Gone are the days of boring financial advisor websites that tell you what you need to do with your money. Advisor websites are changing for the better. They’re becoming much more user-friendly, boast beautiful designs, and give prospects an opportunity to see in detail the team that will be helping them along their financial journey. In addition to the ever-changing nature of website design for advisors, blogging is a part of this rebirth and is growing in popularity.
Whether you have an established firm or are just getting started, we all know about the importance of developing a niche market. Still not convinced your firm needs to target a niche? Doing so will help your organization develop more leads and will ultimately create more value for your marketing dollars. Likewise, it is important for your blog to stand out in the niche market. So, just how do you go about doing this in an incredibly crowded marketplace?
Blogging plays a huge role in improving your website’s success as it can help give you that SEO boost. Blogging is also a great way to update your current clients and prospects about the current trends in the financial market, which is a great thought leadership play to show your potential clients that you are up-to-date on industry trends and that joining your firm may be a beneficial step for them to take! Not only is it important to first establish and set up your blog, but how do you make it stand out in your niche? Today we’re covering five tips to help you stand out in the crowd.
5 Ways For Your Blog to Stand Out
1. Forget Freelancers
Between keeping multiple clients happy and your office running smoothly, you have enough on your plate as a financial advisor, so how do you also keep up with a blog? Many things blogging can be a time-consuming endeavor that can zap you of your energy. But it doesn’t have to be!
You are accustomed to discussing finances and dealing with large sums of money, so writing may not be your strong suit, and because of this, you may be tempted to hire an outside freelancer. Why is this not a good idea though? Freelancers are often great writers, but nobody knows your content better than you and your team. How are you going to cater to your niche when the blog lacks the detail and awareness that only you can offer? In order to combat this, consider the following instead:
1. Use What You Have In-House
If you can use employees that understand your niche better than anyone else then you can engage them to write blog content. Even if the copywriting is not completely perfect, it will still be better to have content with engaging material from someone who really knows your business and target audience, than an outsider who may know AP-style like the back of their hand, but not understand the true pain-points of your niche market.
2. Publish Articles From Experts Using Guest Blogs
Guest blogging is a great way to produce content and generate conversation. At Twenty Over Ten, we love sharing insight from experts and professionals in the field and publishing their thoughts on our blog. When doing so, be sure that you’re working with reliable experts only to provide your readers with accurate information. In the example below, we partnered with Zoë Meggert, the founder of Perfectly Planned Content where she provided a great article on using evergreen versus timely content on your website.
3. Third-Party Content Providers
There are a few great industry-specific resources there to help you curate and share content on outlets like your blog, newsletter, and social media. Content Assist is a new type of content offering solution on the market that was developed specifically for financial advisors to assist them in creating blog posts. Built into Twenty Over Ten’s proprietary website-builder, users are able to choose blog posts by category (retirement, home-buying, young adults, etc.), load them into their website, and then edit and further optimize the content for search engines. Advisors have the ability to customize and edit the content to add their voice, SEO keywords, and further promote their expertise, or use the content as-is.
Lead Pilot is the industry’s first-ever AI-powered all-in-one solution for content creation and distribution. By using this tool, advisors are able to launch robust content campaigns from a streamlined, easy-to-use dashboard. Team members can collaborate and share content pieces, upload original content, and customize content from the media library. It not only includes blogs but also video and infographic content. Once it is added, the content can be easily scheduled to be sent out via email or social media with branded landing pages.
You may also want to consider other content resources for your firm such as Vestorly, Kiplinger, FMex, and others.
2. Only Include Comprehensive Content
With blogging growing in popularity, anyone who writes these days seems to think that what they have to say is important and that it will definitely help you. In order to stand out, you need to create high-quality content that will actually educate the reader. Ensure that the content your sharing is detailed, backed up by data and actionable.
When someone wants to see that you and your team is an expert in the field, they want to read something that will teach them something new, solve any problems they may have and give them something that nobody else is able to give them. It takes a lot to stand out these days, and you have to really work to make your blog shine.
In order to be successful here do not simply paraphrase or write something similar to what your competitors are doing, do not post generic articles and of course, stick to your niche! Twenty Over Ten client, Wealthkeel, LLC provides financial planning for Gen X and Gen Y physicians and that is evident in their blog posts.
3. Show, Don’t Just Tell
This part is very important, as you need to include visuals and images while telling great stories so that your readers can feel as though what they are reading is speaking to them individually and not just everyone that has landed on the site. How do you go about doing this?
Become a storyteller
As humans, we retain 70% of the information that we hear through stories and only 10% through data. Try to use stories when writing blog posts, or something that will resonate with your readers and make them feel as though it actually happened. Storytelling doesn’t have to be rocket science! Ask yourself these questions when blogging:
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- What problem are you solving?
- What inspired you to start?
- What did you do to fix the problem?
- What is your mission?
If you can include information to answer the above, then you should be able to captivate the reader and produce information that really strikes a chord with them.
get Visual
Visuals are extremely important when it comes to blogging. In fact, blog articles with images get 94% more views than blogs without pictures. When most think of visuals we think of charts, graphics, stock photos. However, according to Tech Crunch, the visual aspect that will make up 80% of all online traffic by 2012 is video, so don’t forget this visual asset too.
Twenty Over Ten client, Quarry Hill Advisors included a graph for their 2020 market recap with other images to provide some context along with the commentary.
4. Quality Over Quantity
This is an old saying, but it remains tried and true. If you are producing awesome content that really resonates with your readers and potential clients, then it will be near impossible to find the time to produce this every day, and that is okay.
If you are creating content just one to two times a week, if it is relevant and helpful, then readers can continue to check back because they know their questions can be answered by thoughtful content. This is much better than producing generic and irrelevant information every day because that will not help your readers in the long run.
5. Proper Promotion
Distribution of your content is also extremely important, because if you create awesome content, but don’t send it to the correct people or promote it properly, then nobody will get the chance to read it!
Ask yourself who is interested in what you have to say. Start with who you know, do you already have an email list established so you can communicate with current clients or perhaps other contacts that you have made through the years? If you do, then this is a great group to include on a distribution list. Creating distribution lists for your content will not only increase traffic to your website or blog but will also increase the chances that your content will re-shared by others.
Marketers report a 760% increase in email revenue from segmented campaigns.
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- Much like we’ve already discussed above, research the keywords and topics that interest you and see who else is writing and publishing content in the same vein. If you think that they too might be interested in what you have to say, then it would be a great idea to add them to your distribution lists as well.By segmenting your contacts like this through your email service provider, you will be able to tailor your email content to the right individuals, which will help to grow existing relationships or start one. For example, you wouldn’t want to send a current client and a cold lead the same type of information as they are in different journeys.
Key Takeaways
Marketing is no longer about cold-calling or producing content just every once in a while but rather about producing high-quality content that drives traffic to your website and shows that you are a thought-leader in the industry. As you know, niching down can help you so much when it comes to getting providing the best services to your clients and following the five steps above, can really help your blog section to stand out among your audience.
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About the author
Blair Kelly
Blair is a digital marketing assistant at Twenty Over Ten and has a passion for uncovering what drives online traffic and the highest engagement. She follows more animals on Instagram than humans and her greatest achievement is her daughter, Grey.
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