The 5 Components of a Content Marketing Strategy

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This is part two in our series The 2018 Guide to MarTech Basics for The Financial Services Industry. Click here for Part 1.

The Components of a Content Marketing Strategy


1. The Website (This One Should Be Most Obvious)


Websites are a necessary component of digital marketing and should contain assets as part of the corporate marketing strategy, or an individual advisor’s website (information page) as part of a team approach.

Assets include such things as blogs, newsletters, digital reports, video/podcasts, and any other piece of content that clients and prospects visiting your website can regularly access if you’re doing your content marketing justice.

In discussing content strategy we are not talking about a complete website redesign, but only updating content assets regularly. However, the lifespan of a website is about three years before it needs updates due to newer technology- CRM, content delivery systems, marketing automation, responsiveness, and SEO (so put a website redesign on your ‘to-do list’ for 2021).

After the website development, content assets that reside on the website and how often they change is correlated to SEO ranking, and ultimately new clients. Content assets should work for you and not just be placeholders because you think you need to have them on your website.

Website landing pages that hold the assets can be ‘hidden’ and drive traffic to the website through supporting asset links. According to Hubspot, websites with 31-40 landing pages generated seven times more leads than those with 1-5 pages. Those with over 40 landing pages produced 12 times more leads than those with 1-5 pages. What’s important is the content of those extra ‘hidden landing pages,’while some of the content can reside on the visible pages too.

Website Assets Should Include:

2. Blog Content

  • Can be emailed out to clients and prospects; send them an article regularly
  • Post to social media so that when someone reads it they’re on your website reading it.
  • Develop a content schedule that provides weekly posts (once a month is not enough)
  • Your content should contain links to other supporting sources to validate your message
  • 400+ words for a blog (up from 250 a few years ago) but the magic lies in the frequency, not the word count.

    • Blog Content on a website should be authentic and original. However, there are situations where multiple people have a websites under a corporation and may not have the ability to hire someone to create content for them individually. This is common in financial services, franchises (health club chains, B2C services), and other situations.

    There are agencies and services that can provide content at a more affordable rate, but be wary of ‘diluted content’ where the same content sells to thousands of people under subscriptions. Our take on this is that content sold in these arrangements should be limited to 100 people using the same content and then the content piece is ‘retired.’

    3. Dynamic (is a website) Newsletter

  • Branded to company and sales team
  • Contains ‘newsworthy’ information that educates the reader (not sales material)
  • Contains imagery and has 1200-1600 words (short and sweet multiple articles)
  • Must be dynamic (is website) and live when email is opened (no secondary link)
  • Links to support article(s)
  • Posts to your website and social media (sharable)

    • 4. Video/Webinar/Podcasts

  • You need one or more that reside on your website and post to social media
  • Develop a schedule where new ones appear monthly, quarterly, etc.
  • Focus on educating, not selling
  • Keep theme relevant to line of business

    • 5. Digital Report (aka the ‘Whitepaper’)

  • Invitation for relevant information delivered via social, newsletter, blog post, or email blast
  • Downloadable access through entering email address (give lead to sales)

    • If you struggle with how to remain relevant in your message, content on your website should be one of the ways you do it. If you’re strapped for bodies to manage the strategy, outsource what you to have it happen. Remember these digital content marketing guidelines for your website:

  • If a visitor can relate, they are ‘reachable’ no matter what age they are
  • Keep ‘risky’ language out of your website content, period.
  • Match imagery to your content topic in your asset deliverables
  • Provide asset deliverables through multiple delivery systems that lead visitors to your website