Do you struggle to create content in an industry ruled by compliance? The tight regulations finance brands operate within can really put a finance content marketer to the test. But that shouldn’t stop you from aiming high. Take heart, these brands show how creatively compliant finance content is done.
In our search for new case studies to inspire better content, we’ve found three international brands that pushed on through the compliance jungle, machetes in hand – and won. Be warned though: it takes passion, talent and a supportive C-suite to make it happen.
TD Ameritrade at the roller derby
This Nebraska-based brokerage firm understands the need to educate investors. TD Ameritrade has spent years developing a library of digital content that today includes close to 500 videos, 7 courses and more than 2,000 articles.
Their thinkorswim trading platform has its own Learning Center that encourages investors to look for tutorials, reference materials and quick guides. In 2017 they launched the TD Ameritrade Network, a streaming financial news and education channel broadcasting out of Chicago, offering real-time market analysis 8am to 5pm.
In October 2018 they launched an AI-driven content intelligence platform for investors. Acknowledging that investors have limited time and “evolving expectations”, the platform customises learning experiences for clients, recommending content based on their behaviour, “meeting clients at any stage of financial fluency, enabling them to become smarter, faster.” There are also plans to further customise content delivery by matching it to users’ demographics.
With all that serious content going on, you might expect a 100% serious approach. Actually no, as the “fresh, fun” attitude of their quarterly print and digital magazine thinkMoney shows – “thinkMoney isn’t your grandma’s financial magazine. Unless, of course, your grandma was a roller derby queen.”
thinkMoney isn’t your grandma’s financial magazine. Unless, of course, your grandma was a roller derby queen.
Scandi pride from JyskeBank.tv
One brand you have to admire for their commitment to “become the media” is Denmark’s Jyske Bank. Featured in The Content Marketing Institute’s documentary ‘The Story of Content’, the bank launched an internal video production unit in 2006 which grew to became today’s JyskeBank.tv channel. They now employ a team of full-time video producers, journalists and remote correspondents working under editor-in-chief Lasse Hoegfeldt, with an audience that includes both bank employees and consumers.
Hoegfeldt lets loose with plenty of refreshing epithets in the doco, like: “If you can’t rely on the media, you have to become the media,” and “You have to go through people’s hearts to get to their brain”.
You have to go through people’s hearts to get to their brain.
When talking about their channel, JyskeBank.tv staff proudly describe how they tackle the stories that people are talking about, even if they might not reflect positively on the bank. In their view, you can’t just ignore what your audience cares about. While their C-suite might sometimes raise concerns about their coverage, the team, led by the experienced Hoegfeldt, has the freedom to pursue them nonetheless.
Fisher Investments myth debunking
Segueing nicely to our next example, one luminary who’s been interviewed on jyskebank.tv is “investment guru” Ken Fisher – he’s worthy of mention here too.
Since 1979 when he founded money management firm Fisher Investments, Fisher’s been hellbent on a content creation / education mission that’s included 11 books on investing, and a column called ‘Portfolio Strategy’ for Forbes magazine that ran for 32 years – making him the longest continuously-running columnist in the magazine’s history.
At 67 and sitting on a net worth of $3.4 billion, he still writes for financial publications around the world and publishes research papers on behavioural finance.
Fisher Investments content strategy revolves around their MarketMinder Daily Commentator, which has two streams – a daily commentary on market events and key economic issues, with columns from staff; and ‘Headlines’, which rounds up high-profile news stories from around the world and gives their take on them. Fisher is also a prolific podcaster.
What makes this commentary stand out in the great morass of global investment opinion? It’s about Fisher’s unique perspective, his challenging of conventional wisdom and debunking of myths. It’s Fisher Investments single-minded adherence to “identifying information not widely known, and interpreting widely known information correctly and differently from other market participants”.
Fisher is famous for saying “the pursuit of passions, not the pursuit of money, creates wealth”. Content creation must surely be one of his passions.
Related articles
- 6 ways to ensure you’re creating compliant finance content
- Why the financial services industry is the most difficult to market to
- 3 “boring” finance brands whose content is anything but
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