Does content marketing work for financial services firms?

Blogs. Social posts. Whitepapers.

We all know what content marketing is — but does it really work with financial services firms?

Many financial advisors, RIAs, and family offices rely on their immediate network and referrals for most of their business. It’s fair to, after all, there are no channels that work better than a happy client.

But if you want to scale your firm to $1M or more in annual revenue, you will need to seek out channels that scale. When implemented effectively, a content marketing strategy can catapult your firm in front of your target audience, help you stay top of mind, build authority and trust, and, yes, turn into clients.

Read on as we show you how. Or click the button below to skip ahead and download our framework for building an effective content strategy that drives growth and not just traffic.

Why content marketing fails

Again, content marketing is nothing new.

There are hundreds of eye-popping case studies that demonstrate the impact content marketing can have on a firm.

But there are also thousands of examples of firms that spend thousands of dollars on blog posts, emails, and ads with nothing to show for it.

So what gives? Does content marketing work or not? From experience working with over 100 clients, here are the top reasons I see content marketing not working for a business. In fact, some of them are reasons I won’t work with a client!

You don't have a clear ICP

An ICP (ideal customer profile) is essential to the success of any content marketing strategy.

In fact, a lack of ICP (also called a buyer persona) is one of the top reasons a firm will fail. It’s tempting to say that “anyone” could be your customer, but in reality, it simply does not work that way.

Here’s a brief example: Suppose you woke up one morning with a heavy feeling in your chest that turned into radiating pain and shortness of breath. You rush to the hospital and describe your symptoms, demanding to see a cardiologist. The person at the front desk kindly informs you that the cardiologist is not in, but there is a pediatrician who would be happy to see you.

You’d probably run out of the hospital, right?

If you’re trying to scale your financial services firm to $1M or more, there are only so many avenues you can take to get there. To generate $1M in revenue, you will likely need around $120M in AUM. By the numbers, that could be:

• 60 clients, investing $2M each
• 120 clients, investing $1M each
• 240 clients, investing $500K each
• 1,200 clients, investing $100K each

Those clients who invest $2M with you will be quite different from the ones who invest $100K. It’s tempting to take anyone who comes your way but to sustainably grow your firm; you need to identify who you want as a client and seek them out. This is the only way to tighten up your messaging, build an effective content strategy, and stand out from the noise in your industry.

There are thousands of pediatricians and hundreds of cardiologists but only a handful of heart surgeons.

Coincidentally, by niching down, you make yourself that much more valuable to your prospective clients.

You don’t have a clear or compelling offer

Next to no ICP, this is the other mistake that dooms many businesses. If your offer is unclear or not compelling, then it will fail.

Your website has one job: convince readers that it is worth their time to give you their email address or phone number. That’s it. All the copy and content on your website needs to pull people into your funnel and convince them that you can help them solve their problems and reach their goals.

Far too often, I see websites that:

• Aren’t compelling - they don’t say anything that convinces me they can help.
• Are confusing - they are filled with jargon and marketing lingo.
• Are asking for the wrong thing at the wrong time - this is a subtle one. I see it a lot on blog posts asking me to “schedule a call.” There is a time and place to ask someone to talk to you, but a blog post is rarely it.

There are entire books on copywriting, but I can distill it down with these principles:

• Identify what it is that your ICP wants
• Find a way to demonstrate you can help them with a “killer advantage” — in other words, show them how you can uniquely help them.

While what you do on paper is probably fairly similar to many other firms, there are unique aspects about you and your firm that can stand out for the right person. Maybe it’s:

• Accreditations or awards
• Unique experiences or your background
• A specialization for a type of client or industry
• A unique way of delivering your services and creating value

It could be anything, as long as it is something that compels your ICP to take action. Without a clear and compelling offer, you are one of many firms that all do more or less the same things and that is a recipe for mediocrity (and eventually, failure).

You aren’t showing up

If you churn out loads of content but don’t get any traffic, then all that effort is wasted busywork.

Assuming you have a clear ICP and a compelling offer, a lack of traffic is the other reason that content marketing is not working for your firm.

Traffic comes in two main avenues:

• Organic: By earning your reach through SEO (search engine optimization), YouTube, or organic social media you can build a following and get eyeballs on every piece of content you create. This gives you “free” reach, but it takes time to build the authority that earns it.
• Paid: You can “skip the line” by purchasing ads through Google, Social Media platforms, or even physical ads (radio, mailers, or billboards). This costs money, but it guarantees you visibility in front of your audience.

For our clients, we use a mix of organic and paid to build reach.

We start every client with an organic SEO strategy designed to help them stand out and rank on Google. This gives them free traffic every single day, funneling visitors into their website.

But not every piece of content ranks, so we run Google Ads for our clients to speed up their path to building traffic. These ads take two forms:

• Ad campaigns designed to get in front of buy-ready prospects. These ads attract prospects actively looking for services like yours and bring them right to your sales pages.
• Ad campaigns designed to promote key content pieces and build leads. We run these ads at zero cost for our clients to promote key pieces of content that are not ranking yet. Most agencies consider their job done once a piece of content is written, but we don’t consider our job done until that content brings qualified traffic to your door.

You aren’t nurturing your audience

Suppose your site ranks, and you have several ad campaigns to boot, all driving hundreds of visitors to your website every day.

Chances are that only a small percentage of your traffic is ready to convert right now. A much bigger chunk needs more time to consider your offer or to build trust in your brand.

Chet Holmes (a well-known sales training expert) once shared that the data shows at any given moment, only 3% of your target audience is actively looking and ready to buy your product. That means if your website gets 1,000 visitors every single month, only 30 of them are ready to buy.

You still have an opportunity to turn the other 970 visitors into clients though, but you need to nurture them.

Set up lead magnets and other conversion touch points on your website to capture a larger percentage of your traffic and use the following to nurture them:

• Email newsletters
• Free content
• Webinars (which can be pre-recorded)
• Targeted and personalized outreach (via email, phone, or LinkedIn)

Nurturing is not about turning readers into clients in 30 days. It’s about building in consistent touch points to add value and showcase your expertise, so that your audience begins to know, like, and trust you enough to hop on a call.

Types of content financial services should use

While content could take any form, I like to limit it to the following list:

• Blogs/articles: Publish informative content that explains complex financial concepts, market trends, and industry insights while showcasing your firm's expertise and thought leadership.
• Tools/calculators: Provide interactive financial calculators for tasks like mortgage payments, retirement planning, or investment returns to help prospects make informed decisions while demonstrating your firm's practical value.
• Email newsletters: Create regular digests that keep clients informed about market updates, company news, and valuable financial tips while nurturing relationships with your subscriber base.
• Sales campaigns: Develop targeted promotional materials that highlight specific financial products or services, complete with clear value propositions and calls-to-action.
• Lead magnets: Offer valuable downloadable resources like investment guides, financial planning templates, or market research reports in exchange for contact information to build your prospect database.
• LinkedIn posts (from your personal profile): Share professional insights, industry commentary, and behind-the-scenes glimpses of your work to build personal authority and connect with potential clients in a more authentic way.

I’ve worked with financial services firms to create this type of content, with pretty good successes along the way. Next, I’ll give you the exact blueprint I use for our clients and a customer example.

A blueprint for growing your firm through content

Building an effective content strategy that drives traffic to your website and fills your pipeline does not need to take years or back-breaking work. We distill our approach to building effective content strategies into the following four principles:

• Define your killer advantage (offer)
• Show up consistently (with great content)
• Distribute and promote
• Turn your audience into raving fans

Let’s walk through each one.

Define your “killer advantage” (offer)

Good marketing starts with a killer advantage that separates you from the competition.

By just stating what you do, your firm is one of hundreds (or thousands) that your ideal customers could work with. Like the heart surgeon versus the pediatrician, you need to identify what makes you unique and the best option for your target client.

I can’t say this enough: what you do is not nearly as special as how you do it or who you do it for.

As you learned above, a defined ICP  is essential to a successful content strategy. Start by identifying the common characteristics of your best client to define an ICP that you want to attract.

One family office we worked with nailed their killer advantage as having a set of specialized services for private equity professionals. They were uniquely situated to meet the specific financial demands of private equity professionals, which helped them stand out as a leader rather than one of many family offices in Boston.

Show up consistently with great content

The financial services industry thrives on trust and expertise, making high-quality content non-negotiable.

Expert-led content combines deep industry knowledge with compelling storytelling and data-driven insights to create pieces that command attention. This isn't just about sharing information—it's about presenting complex financial concepts in ways that resonate with your audience's needs and challenges. By backing up insights with solid research and real-world examples, you create content that not only attracts readers but positions your firm as a trusted authority in your space.

Distribute and promote your content

The best content in the world is worthless if it doesn't reach your target audience. While SEO remains a powerful long-term strategy, it's just one piece of the distribution puzzle. A comprehensive promotion strategy might include social media campaigns, targeted email outreach, and industry partnerships. By investing in promotion and taking ownership of content performance, you ensure your valuable insights don't just sit idle on your website but actively work to attract and engage your ideal prospects.

Turn your audience into raving fans

Building an engaged audience is just the beginning—the real magic happens when you transform casual readers into devoted advocates for your firm.

Email marketing allows you to nurture relationships through regular, value-added communication. By delivering consistently valuable insights and maintaining an ongoing dialogue with your audience, you create a community of loyal followers who not only trust your expertise but actively recommend your services to others. This transition from reader to advocate is where content marketing truly proves its worth in driving sustainable business growth.

An example of content in action: Colony Hills Capital

Meet Colony Hills Capital, a multifamily real estate investment firm.

The Colony Hills Capital team used to spend countless hours hustling from conference to conference to find investors. They knew if they were going to reach their goals of $1M raised every week, some of that had to come via the website on autopilot.

There’s a problem, though: the SEO agency they hired wasn’t bringing in results. In fact, the Colony Hills Capital site brought in fewer than 10 visitors a day from Google, and none of them were turning into leads.

There were also some major players in the space absolutely dominating on Google.

Never fear though. With our framework, we:

• Defined their ICP
• Identified a “killer advantage”
• Ranked their website on Google with a content strategy
• Turned their traffic into leads through effective lead magnets
• Helped nurture those leads through email marketing

After a year of creative thinking and lots of good content, Glenn’s team is well on their way toward their initial goal. Here's their daily organic traffic totals from 2022-2024:

Not only did they 5x their organic traffic from Google (free), but thanks to their optimized landing pages and sets of lead magnets, they generated upwards of 20 leads every single month without spending a dime on them.

Fill your pipeline and client list with our organic growth playbook

The framework I gave you is simple, but it takes work to implement.

Building a seven-figure business does not happen by accident or overnight. But by nailing these key elements:

• Your ICP
• Your offer
• Your traffic
• Your nurturing

You will build traffic and turn that traffic into clients. I have one final gift for you: a free eBook that breaks down this process with a few extra steps to show exactly how we’ve helped firms like Colony Hills Capital.

Click the button below to get your free copy, and put your firm on the path to success in the months ahead.