With the seismic shift in marketing from 'paid' channels to 'owned' and 'earned' channels, financial services leadership teams and their marketing colleagues have had to re-think. This eBook shares the best learnings from frontier marketers in other industry sectors. Together with the journey we've seen our clients take, and our own experience, these insights are combined to offer a simple six-step guide to making content marketing work in financial services.

1. f o r f i n a n c i a l s e r v i c e s :
c o n t e n t m a r k e t i n g
make it work
a s i x - s t e p g u i d e t o

2. 2

3. While it’s not always thoughtful,
and it’s not always leading (to quote a
well-known industry fund executive)
this form of marketing is our
stock-in-trade.
But now, the game has changed.
With the seismic shift in marketing
from ‘paid’ channels (such as
advertising and conference
sponsorship) to ‘owned’ and ‘earned’
channels (such as in-person events,
published research and social media)
financial services leadership teams
and their marketing colleagues have
had to re-think.
That re-think includes the talent,
channels and internal capability
needed to effectively win, and
keep, the attention of those who
matter most.
In the process, financial services
brands are using change management
techniques to make the leap to the
marketing of the near future – content
marketing.
This eBook shares the best learnings
from frontier marketers in other
industry sectors. Together with
the journey we’ve seen our clients
take, and our own experience,
these insights are combined to
offer a simple six-step guide to
making content marketing work
in financial services.
Almost everyone in business has some
form of marketing – and some kind of
content. In financial services the content
is often called ‘thought leadership’.
3

4. Marketers in the intangible world of financial services know that better than most.
Most financial brands traditionally
leveraged their content (a.k.a. thought
leadership) across multiple channels:
advertising, roadshows, client events,
newsletters and thought leadership
campaigns.
But in less than a decade the
internet has exploded all previous
marketing models.
Today marketers must contend with
the all-pervasive influence of Google
search; the ease and speed of
online publishing; the proliferation of
digital ‘platforms’ and social media –
Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Youtube,
Instagram... all of which are now
accessed in mobile format by users
on the run.
Digital-age consumers expect,
they demand, instantaneous access
to information.
So too do business consumers, as
they research companies they may do
business with.
Indeed, research from Google and the
Corporate Executive Board (Marketing
Leadership Council) in 2012 found
that B2B clients make around 57 per
cent (and up to 70 per cent) of their
purchasing decisions before they
contact the firm in question.
Savvy marketers understand that
for marketing to work now, it has to
deliver quality content pitched at
sceptical and informed consumers.
And it has to be found in search.
Or it simply doesn’t work.
Content is everything
4

5. Producing content has never really been a problem for financial services firms,
which have evolved many (usually separate) business units with marketing functions
including: communication, PR, digital, campaign, events and strategy.
However, the relatively new discipline
of ‘content marketing’ brings all these
fragmented functions together into a
cohesive structure to plan, track and
manage how corporate knowledge is
delivered to consumers.
The good news for experienced
financial services marketing
specialists is that their knowledge
remains relevant. The bad news is that
translating it, and the corporate IP, to
a content marketing model requires a
significant overhaul.
This eBook will take you on a
step-by-step journey to make the
transition to a world where content
is everywhere. of B2B clients
make their
purchasing
decision before
they contact the
firm in question
57%
Content Marketing is one answer
5

6. 6
s t e p 1
re-purpose
f i n d
y o u r

7. Financial services is a knowledge business. This IP, talent and
content might be more valuable, for longer, than you think.
The new communication paradigm
doesn’t mean our stores of knowledge
should be deleted from corporate
memory in favour of an hourly
Twitter feed. But its purpose does
need to be re-imagined.
Best practice content marketing
involves working out what you have
now, then how to re-use it.
Re-purposing your content isn’t
complex, but some steps are time
consuming and challenging. It also
needs to be done, at least partly,
in-house. Consultants can help with
templates, strategy, production and
publishing but content audits are best
done by someone in your company.
Three major steps to repurposing
current content are:
Review:
Audit your current knowledge stores.
This includes content, channels, talent
and ‘hidden gems’ such as bespoke
research. This can actually be a huge
but revealing undertaking. It’s also
critical as the groundwork for all
the next phases.
Refine:
Analyse and classify the corporate
collective knowledge. What items are
relevant now? How do they fit in
with current commercial imperatives?
Which talent matches what content?
And how can you use those ‘brand
ambassadors’ who are highly engaged
to both help speed up the process and
decide which content to publish?
Re-publish:
Once you know (or suspect) the
value of your historical content, don’t
be afraid to republish in multiple
channels - what may have been an
irrelevance last year could be a topic
of high currency today. Follow the
1:15-20 rule – create once, republish
15-20 times.
7

8. 8
s t e p 2
stay sharp
g e t
s h a r p

9. Now you understand your raw materials and have a content delivery plan
– don’t forget it takes real people to deliver the process.
Instilling an effective content
marketing culture in any organisation
requires co-ordinated effort across
multiple business units. It typically
involves many individuals who
previously acted independently, or
only in a loosely connected way.
For the content marketing strategy
to achieve the targeted ‘cut through’,
then the relevant business areas
(PR, digital, social, legal etc) must
focus on the end game – and the
skills of all the right people must be
honed to achieve that goal.
As a manager tasked with making
content marketing work in your
organisation, you need to concentrate
on three fundamental areas to ensure
your people have skills sharp enough
for the job:
Upgrade and/or outsource:
Content production and management
talent may be scattered across
the company but bringing staff
up to speed with the new strategy
will usually require extra training.
Alternatively, the solution could be
to hire people with existing content
marketing skills or outsource
functions where you have identified
a gap in your own organisation...
often a mix of all three of these
strategies will make sense.
Structure for
accountability:
Content marketing is a multi-
disciplinary process. Many teams
and individuals pitch in. For that
to work, one key person needs to
have responsibility for the content
marketing program – both at an
overarching level and within each of
the supporting teams.
Make an educated investment:
To ensure your staff’s content
marketing skills don’t dull over time
it’s essential to invest in ongoing
training and development – improving
career opportunities and bringing
a constant flow of new people into
the process.
9

10. 10
s t e p 3
and minds
w i n i n - h o u s e
h e a r t s
+ =

11. If the first two steps in this content marketing journey could be seen as putting the
technical necessities in place for further motion, step three is all about acceleration.
Gearing the ‘hearts and minds’ of the
entire company workforce towards
the content marketing agenda
does, however, take more than an
enthusiastic kick-start email from the
CEO. This is change management
101, really: how do you make content
marketing sexy, compelling, in your
staff’s best interest and something
that everyone wants to be part of?
Well, you don’t sell the proposition
by leaving it all to chance, hoping
content marketing mysteriously
and organically takes hold within
the company. It won’t. But you can
nurture a content marketing culture
by carefully planning how teams and
individuals mesh together to achieve
the collective goal.
Corporate experience comes into play
here. It takes a deep understanding of
company functions, centres of power
and personalities to create a friction-
free cultural transition.
If you take just three top-line
elements, we’d suggest these:
Align cross-function teams:
For content marketing to work it
inevitably needs the collaboration of
cross-functional teams (for example,
PR and legal). Taking these diverse
functions on the journey is important
– sharing the business case for
content marketing, how it will work
in your firm and what their role is.
Agreed processes, meeting rhythms
and KPIs for everybody, helps teams
learn their respective roles and how to
co-operate to reach the goals.
Create in-house
ambassadors:
In almost every firm we’ve ever worked
with we’ve found a reservoir
of untapped potential. People with
unique skills, energy or interest in
particular fields (for example social
media or macro-economic trends!)
that can help the content marketing
push. Identify these people (they
might not be obvious) and make
them ‘ambassadors’ of change.
Enthusiasm is contagious.
Manage internal
relationships:
Any change of culture, structure and
tasks will probably also shake-up
some relationships. You can (and
should) control this risk carefully:
A seasoned manager should know
which individuals could be affected
and avoid potential conflict with
explicit guidelines and a nuanced
personal approach.
11

12. 12
s t e p 4
into stars
t r a n s f o r m
ta l e n t

13. 13
The previous step showed you how to create an in-house
‘buzz’ around the content marketing concept.
In a big picture sense, though, content
marketing is about projecting your
organisation’s vision, mission, strategy,
IP and short-term objectives into the
public arena.
But just as all movies need a script,
they also need star performances
from human actors to lift the plot from
mundane to magnificent.
An important part of your job as a
marketing manager is to cast the
right people in roles they can shine in:
some of these individuals may already
be talented performers; while others
might be minor characters who could
rise to prominence with a quality
script and top-notch direction.
A well-crafted content marketing
plan opens up plenty of opportunities
for both traditional corporation
communication actors and exciting
new digital-age roles – if you get the
combination right, the result could be
a blockbuster.
However, a couple of rules apply:
Cast with a
commercial eye:
Yes, your company might be
teeming with talent but it won’t all
be applicable to the bottom-line
corporate performance. Identify the
kinds of talent you need (for example,
consumer savings advocate or a fixed
income commentator) and be open to
auditions from anyone, while keeping
an eye out for other hidden talents.
Back talent with
ongoing support:
It’s not enough to simply cast a
talented performer in a potentially
starring role and wait for the magic.
All performers need mentoring and
direction – support them into leading
career roles and they will likewise
support the ongoing success of
your firm.

14. s t e p 5
corporate DNA
c o d e c o n t e n t
m a r k e t i n g i n t o t h e
14

15. 15
The previous four steps have shown you how to evolve your marketing operations from a
dinosaur roaming the relatively simple plains of the old-media world to a top-of-the-range
mammal adapted for the speed and diversity of the digital-age communications jungle.
In short, the change process starts
with a thorough audit of the corporate
gene pool – keeping what’s good,
adapting what else you can, throwing
out the unnecessary – and ends with
a corporate structure and a talent pool
intelligently designed to implement a
content marketing plan.
But while you may have come up
with a survival-of-the-fittest
prototype, it still needs to be hard-
coded into the corporate DNA to
effect a permanent cultural change
– and here’s how to do it:
Repeat, repeat, repeat:
Once you have content marketing
systems and processes in place,
and the right people delivering them,
it’s all about repetition. Getting into
daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly,
annual rhythms. While it might take a
lot of energy at first, once momentum
builds the process becomes like
breathing – essential, yet effortless
and almost unnoticed.
Keep fine-tuning:
Your content marketing plan might
be working well, but nothing’s perfect.
Adaptation is an ongoing process.
So experiment, tweak the system,
note the results.
Give clear KPIs:
Tempting as it is to keep goals
‘woolly’ (it feels safer) ultimately this
is actually a trap. Under the persistent
pressure of well-considered KPIs your
content marketing organisation will
develop much more effectively. Just
as ‘feedback is a gift’ (it’s the grit the
oyster needs to make a pearl), KPIs
show us whether we’re winning or
losing – without them we’ve seen
content marketing efforts drift.

16. s t e p 6
the results
c o u n t t h e c o s t s ,
m e a s u r e
16

17. 17
If you have followed the previous five steps, content marketing
should be ingrained in your organisation and people.
However, the transition from an
old-world, corporate-controlled
marketing model to one adapted to
the multi-channel, consumer-led
reality of today will take an investment
of time, energy and, ultimately, money.
And to know that investment is
worthwhile you need to keep track of
costs and measure the results.
Don’t simply weigh up results in
‘hard’ monetary terms – although,
of course, the bottom-line numbers
are critical – but also via other
qualitative metrics such as downloads,
leads or subscribers.
Analyse your customer behaviour
carefully. Find out what content and
which delivery channels are more
effective with different
client segments.
Content marketing works but
you need to prove it to your
stakeholders, which these two
final points make clear:
Measure the returns:
Whether it’s Return on Investment
(ROI) or Return on Objective (ROO), or
both, you need to introduce robust,
coherent measurement systems that
can demonstrate your new marketing
approach is delivering as intended.
Sell the success:
If the content marketing strategy is
working, and you can prove it, don’t
keep quiet about – the rest of your
company, and the world, needs to
know about it. Market the marketing.

18. 18
Summary of the six-step guide
Watch the full presentation at:
Step 1: Find your re-purpose
Review | Refine | Re-publish
Step 2: Get sharp, stay sharp
Upgrade and/or outsource | Structure for accountability | Make an educated investment
Step 3: Win in-house hearts and minds
Align cross-function teams | Create in-house ambassadors | Manage internal relationships
Step 4: Transform talent into stars
Cast with a commercial eye | Back talent with ongoing support
Step 5: Code content marketing into the corporate DNA
Repeat, repeat, repeat | Keep fine-tuning | Give clear KPIs
Step 6: Count the costs, measure the results
Measure the returns | Sell the success
18
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-FkB-V8TcI

19. EXIT
@carden
Carden Calder has advised CEOs,
businesses and Government how to
communicate about financial services for
more than 20 years. She leads a specialist
team of communication consultants who
help clients with social media, content
marketing, public relations and reputation
risk management.
In doing this they reach between two
and 20 million Australians every day with
messages that help them make better
decisions about their financial futures.
Along the way BlueChip has worked with
brands such as AMP, ANZ, ASFA, ASIC,
BlackRock, BT, the Financial Planning
Association, the Financial Services Council,
ING group of companies, JP Morgan,
the Macquarie Group, MLC/NAB, Principal
Global Investors, RaboDirect, Vanguard
and many others.
Carden is a regular speaker about
financial services marketing
communication and her experience
as a business owner.