A recent report from The Financial Marketeer shows something very clearly; demand in the financial advice industry is increasing. IFAs responded to a survey and the majority (over 80%) said revenue had increased by at least 5% last year.
Despite this, there are some clear challenges showing up. The first is that, according to the report, clients of IFAs are struggling to understand ESG investing; that is to say, they don't understand how environmental, social and governance comes into the process, how it works and what the real solutions are.
The second challenge is that IFAs need to make extra effort to provide retirement solutions which come in line with FCA guidance for IFAs to introduce 'investment pathways' for clients approaching drawdown without taking advice.
Filling the communication gap
In the face of these challenges, it's critical that financial advice firms take care to fill a gap that exists in communications between firms and consumers.
There is no shortage of online data that unlocks where consumer demand is in this market.
Take the example below, it shows that online searches for 'ESG investing' are higher now than they have ever been:
Going further, it's a similar story for the search term 'what is ESG':
The financial advice brands who win will be the ones who answer the market's questions.
It's not complicated either. With the glut of online data available, the hard work that's required is in researching where the demand is. If this is uncovered, content and communication strategies write themselves.
What should financial advice firms be doing?
1. Understand where demand is growing
This is the first step; using the data that exists from Google, Bing, SEMrush and a whole host of other providers to understand where consumer demand is. The data will tell you what your audience is looking for, how much they are looking for it, which topics are increasing in demand and where the competition is weak and demand is unfulfilled.
2. Write a communications strategy
If you are to stand any chance of reaching your target audience you need a robust communication strategy. The strategy itself needs to be laser focussed on targeting the demand.
3. Roll out the strategy
The most common weakness when rolling out a content strategy is to miss the part where you justify the decisions made in the strategy. If this work has been done, writing a comms plan is (relatively) simple. Whatever the format; blogging, articles, videos, LinkedIn posts, you must ensure that every piece of content produced hits the target audience where the demand is at a peak. In short; answer the market's questions.
We can help
If you think it's time that you took a proactive look at how you understand your consumer's demand and how you address it (and that really should be a priority, now more than ever), we can help. We are focussed on serving the financial services sector; we have years of experience working on some of the highest-profile national and international projects in the sector. From working with the UK government's pension scheme to managing digital projects for global financial regulators.
If you'd like to speak to us about your digital communications strategy, get in touch by calling 01481 740073 (Guernsey) or 01865 686093 (UK), or email [email protected].
