Over the past few years, programmatic buying, content platforms and robo-tools have all entered into the competition for share of asset management marketing budgets. With a ripe DC pensions market on the horizon, the opportunity to engage with a new demographic of consumers is burgeoning. But is the cost of new tech driven solutions eating into budgets and providing little return? And more importantly, are tech solutions hitting the mark in terms of increasing customer engagement – will they ever replace traditional media and human interaction?
On Thursday 19 January, we were joined by a stellar line up of panelists, keen to share their viewpoint and expertise. Chairman Piers Currie, Group Head of Brand at Aberdeen Asset Management, was joined by Patrick Ingram, Head of Corporate Partnerships at Parmenion Capital Partners, Jeremy King, Publishing Director at Interactive Investor and Rupert Hodson, CEO and Co-Founder at Dianomi. A wealth of experience amongst the panel, each participant with a unique background.
See full debate here at the Financial Services Forum site.
 

In part 2 of our series exploring how FS brands can improve their content marketing, we’ve identified 6 ways to improve the success of campaigns:
1. Put your content in context. If your target audience sees your message where they’re already consuming financial content, they’ll be much more engaged and more likely to take action. Rupert Hodson, our CEO and co-founder, explains: “ Delivering campaigns targeted to specific financial audiences, while they are actively engaging in financial content has been an age old recipe for success in marketing.” (please see here for the full interview). Our campaigns typically demonstrate increased dwell time, actions and higher life-time value because we deliver them in context.
2.It seems obvious, but get the content right. How you word your ad text and what imagery you choose will determine who engages with it. If it’s too niche, readers will skip it. If it’s too generic, you may engage the wrong readers and cause your bounce rates and CPAs to increase. And don’t underestimate the importance of testing. Without A/B testing creatives, both in terms of imagery and text, optimisation becomes a guessing game rather than a strategic decision-making tool.
3.Know the demographics and behaviour of your target sectors. What devices are they most likely to consume content on? What platforms do they read? This should determine which publisher you choose to drive traffic through. Also consider where they are based, and what time of day they are most likely to engage. The more you know about your audience, the more successful your campaign will be.
4.Always lead with your readers in mind and keep the user journey as simple as possible. If you are promoting a video, say so in the ad text or add a play button to the image. If the content needs to be downloaded, make sure that readers are aware of that by adding a CTA of ‘download white paper now or ‘download our report’. Your audience will be much more likely to engage with your content if they know how it will be presented.
5.Consider all the elements you want to track, and make sure every goal essential to your campaign’s success can be measured. Do you you want to track which of your landing page CTAs is the most successful? Is one of your goals increasing the number of users who downloaded a white paper, or do you want to discover if a campaign has increased your users’ dwell time? Document each one and make sure each has a specific goal set up. Tracking which clicks convert on the site and interpreting the data will allow meaningful analysis. Incomplete data will limit your results and won’t give you a true representation as to how effective your campaign has been.
6.Run campaigns across a variety of channels and constantly monitor the results across them all. Don’t assume just because ad text has worked on one channel, it will automatically work well on another. It might just need some small adjustments to make it start to engage, but unless you’re tracking your results closely, you won’t be able to make that change. This allows insight into what is working well in terms of publishers, devices, ad creatives or time of day – which in turn allows you to be more savvy in your campaign evolution, and for future campaigns.
 

In the first of our series of articles exploring how to improve content marketing for financial brands, Raphael Queisser takes a look at the importance of a strategic approach. You can’t run a successful financial content marketing campaign without great content. But there is much more to effective content marketing than just producing content. You need to consider how to create, distribute, measure and track it. And, most importantly, you need to know why you’re doing it. Have you got a strategy in place? Do you know who you’re targeting and what you want to achieve?
Having a well-thought out strategy with clear deliverables in place ensures each piece of content you produce is seen in context ie. in the right place, at the right time, by the right audience. It also ensures you can measure exactly how effective each individual campaign was in achieving your objectives and in delivering results.
We carried out research with FS brands, in conjunction with specialist financial content marketing agency Editions Financial and the Financial Services Forum. We found that although over 50% believe content marketing is more effective at building trust than other approaches, only 38% have a defined content marketing strategy. That explains our research’s discovery that only 13% would say their organisation is very successful at measuring ROI from content marketing campaigns.
Without a clear, consistent plan in place, it’s impossible to be able to give any kind of clarity as to how effective a campaign has been in achieving your goals, and where in the customer journey your audience has been most receptive. You need to know where each campaign fits in your overall goals and strategic objectives, to be able to effectively measure which has been most successful.
 
Below are our 3 takeaways FS brands should consider when creating an effective digital content strategy:
1.Lead with your audience, not your brand.
You need to know your target audience challenges and pain points – what do they need information on? What are they passionate about, what will make them engage your brand? What can make them trust your brand online? Strip your content strategy back and really think about who your audience is – whether it’s investors, traders, personal financiers or those investigating their options for investment, retirement or banking. Create detailed user personas that explore more than just demographics – consider their behaviour and motivation.
2.Don’t take anything for granted
Know exactly what your audience reads and when they read it, and utilise that knowledge to make decisions on which channels will deliver optimal attention. Put yourself in their shoes and consider where they will be receptive to your messages. Armed with that information, you can create content which will appeal to their needs and can be targeted appropriately. Don’t underestimate the importance of testing either, without A/B testing creatives (both in terms of imagery and text), optimisation becomes a guessing game rather than a strategic decision making tool.
3.Learn what works well where, and what doesn’t
Constantly check how campaigns are performing against your strategic goals and objectives, and that they are fully optimised. Make sure you have the right reporting in place for a campaign to ensure it is completely transparent – that it captures all the information you need to give an indication of how it really performed.

Gramercy Institute Chief Analyst Bill Wreaks recently met up with Dianomi co-founder & CEO Rupert Hodson.
Wreaks and Hodson chatted about the business behind Dianomi and what Dianomi’s success might spell for the future of financial services marketing. “Quality of creative and quality of environment,” explains Hodson, “are critical to advertisers. Delivering campaigns targeted to specific financial audiences, while they are actively engaging in financial content has been an age old recipe for success in marketing. We are simply driving this further in the digital age. This is where the real opportunity lies.”
Click here to read this comprehensive and insightful interview as “Wreaks Speaks” with Rupert Hodson.

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Dianomi, the financial content marketing platform, are excited to announce they are now the exclusive sponsored content provider on Kiplinger.com’s newly relaunched website. Dianomi Sponsored Financial Content recommendation units have been integrated on all articles and slideshows, along with the full range of personal finance tools and calculators that Kiplinger offer their users; distributing relevant sponsored content that engages with their financially savvy audience.
Doug Harbrecht, Director of New Media said;
Kiplinger has been providing trusted personal financial advice and business forecasting to our audience for more than 96 years. In partnering with Dianomi, we can supplement our unique digital offering with outside editorial, content marketing, and native advertising from other reputable financial brands our readers may find useful, generating a real revenue stream for our website. With Dianomi, we have a partner who helps us meet our goals – contextual financial content that delivers value to our audience. We look forward to growing with them in the future.“
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Dianomi™ is a global leader in financial content marketing. Working with over 250 of the world’s leading financial publishers, Dianomi markets sponsored content from over 200 premium financial brands, reaching over 80 million consumers a month, all of whom are engaging in financial content.

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Dianomi, the financial content marketing platform, is excited to announce that is has partnered with Investmentnews.com. dianomi’s  Sponsored Financial Content Units have been integrated across all article pages, distributing valuable and relevant sponsored content for brands that engages with InvestmentNews’s premium financial advisor audience.
InvestmentNews’s  mission is to provide the financial advisory community with the highest quality news, analysis and industry intelligence – whenever, however, and wherever they need it. InvestmentNews is part of Crain Communications, Inc.
Dianomi™ is a global leader in financial content marketing. Working with over 250 of the world’s leading financial publishers, Dianomi markets sponsored content from over 200 premium financial brands, reaching over 80 million consumers a month, all of whom are engaging in financial content.
 
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Growing on the success in North America, dianomi’s roll out onto Yahoo! Finance Canada expands its clients capability to reach  an affluent, financially engaged Canadian audience, all on a cost per click.
“With dianomi already serving over 100m  financial content ads a month to Canadian IPs, we see this as a natural extension to our North Amercian capability and Canada is a country where we continue to place more focus” – Rupert Hodson – CEO.
 
 

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Dianomi sponsored financial content units now live on Entrepreneur.com.
Dianomi continues to build on their network of premium business and financial publishers, launching their financial content recommendation units on Entrepreneur.com – reaching the spectrum of entrepreneurs at every point of business.
No matter what the path, the entrepreneurial journey always begins with a mindset. Entrepreneur delivers distinctive content on every road taken by the independent thinkers, builders and leaders driving economies across the world. Visitors access the website to find new insights and delve into core issues that affect every aspect of business. Entrepreneur.com is their trusted resource, ready to connect them not only to an infinite source of information but also an expansive online community where entrepreneurs meet, share and grow.
Entrepreneur grab
Entrepreneur.com serves 43 million+ page views monthly to a global audience of over 13 million visitors.
Dianomi™ is a global leader in financial content marketing. Working with over 250 of the world’s leading financial publishers, Dianomi markets sponsored content from over 200 premium financial brands, reaching over 75 million consumers a month, all of whom are engaging in financial content. Financial marketing carried out at the right time, to the right audience, in the right context. Dianomi’s pure focus within the finance vertical ensures a brand safe ecosystem for not only advertisers and publishers, but also for the financially engaged audiences that Dianomi reaches.