets, expect to see professionally produced podcasts becoming more widely used as part of their content strategy.
Fintech brands face an ever-increasing battle as search engines like Google aggressively target them with tougher ranking criteria. This is due to the highly negative impact poor quality products can have on consumers.
So, anything that helps to set a brand apart as a trusted industry player is not only good for conversion rates and brand trust but also SEO.
Google’s BERT update means no hiding place for bad content
In late 2019 Google rolled out a major update to its algorithm that enables it to better understand context and intent.
The update had a major impact across the finance sector which, along with health and travel, saw huge volatility in the search engine results pages.
It’s all part of a long-term trend that sees Google becoming more adept at understanding and rewarding great content, whilst punishing the bad.
Finance and fintech brands simply must respect the need for detailed and exhaustive content that establishes trust at every stage of the consumer journey.
Google has singled out finance and all evidence suggests that they will continue to do so because of the potential this sector has to change people’s lives for the good and the bad.
If you operate in this market, and want organic traffic from search engines, you have no choice but to use search marketing experts to help produce content in line with Google’s guidelines.
Personalisation breeds success
We are seeing more and more brands using personalised content and tailored user journeys to win conversions.
With 95% of content consumers never converting, smart brands are recognising that adopting a more personalised and tailored approach is the way ahead.
A recent Forbes survey found that 80% of consumers are more likely to choose a company that delivers a personalised experience.
Email marketing is one of the best ways to achieve this, with segmented and personalised content that allows you to connect with people in a more meaningful way.
Which is just as well, because…
Email marketing is getting harder
With many marketing agencies reporting up to 10% fewer clicks in 2019, it looks like we are entering a more challenging period for email marketing.
With that in mind it becomes more essential than ever to work with expert e-marketers who understand the challenges and have strategies in place to overcome them.
Whether its through more and better personalisation (as detailed above) or more expert list managing processes, working with skilled professionals will be a must.
It’s important to stress that email marketing remains a strong channel and will continue to be an essential part of the mix for many years to come.
Just remember that you no longer have the luxury of getting reasonable results from poorly executed campaigns.
Social media will, er, well…
It’s fair to say that 2019 was the year that a lot of us fell out of love with social media. Traffic from social media channels dipped and many of the expected traffic gains have failed to materialise.
Whilst social media still offers tantalising access to an audience of millions, getting people to take the next step and leave their chosen platform to engage with your content isn’t quite so easy.
Whilst traffic and conversion from social media has gone down, organic traffic from search engines (SEO) increased in 2019 and is still the strongest and best performing lead generation channel on the web.
Whilst social remains and important brand building channel, increasing exposure and building brand awareness as part of a content marketing strategy, it is your SEO strategy that will deliver inbound enquiries through your website.
Conclusion
Content marketing remains one of the most important marketing activities and will continue to thrive in 2020 and beyond. Content is still king.
Having a well thought out strategy is essential and keeping ahead of the curve remains challenging, as search engines and technology evolves at an ever-increasing rate.
Don’t expect to see great results with thinly worded posts, make sure your content rich and helpful. It should be designed for user intent and help users across all stages of the buying cycle, whether they’re in the discovery, comparison or completion phase.
How are you going to get your message you there in 2020? Do you already have a detailed plan, or are you hoping that those 500 words of copy that you stuck on the home page last summer are going to be enough?
