Latest / Two in Twenty / Content remains king in 2024

Transcript

Content remains king in 2024 · Two in Twenty

• 0:07
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to my state, an investment icon of Casternity at White Marble Consulting.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_01: I am Kirsten Haston to head of content at White Marble scientifically your host.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_01: Today's episode is a little different though.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: This time I'm joined by Riley Top, a content strategist on White Marble US team.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_01: Hi, Riley.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_02: Hi, Kirsten.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, this time is different because we are flipping the script, and I will actually be interviewing Kirsten.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_02: Kirsten joined the company after 10 years as a financial journalist, and therefore she's an ideal expert to discuss a high-priority topic for many investment marketers, the importance of content, and what it might look like in 2024 and beyond.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_02: So for the next 20 or so minutes, we will dive into content from the current landscape to what investment marketers should look out for in the near future.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_02: So let's set the stage.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_02: Content has become such a broad, all-encompassing term.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_02: And we aren't just talking about white papers here, Kirsten.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_02: What do we mean by content?
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_01: Everything and anything really that a particular company sends out into the market that expresses its views, its capabilities that it has full control over.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: So it's not something that you're sending out to an external advertising agency.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_01: This can be, as you mentioned, their white papers.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: It can also be social media posts, blogs, articles, videos, podcasts, much like this one.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: Content is basically how each company gets its message to market, whatever the format might be.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_02: And in the realm of marketing, it feels like the topic of content is both old as time, something we've been discussing forever, and always new.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_02: So why is that the case?
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_02: Why is content still so important today?
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: Earlier this year, we have colleagues that were looking at asset managers brands.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: And what they found was interesting, but not really surprising.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: And if you look at the brands of all of the big asset managers, they all tend to have one thing in common, and that is the color navy blue.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: So when you have, say, 70-75% of asset managers all using the same color when it comes to their logo, when it comes to their banners, etc., standing out becomes incredibly difficult.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: Not only that, but you also have increasing regulatory pressure.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: And what that does is it makes it quite difficult for businesses to stand out, to innovate, to differentiate.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: Now that's not saying that it's not possible.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's just trying to do that within the same regulatory framework as all of your competitors is very challenging.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: So how do you show a prospective client that you're different, that what you offer is better than what your competitor offers?
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: And that's where content comes into it.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: It's how you tell your story, it's how you showcase your expertise, your insights, and you can do that at a time that's convenient for you.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: You can do that on a topic that you're a specialist in.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: You can target it at exactly the group of people that you want to be sending that message to.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: Content is a very difficult piece to harness because a lot of people just assume that if you write a lot of copy and you send it out in letters and emails and web posts and social media, that eventually it's going to find its way to your target audience.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: But people are just getting absolutely inundated.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: When it comes to things like engagement, again, the measurement is vital, but also something that's quite easy to misunderstand.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: As you mentioned, I was a journalist in my past life, and you very quickly become obsessed with clicks.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: How many people are reading my story?
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: And the more clicks, you're like, well, that's a successful topic, so therefore I should write more of things like that topic.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: But that doesn't necessarily mean that it's gone to the right audience.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_01: It could be a fluke that you've hit on this vein of interest, but it could also be a whole group of people who are not really in your target audience just happen to find that one article interesting, and you become obsessed with chasing the clicks rather than sticking to the story, pursuing what's important and most importantly what's relevant to your target audience.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: So if I send out an article, for example, and it's read by a hundred people, but those hundred people don't actually do anything on the back of it, is that a success versus a piece that I send out that's clicked on by 10 people, that five of them then get in contact with me because they want to know more.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: So I'll take the 10 clicks with the five genuine points of engagement versus the hundred people that may have read my article, found it interesting, and then moved on with their day.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_02: Great point.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_02: Engagement is very important.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_02: We'll talk a little bit about the future soon, but just to touch on the present day, what does this current content landscape look like for investment marketers?
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_02: What sorts of content strategies are we seeing in the present day?
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: We're definitely seeing more multimedia.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_01: People are showcasing faces and voices more.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: And it's about that personality of the people within the business.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: So videos directly on social media, videos on YouTube, on websites, individuals having social media accounts, Instagram, all that sort of millennial Gen Z stuff that people love.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's important to feel that you understand beyond the facade, beyond the brickwork of the building, who's actually working in the company and what they're doing, especially in financial services, because I'm trusting you with my money.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_01: Content at the moment as well, people are starting to realize, firstly, that less is more, targeted is better, and shorter is better.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_01: Gone are the days where you could send out 1400, 2000-word long articles about a topic that you're utterly fascinated about because you're asking somebody for their time, and that time is valuable.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: So you've spent a lot of energy and a lot of resource producing this 2000-word article, but are people actually going to read it?
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's the bang for buck delivery of would it have been better to spend less time writing something shorter that's going to hold attention for less time, but is actually going to be more meaningful and more readily consumed.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_02: There's a lot of sort of new market trends and a new environment that we're operating in with the market volatility, possibly flat or even decreasing budgets.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_02: And with that, some firms may be reevaluating their content strategies.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_02: So, what are some of the things that they should be thinking about?
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_01: First and foremost is why.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: Why am I writing this?
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: Why am I producing it?
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: Why am I sending it out?
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: If you can nail down the why, then you need to understand the who.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_01: Who am I sending it to?
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_01: It can't be your entire distribution list because they don't all have the same needs.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: So you understand their needs, you target that piece of content to them.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: The where, where do they live?
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: Where do they consume their content?
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_01: Is it mainstream media?
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: Is it B2B?
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: Is it social media?
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: Is it in person that you need to have paper documents to be able to pass across to them?
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: So once you understand those things, you can better target your efforts, better deploy your internal resources and be just judicious in what it is that you're doing, more targeted.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: And with all things going well, that should deliver higher engagement and learn from what doesn't work.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: Pay attention to the metrics.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: If you're not getting engagement on a particular channel, try and understand why.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: It could be you're sending it out at the wrong time of day.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: Genuinely something as simple as that.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: It could be that you're trying to target baby boomers on Instagram.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's probably not the best place to be.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe consider pivoting your strategy towards Facebook.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's all about understanding the why, the who, and the where.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_02: White Marble recently interviewed dozens of CMOs in this industry to better understand their current challenges and goals as part of an annual proprietary research study.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_02: And at a high level, their answers pointed to three focus areas where marketing leaders are considering how they can get a leading edge around authenticity, around lead generation, and around operations.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_02: How would those three areas play out when it comes to content in particular?
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: Authenticity really is about understanding who your company is, what your brand is, and how best to articulate that into the market.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: There is no business like yours, even though we were talking earlier about, you know, it's difficult to differentiate.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: That's external marketing.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_01: Internally, you know you're different from all your other competitors.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: And it's about harnessing those differences, making sure that your target audience understands those differences and that you can find alignment with them.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_01: And your content plays such an important role in that because that's your face to the market.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: That's how you showcase who you are, what you stand for, your values, your ethos.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: And that's how prospective clients ultimately decide whether or not you are the business partner for them.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_01: But authenticity gives you a greater opportunity to build a lasting relationship with a prospective client.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_01: Lead generation really is the holy grail of marketing.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's about connecting your brand, your company, your services with an ideal target audience.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: And that's about engagement.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: And that's about getting some information, some insights, and some expertise into the hands of someone who can make a decision as to whether or not they want to work with you.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_01: And you can do that slowly over time.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: And content really is the best way to do that because you build that authenticity that we were just talking about.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_01: You evidence that integrity, you showcase the insights, the expertise, and they learn that you're a business that does what it says it will do, and that they have a high likelihood of success if they do invest with you or they do build that relationship with you.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: Nothing is guaranteed, but having that sort of relationship built over time using those sorts of building blocks just gives a great opportunity for success.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_01: And when it comes to operations, I don't think that there's a single marketing department in the industry that would not be grateful for more people, more support, an extra pair of hands, a bit more budget.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody's going to turn down any of those things.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_01: And a lot of people now are looking at Chat GBT and other artificial intelligence platforms to see where they can get some easy wins if there are small elements of the process that can be outsourced, as it were, to a robot to give them more time to focus on the things that really need their attention.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_01: Now, as a as a content person, you'd be shocked that I'm not massively convinced that AI is coming for all of our jobs.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: There are absolutely elements that AI, if used appropriately, and of course with the support and approval of compliance, can help marketing teams to just take some of that burden off of their shoulders.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: I maintain that people and our creativity is really the defining factor of what marketing does, and that cannot be outsourced to automation.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: And the example that I absolutely love, which shows my age a little bit.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: Back in the day there was a television advert for Cadbury's Chocolate, and it started off with a really tight close-up of a gorilla's face.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: And then all of a sudden, playing in the background is Phil Collins um In the Air Tonight.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: And it keeps going like this for a little while, and then the gorilla ends up playing the drum kit.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember that advert all these years later.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: I remember the song, I remember how it looked, the purple, uh, a glass and a half full was the tagline I think for it.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_01: I I defy artificial intelligence to come up with something like that.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: There's no substitute for human creativity.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_01: But I do concede that there are elements where automation can come in and just take some of the burden off of Teams.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_02: AI can elevate, but you can never really replace that human experience at the core.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_02: I know you touched on this a little bit earlier, but wanted to come back around to content distribution because it is so important.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_02: Because we know that content isn't adding value if it isn't actually being seen and read and watched.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_02: So, how should investment marketers in particular be thinking about content distribution now?
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: As you said, Riley, if a piece of content isn't being read, if if someone's not clicking on it, if there's no engagement, it serves no purpose.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: It is the ultimate product of wasted time because somebody has spent time, energy, resource, budget potentially producing this piece of content for it to go out into the world and not land anywhere and not drive the engagement that we would have liked to have seen with it.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: So distribution is hugely important.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: Email newsletters, I think, are probably top of my list of things that really do need a rethink.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_01: So many companies send them out.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: They are, in a way, dressed up as if they're supposed to be informative, but more often they tend to come off as, you know, soft marketing of look how great we are.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_01: And that's very nice.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm sure they've done things that they're proud of.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: But as a client, as a consumer, how interesting is that to me?
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: And that I think is where a lot of the disconnect comes with email newsletter campaigns.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_01: Social media is wrought with risk.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I know risk is a big word in financial services, but if we see everything that's happening with the platform formerly known as Twitter, the way in which the general public, prospective clients or not, can respond to something that you've sent out, it can either go incredibly well, but it can also go incredibly badly.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that there's a lot more reticence from companies to dedicate quite as much budget and resource, especially with everything that's going on with X at the moment.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_01: Multimedia, again, is an area where improvement in terms of how long videos are, how engaging they are, how visual.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's not just a talking head sometimes, that there's actually some graphics.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of budget that needs to go behind good quality interactive video production, but I think that's definitely something that we're going to see more of because it is going to be a differentiator in 2024 and beyond.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_01: Distribution, as I mentioned earlier, is just about finding your target audience where they live and where they consume content.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_01: And if you've not got that pinned down, your content is doomed to just exist in an echo chamber of eternity and gather virtual dust on the internet.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_01: But if you can find them, connect with them, and motivate them, then that's the success of content.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_01: But, you know, Riley, you've only recently joined White Marble and the investment marketing industry as well.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, given that unique perspective, is there anything in particular that you've noticed about content in the industry since you've joined?
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, definitely.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_02: So I have been in B2B content marketing since the start of my career, but I am new to this industry as of this year.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_02: And it has been a very interesting, very exciting experience.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_02: I think, you know, one thing that stood out to me, there are a lot of things that are similar to other B2B industries, but I think the sort of gaps that firms are working with in this space and in this industry in particular just stood out to me as so narrow, and that makes the challenge of content and the challenge of marketing overall that much harder.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_02: You know, if you take a step back and really look at that 30,000 view, at the end of the day, we're doing some of the same things and selling some of the same products and how you sell them and how you talk about that is really where the differentiation lies.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_02: And that's why it's so important to take that very strategic, very nuanced perspective to content because really honing in and finding those key differentiators and amplifying them is where you're going to succeed and where you're gonna really stand out and be able to share your message more widely.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_02: So that's that's just something that I've noticed in in my time here so far.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_02: And that brings us to the end of our 20 minutes.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_02: My thanks to Kirsten for sharing her insights and expertise.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_02: If you have any questions about content or any other topics in this podcast, please get in touch using the content details in the description.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_02: You can subscribe through Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and Spotify.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_02: And if there are any topics for investment marketers you would like to do in 20 to cover, reach out.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_02: You can also find episodes from our earlier podcasts AimPi on Apple, Google, and Spotify.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks for listening, and until next week.