Assuming the basics are in place, you’ll already have the platforms: a website, social media pages and email. Maybe you’ve started a regular newsletter (like Eclipse) or scheduled some learning events (our free Verve webinars are a good example).

But with great power comes great responsibility: what do you do with them now?  

Communicate to add value

What are you trying to say? Great comms are intentional – with a valuable message for the recipient. Whether your end goal is brand awareness, driving enquiries or social media growth, it’s important that your content marketing efforts are delivered with purpose. No one likes the loudspeaker approach!

Perhaps you’ll interpret industry news with a topical analysis, share expert knowledge by answering FAQs, or lead conversations with personal thoughts and experience. Whichever you choose, make sure you’re building your comms around one of the 4 core purposes: inform, entertain, persuade, or discuss.  

For industry-specific marketing, it’s common for brands and individuals to carve out purpose-driven content focused on a small number of expert topics, and build an audience around it. For instance with a weekly newsletter (designed to entertain), monthly events round up (written to inform), interactive webinars (invitation to discuss) or expert commentary (flex those persuasive muscles).  

That way, even as you switch up your expert topic a little every time, your audience can come to rely on you for clear, engaging content that’s relevant to their overall interests…  

Know your audience

…Speaking of which, do you really know your audience? What are their special interests? What are their specific problem areas, their burning questions?

If you’ve taken the time to set out your business DNA and completed a PROD, you’ll have a pretty good idea of who you’re trying to reach and why.

But it’s often a good idea to go out and ask what your audience wants. Send out polls, read the replies to your marketing emails, connect with your peers on LinkedIn. Get in on the conversation online and in-person to truly connect with the people who speak your language - being a great communicator means listening, too. Particularly in financial services, webinars, Q&A sessions and exhibitions are great places to meaningfully connect directly with the people who need your services.

And don’t forget to hold up your end of the bargain – if clients, prospects and members of your wider network are signing up for your emails, make sure they know upfront what they’re going to get, and deliver it!

Analyse, adapt, evolve

One key to creating good comms, is knowing what good looks like. When you closely monitor your results, it’s much easier to understand what type of content drives up your website traffic, creates social media engagement, prompts document downloads and brings in meeting requests.  

Head to the analytics section of your social media platforms, and collect insights from Google analytics and search console to get an in-depth view of what’s really working, plus ideas for improvements where you need them. Don’t forget that you can call in the experts for assistance – explore how we can help you here.

And as you’d expect, the goalposts are always moving! It’s not enough just to see what works and what doesn’t – it’s your ability to adapt to changing horizons that moves the needle on successful marketing.

Regularly taking a moment to step back, measure success and take cues from audience behaviour and their changing perceptions of value allows us to do more of what works.  

The best plans are constantly Evolving.

What next?

So in the interest of taking our own advice, and since you made it this far, what are your current hot topics? How do you most like to hear about them?  

For more like this direct to your inbox, don’t forget you can sign up to our newsletter. We also offer regular CPD events & webinars which you can add to your calendar by finding them here.  

And finally, we’d love to connect in person at our Evolution event in September – get your ticket here.