Enhancing Relationships Through Content 

If the crisis taught marketers and client-facing teams just one thing it would be this: content that informs, connects and inspires action from clients is a “must have” in this brave new world. This sort of content has become hotly coveted and increased in value – with those who are producing it reaping rewards as a result. Indeed, after the peak of the pandemic in June 2020, the FT reported that wealth managers who maintained quality and personal communications with clients during the crisis felt they’d actually enhanced their relationships.

So, what’s the secret sauce recipe for creating such content?

The Recipe for Content Success? Focus on the Readers’ Content Experience

For a full list of the 10 best practices for creating and marketing investment content, download Savvy Investor’s print-friendly infographic and check out the Content Marketing Survey and Forecast 2020 here.

Step 1: Get Personal, and Always Think Client-First

• Struggling to decide what to write about? Finding a thought-leadership topic can often be the first roadblock. A great place to start is by identifying commonly asked client questions and then shortlisting in-demand topics and themes.
• Ensure you’re writing with purpose, and make sure that purpose is clear to the reader. So, before embarking on your next piece of investment content, ask yourself, “What is the reader gaining from this?” Is it a fresh perspective, or more of an exposé? Is it a primer on something technical, or a deep dive on a specific subject?
• Think about how you want the reader to feel after consuming the content. For example, is the intention to alleviate any worries, or are you trying to influence decision making? This is best achieved when the writer has greater insight, or different insight, than the reader – so write about something you are confident with or have an interesting take on, and ensure the content is lucidly expressed.
• Make sure your title is client-first too, by keeping it simple and descriptive. The Savvy Investor platform shows that papers which avoid cryptic titles and take a “does what it says on the tin” approach, achieve higher engagement, greater pick-up and better targeting.

Step 2:  Maintain Engagement by Creating Content that’s Easy on The Eye

• Ever opened a document and thought – “wow, that’s dense”? Make your content work as hard as possible by creating reports that are reader-friendly and easy to digest. Ensure that your papers and website utilise white space properly so that content looks uncluttered.
• Help prevent readers from checking out by using navigational cues within the content such as headings, sub-headings and chapters where relevant.
• Optimise these headings for scannability by writing simple titles that summarise the content beneath. If the salient takeaways can be understood by reading the titles alone, then you’ve done a good job.