In our previous post, we talked about how financial marketing on LinkedIn, first of all, requires building up a large network of relevant connections.
Once you’ve established a solid social base on the platform, you can begin publishing Long Form Posts to gain serious brand exposure, establish yourself as a thought leader and attract inbound leads for your business.
Assuming you are moving in this direction with your connection-building, let’s focus on the next steps of your financial marketing: how to write compelling Long Form Posts which actually gather views, and generate engagement with your target market.
#1 Identify Some Relevant, Emotionally-Engaging Topics
We’re assuming here that you’ve been networking correctly, connecting with people in your target market who have common traits or interests. This is vital if you’re going to successfully generate Long Post content which will get your audience interacting with it.
However, don’t just think about relevant topics for your audience. Think of topics that are emotionally driven. Controversial even. You want your post to generate a reaction, so you need humour, anger or other powerful emotions to come into the picture.
For instance, if your target audience comprises successful business owners, don’t write about the boring, unemotional stuff everyone else is writing about – e.g. “Should I buy an annuity?” Rather, why not go on a rant about tax evasion or tax returns? Why not attack some prevailing financial consensus you happen to disagree with? Lay your cards on the tale and see which sides of the fence people line up on. The point isn’t that you’re right, it’s that you’re getting talked about.
A lot of financial firms want to play it safe in their financial marketing, and never touch this sort of “hot stuff.” That’s fine, the key is writing content that is engaging.
#2 Let your unique voice come through
Once your topic is chosen, you must let your personality show. Don’t write like a journalist or an academic. Write formally and to a high quality, yes, but also write conversationally. Like in a blog. Let your distinct humour, anecdotes, assumptions and points of view shine out.
Think of famous people with distinct voices. Brian Blessed. Patrick Stewart. The Queen. They all talk in a way that is distinctly recognisable and unique. This helps us remember them, and you need to create a similar effect for your brand through your financial marketing.
#3 Use Click Bait Titles
When your article preview appears in people’s newsfeeds after you’ve hit publish, they will decide in a split second whether or not to click through and read it. So, since we human beings are all so fickle your title better be good!
That means the more unusual, suggestive, provocative or intriguing the better. (Obviously don’t take this too far – no need to be obscene!). For instance, one writer on LinkedIn once wrote an article called “I Sleep with My Clients.” That got a lot of views! Turns out it was all about how the writer thought about their clients all the time, was always on call, and yet relished the whole experience. So the title did make sense in the end, although the reader would have felt the need to click the article to see if the suggestion in the title was in fact what it appeared.
Misleading? Maybe. But it worked, and people generally appreciate this kind of cleverness in financial marketing rather than resent it.
