Catherine Storey, founder and Director of Freshbat Marketing, shares some content best practices.
In a world where everyone’s drowning in information, standing out with your content is tougher than ever—especially in the B2B finance world. With inboxes overflowing and attention spans shrinking, it’s no longer enough to just be informative. Your content needs to land perfectly, solving client problems and delivering real value.
In this article, we’ll dive into smart strategies for finance professionals to cut through the noise, grab decision-makers’ attention, and build trust in a sea of competition. It’s all about sharing insights that matter, using data to back it up, and humanising your approach for maximum impact.
Social media content
Ever felt like you’re churning out loads of content on social media but you’re not sure who actually reads it?
We’ve all been there – spend hours crafting the perfect LinkedIn post only for it to fall flat and get three likes… or worse, no reactions at all.
When this happens, there are several factors at play.
First, you could be putting out too much content – when people see your content too frequently, they might get bored.
Second, maybe you’re putting out irrelevant content – most social media is saturated with low-quality content that people are sharing because they feel obligated to share something. It’s a tick box exercise that’s bound to generate very little, if any return.
Third, and most likely, you might be putting out content that’s as dry as sandpaper; faceless posts that are bogged down with corporate jargon and don’t do anything to differentiate your brand from the next one.
So you’re unable to see any positive results from the marketing grind.
If you’re making any of the mistakes above, it all boils down to one thing: you don’t understand your target audience.
Great marketing is all about creating content that hits one of more of the following: inform, entertain, inspire. And if your content isn’t hitting at least one of those areas, you should rethink what you’re creating.
Some studies show that people only read an hour’s worth of content a month. In fact, people on average are spending less than one second looking at an individual post on social media.
So how can you stop the scroll and make sure people are actually reading the content you’ve spent time crafting?
• Understand what your competitors are doing… then do it differently. Breaking free of the norms in your industry is key to cutting through the noise and creating content that people are actually going to give up precious minutes to consume.
• Choose your platforms carefully. Make sure you take the time to understand the key features of any platform you’re using to share content, whether that be LinkedIn, YouTube, email, blogging or even TikTok. Each platform has best practice ways of sharing content so you can get engagement from your target audience.
• Be human. For example, LinkedIn posts that feature images of real people (and no, we’re not including stock photography in this), get twice as many comments compared to corporate graphics (https://blog.hootsuite.com/linkedin-statistics-business). It’s time to share more behind-the-scenes of your company, the stories of the people who work there and your brand personality.
• Share something unique. Do you have a unique piece of research you can share? Or some piece of information that’s going to solve a major challenge your target audience experiences? Make sure every single piece of content adds value for your target audience, or you’ll keep seeing tumbleweed whenever you share something with your network.
• Leverage personal brands. 76% of people say they’re more likely to trust content shared by ‘normal people’ than by a business or brand ( https://sproutsocial.com/glossary/brand-advocate/). Without strong personal brands of your senior leaders, your company content will struggle to gain traction.
Web content
Think you can get away with more technical, long-form content on your website?
Well, according to one web usability study, you can’t. It found that B2B users spend an average of 1.37 minutes on-page (https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/chartbeat-website-engagement-data-nj), which gives you slightly longer to grab their attention than on a social media platform, but still not a lot of time.
So with that in mind, if you want to create blog posts that grab attention and keep readers hooked, try these ideas:
• Start with a headline that pops—something that sparks curiosity or explicitly identifies a problem your readers care about. Keep things easy to read with short paragraphs, bullet points, and subheadings so people can skim without getting lost.
• Right from the get-go, draw them in with a strong intro that promises something valuable. And don’t forget to add some visuals—whether it’s images, infographics, or videos—to break up the text and keep things interesting for visual learners.
• Talk to your readers like you would in a conversation. Personal stories or anecdotes go a long way in creating that emotional connection. Want to up the engagement? Toss in a poll, quiz, or ask a question in the comments to get them involved.
• Lastly, make sure your post looks great on mobile since that’s where most people read nowadays. Keep it short, actionable, and relevant!
In today’s crowded market, getting your content to really connect with your B2B finance audience takes a smart mix of strategy, personalisation, and genuine value. By zeroing in on your clients’ pain points, using data to shape your approach, and creating content they can actually relate to, you’ll stand a greater chance of differentiating your business. Stay consistent, tweak your messaging as you go, and always keep it relevant. Do that, and you’ll build solid relationships and stay top-of-mind with key decision-makers.
