Developing meaningful content
by. Jared Miller
Content marketing has been around for hundreds of years, but has traditionally been reserved for scholars, professors and doctors. With the major developments in social media and corporate blogs, content marketing has become another way for brands to build relationships with consumers.
The Problem
Everyone is starting to do it. From financial bloggers, to news sites to huge brands like AMEX Forum, everyone is talking about the same topics on the web, and it’s a struggle to get content to standout. Let’s face it. People don’t need any more articles telling them the five steps to setting a successful budget.
Competition is another reason it’s hard to get content to make an impact. We’re not talking about other financial institutions, we’re talking about the other types of information that you have to stack your content against. Your social media posts are competing with people’s friends and family posting photos and stories. With longform content your articles are jockeying for position with topics generally perceived to be much more interesting (no offense) such as sports, fashion and news.
The Purpose
So you might wonder if you should even bother with developing content at all. Yes! Content serves a very important purpose. It develops a relationship. People have never paid less attention to interruptive marketing. It’s harder to gain their attention, and more importantly, move them to a sale. What happens is credit unions are forced to play the offer game. We see it all the time. Credit unions who put a market leading rate out there with slimmer margins see great success in overall loan acquisition. Those who don’t put rates out there and just say “We have auto loans” don’t see the same volume in applications. This is happening because traditional marketing and advertising is becoming more about awareness and branding. It’s a stimulus to get someone to think about you. What does every advertisement have? A URL. We know that people are coming to the web to educate themselves, to evaluate their options and THEN to make a purchase. Traditional advertising and marketing is great as the stimulus, but what’s being done to nurture the consumer along?
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