Staying relevant in finance feels like a constant uphill battle.
Building meaningful client relationships? Tough. Competing with the big digital players? Even tougher. And don’t get us started on juggling regulatory and security requirements.
But content marketing can be your secret weapon. With smart personalization, in-depth analysis, and continuous testing, you can connect with your ideal customers and check off those boxes.
In this article, we’ll dive into tools and tips for managing content effectively, how to measure success, and ways to seamlessly integrate your content across channels.
The Role of Content Marketing in Investment Management Client Relations
Content marketing can help build relationships with customers through targeted content. Some of the results include better trust and personalization.
Building Trust Through Content
When the markets do well, everyone feels secure with their investment choices. However, the mark of a good investment firm is the ability to keep their client’s trust during volatile market conditions and sudden changes to investment portfolios. Content such as market insights and portfolio updates go a long way during these times. But tough investment times also require firms to be transparent with their content so clients know the investment landscape.
Another way to build trust is to highlight the firm’s past performance. Reports, case studies, and performance reviews showcase the firm’s reputation and help clients trust that the firm knows how to manage investments over time.
Aligning Content With Client Goals
Investment firms have a duty to understand their client goals before recommending an investment path. They can achieve this through:
- Knowing Your Client: Tailor content to address the unique needs of your clients. For example, high-net-worth individuals have different goals than beginners, so craft messaging according to investment goals than those just starting on their investment journey.
- Addressing Pain Points: Break down complex topics like market volatility and investment risk, offering clear strategies to help clients navigate fluctuations confidently.
- Creating Goal-Oriented Content: Share actionable insights on topics like retirement strategies, tax-efficient investing, and estate planning to help clients meet their financial goals, from capital growth to long-term liquidity.
Strategies for Creating Long-Term Value-Driven Content
When you create content, you want it to stand against the various changes that can happen in the investment world. Longevity is the key to value-driven content, and you can do this through the following:
Personalization and Client Segmentation
Knowing your client is just the first step. To create value-driven content, you also need to understand segmentation and tailor content to address each group’s unique challenges. Use data and analytics to personalize your content for both institutional and retail clients. Here’s how:
- Market Trends and Analysis: Share economic reports and forecasts, but don’t just inform — educate. Break down what the data means for clients, empowering them to make informed decisions.
- Performance Metrics: Go beyond the numbers. Compare your funds to others, highlight risk-adjusted returns, and explain performance within each fund’s asset class to give clients a clearer understanding.
- Customized Analysis: Offer personalized insights on individual portfolios, addressing potential risks like market volatility or regulatory changes. By being proactive, you build trust and help clients feel more secure.
Consistent and Ongoing Communication
One way to put investment clients at ease is to provide clear and consistent communication. A way to do this is to have a clear content calendar to address matters as they arise and a consistent touchpoint with your clients. This is done through newsletters, white papers, and webinars, which keep clients informed and engaged.
Educating Clients to Strengthen Relationships
An informed client is more likely to trust an investment firm that offers education, as they would like to be prepared for any eventuality plus understand the possible upturns and downturns. An informed client trusts better, engages more easily, and is more likely to stay loyal to a firm.
Building trust through education includes creating content that addresses common client questions about market performance, regulatory changes, and investment strategies. By knowing more, clients are far less anxious to invest, and as a firm, you can align your clients’ expectations more readily with the actual market trends and forecasts.
Using Different Content Formats to Drive Engagement
Content can help you reach areas of your target market that regular advertising or communication may not. Some of the best content formats to use to drive engagement include:
Written Content (Blogs, White Papers, and Case Studies)
Your brand can use in-depth written content to communicate insights and build authority through the following methods:
- Thought Leadership: Investment firms can demonstrate their skill and authority by publishing authoritative content on topics investors want to know about. These include whitepapers, research reports, and economic and market commentary. With these, investment firms can delve deeper into market trends, complex financial topics, and asset class performance.
- Data-Driven Insights: Through performance reports and case studies, firms can show how they respond to market conditions and how this affects their performance. These offer real-world examples, which provides an added layer of trust.
- Original Research and Insights: Institutional and high-net-worth clients value original research. This can include proprietary models and forecasts. Firms can also share innovative investment strategies and insights into niche sectors that may have been overlooked before. This allows investors a wider range of investment options.
Video and Interactive Content
According to Wyzowl, 91 percent of businesses use video content as part of their content marketing strategy, and with good reason, as 90 percent of marketers agree that video marketing gives them good ROI. Investment firms can use video content such as webinars and explainer videos to boost their reach. This method also allows investment firms to offer personalized insights, strengthening client engagement.
Interactive content, such as investment return calculators, not only drives organic traffic but also engages existing clients more dynamically.
Measuring the Success of Content in Client Retention
Know whether your content strategy works by measuring the outcomes through intuitive tools.
Tracking Engagement Metrics
Content can help you drive better customer retention, and ways to track this include:
- Engagement Rates: To improve your investor’s interaction with your content, create content that will prompt a reaction, such as calls to action or opinion polls. To increase engagement, create thought-provoking content and use a targeted content strategy.
- Time on Page: How long site visitors spend on your page matters. To increase these rates, ensure your site has a fast loading speed and content that’s easily digestible and that demands interaction.
- Content Downloads: The shareability of your content can increase through visual and insightful content, original stories, and making the most of current trends.
Assessing Impact on Client Retention
Content can help you drive better customer retention, and ways to track this include:
- Customer Feedback and Surveys: Net promoter scores (NPS) and customer surveys can provide valuable customer insights. Use the information to develop products and services your customers actually want.
- Client Journey: Client journey takes you through your customer’s journey so you can see where in the process they decide to hop on to a competitor. It helps you understand your customers’ pain points and decision-making moments.
- Personalized Content: Measure how personalized content affects client retention by seeing how many respond to additional offers or reinvestment strategies.
Continuous Optimization of Content Strategy
Constant tracking and analyzing the results of your content can provide a clear path to use to optimize your content. Methods to use include:
- A/B Testing: Your users can help you map out a content strategy and find out which call to action, wording, and site design resonate the most with your site visitors.
- Tracking Key Performance Indicators (KPIs): Analyze engagement metrics, customer feedback, and conversion rates. Improve these metrics with audience-centric content, better content distribution through multiple platforms, and clearing conversion pathways.
- Evaluate Content Performance Over Time: You want to see the lifecycle of your content and the effect of evergreen content. Over time, you can track how your content performs against competitors, whether your content is relevant, and adapt to changing algorithms.
To remain relevant, your content strategy must evolve with client needs, regulatory changes, and market conditions.
Integrating Marketing Into Overall Client Relationship Strategies
A seamless content experience across channels and teams can produce a better overall client experience, which results in better client relationships.
Collaboration Between Content Marketing and Client Services Teams
One of the ways to ensure your content marketing hits home is to ensure that it aligns with the work of relationship managers and client services teams in a collaborative effort. Here’s how:
- Educational Content for Client Interactions: Relationship managers (RMs) and client service can provide insightful information such as portfolio reports and market analyses to drive effective communication. This includes scripts, prompts, and collaborative learning material.
- Tailored Content: RMs and service teams can tailor content according to their client’s needs analysis. This means understanding the client’s lifecycle and using the appropriate content, for instance, whether they’re in the home-buying phase, close to retirement, or diversifying their investments.
- Cross-Channel Integration: RMs can use multiple channels, such as social media platforms and emails, to distribute content, such as blogs and webinars. Client service teams can also use chat services and push notifications to promote content from sales material to educational content.
- Client Feedback: RMs and client service teams are far better positioned to garner and analyze client feedback as they still have the advantage of direct contact.
Using Content to Reinforce Client Touchpoints
There are many ways to ensure investment firms remain in contact with their customers. Some of these include:
- Regular performance updates
- Quarterly meetings
- Annual reviews
Regular content allows clients to keep the firm top of mind, but it also builds trust, especially when the communication addresses key concerns or pain points.
A Valuable Content Strategy Can Build Your Investment Firm’s Brand
Content marketing is essential to building your brand by improving long-term client relationships. With content marketing, you can alleviate certain customer pain points and provide a clear path to follow during volatile investment conditions. It helps build trust as you share your expertise.
Putting a content strategy doesn’t have to take hours out of your day or place your existing team under pressure. At ClearVoice, we offer content solutions that will drive your brand, build trust, and personalize your content. Connect with a content strategist to discuss your content strategy goals and needs.
