Content marketing is one of the most powerful channels in any financial institution’s toolkit.

Financial products and services are complex, involve a high degree of customer trust and commitment, and are subject to stringent know-your-customer requirements. Taken together, these factors result in a much longer customer journey than a typical consumer purchase.

This is an environment in which content marketing excels. Today’s customers want to thoroughly research and understand financial solutions before signing up for them – and most of that research is being done digitally. By using content marketing to educate, inform and nurture potential customers, financial institutions will be able to position themselves as a trusted advisor of choice.

But thanks to the complexity of financial products, me-too content and “google research papers” are not enough. In order to stand out, banks and fintechs need content that provides unique informational value. Here are some ways to do that:

1. Share Original Research

The most straightforward way to create unique content is to share exclusive insights, data or analysis that others don’t have access to. As Jeremy Moser of uSERP puts it:

“Content marketing is incredibly saturated with “thought leaders” and “influencers” however, they aren’t exactly helpful in determining what works and what doesn’t in an ever-evolving digital landscape. On the contrary, original research gives you deep insights into what industry professionals and startups alike are doing; good or bad.”

The most common format for original research is the white paper: a medium-length report that educates readers about a complex issue. They’re not meant to be overtly promotional, but are focused on explaining subjects or trends in a way that aligns with the organization’s philosophy. In other words, the primary purpose of a white paper is to establish the organization’s expertise in a particular topic, not to directly sell specific products.

For example, Fintel’s white paper on financial customer acquisition pulls together insights from leading experts in digital marketing for financial institutions. It highlights key trends that played out during 2020 and were likely to accelerate in 2021 and beyond, thus providing financial marketers with a broad view of where the market is headed.

While we do highlight specific challenges that Fintel’s financial affiliate network can help address, the white paper is squarely focused on informational value first. This is the best way to ensure that your white papers are shared widely and help as many people as possible.

2. Design Interactive Content

While the digital world is awash in static content, interactive content is still relatively rare, and thus attention-grabbing.

According to research by the Demand Gen Report, 93% of marketers found interactive content effective at educating buyers, while only 70% agreed that static content was effective. That difference becomes even more striking when you consider that most organizations are producing much more static than interactive content, yet are getting better results from the latter.

Apart from education, interactive content is also much more effective in other ways. Outgrow found that adding such content to a web page can improve conversions from 14% to 43%, reduce bounce rates from 62% to 17%, and increase social shares from 3% to 28%.

Interactive content doesn’t have to be complicated. One common type of interactive content is the financial calculator, which is often nothing more than a web form that computes basic equations. Calculators are great because while each user has a different financial situation, the basic math behind a mortgage loan or savings account interest rates remain the same. So calculators are easy to create and use, but give the user valuable information to inform their own decision-making.

For example, take GreedyRates’ popular loan payoff calculator. The calculator simply asks the user to enter their loan amount, interest rate and expected monthly payment, and displays the length of time it will take to pay off the loan. After the user has calculated this, they can then scroll down the page to find various loan networks that will supply them with the most competitive loans for their needs.

Thanks to this simple piece of interactive content, GreedyRates is able to solve a specific problem for their users while also earning revenue through affiliate links. The institutions paying for customers through GreedyRates also benefit from serious leads that have already done their homework beforehand and are more likely to repay their loans in a timely fashion. Everybody wins.

3. User-Generated & Social Content

User-generated content is a great way to improve engagement while stretching your marketing budget. After all, content is expensive to produce, but your customers and fans are creating new content about your brand on social media every day. Why not leverage that as a resource?

Even more importantly, people across all ages and demographics trust user-generated content much more. According to Adweek, 47% of millennials and 36% of baby boomers trust user-generated content, while only 25% of both groups say they trust branded content.

While user-generated and social content are often viewed as two different channels, it can often be more productive to think of them as complementary halves of the same channel. This is because the most authentic user-generated content is earned through an ongoing dialogue with your customers, and that involves the social content you produce yourself.

For example, check out this Fintel interview with Lenny Rabin of consumer insights platform ProEdge:

Video Link

Just because we’re a fintech brand doesn’t mean that our content has to be bland or boring. With fun, personality-driven content like this, we’re able to build our social brand while also encouraging customers, partners and other users to contribute to the dialogue in their own unique voice.

Another powerful way of leveraging user-generated content is to build an affiliate marketing channel. Your affiliates are an “always-on” source of user-generated content, and are incentivized to get your brand noticed. Thanks to high consumer trust in such content, affiliate marketing can save financial institutions up to 70% in cost of customer acquisition.

To learn more about how you can produce more remarkable content with the help of affiliate publishers, contact us today.