Financial Copywriting: Four Strategies to Connect with Readers and Promote Action

Compelling financial copywriting can differentiate your firm in a crowded marketplace.  However, other firms are not necessarily your stiffest competition.  Instead, there’s a powerful force out there that can be far more difficult to overcome: that’s inertia.

Especially if you’re dealing with busy professionals or families with kids, motivating people to take action can be challenging.  In our busy world, that’s no surprise….urgent but less important matters seem to consume available time, leaving little attention for longer-range priorities.  Then, of course, many people naturally procrastinate on dealing with significant and often scary issues such as planning for their retirement, disability, or death.  As we all know, it is often easier for people to stick their heads in the sand than act now.

How Can Financial Copywriting Promote Action?

Engaging your readers and getting them to act is very possible; it just takes strategy.  You can’t just write content for content’s sake.  You need to craft it with the end in mind:  getting them to take that next step.

Here are four tips for connecting with your readers and inspiring action when developing financial content.

#1: Find the Story in the Numbers

One of the most effective ways to convey information is through storytelling. This has been done for literally thousands of years, and it’s just as effective now as it was for our cave-dwelling ancestors.

Many financial professionals make the mistake of focusing excessively on numbers. While data and figures are important and can tell their own story, you as a financial professional probably interpret that data far differently than your potential clients.  And for many people, numbers and data are a turn-off and don’t engage them.

By focusing on telling a story, those numbers can play a supporting role, and the whole situation becomes more relatable. This is a critical step in getting people to take action with their finances. Stories are immediately engaging. They build connection and trust and allow readers to enter the story from their current perspective. This increases the likelihood that your reader will learn and retain the information you’re providing.

#2:  Humanize Your Financial Copywriting

Let’s face it; there is a lot of financial advisor copywriting and financial content out there that is notoriously dry.  You read it because you have to, not because you want to.  Needless to say, that’s not how to create results.

Instead, you need to grab your reader’s attention by humanizing the topic.  Put some thought into an aspect of your topic that most people can relate to, and make that your hook. For example, if you were writing about retirement planning and want to target Millennials, you might talk about how difficult it is to save money. For a generation that’s lived through two recessions and a pandemic, they’ll be able to relate to that much more than a discussion of the importance of diversifying investments. This also communicates to them that you understand their struggles and challenges. Doing that builds trust and credibility. You want to put them in a position to think, “Hey, this company understands me. Maybe they can help me.”

#3:  Emotional Engagement is Mandatory, Not Optional

Another technique to successful financial copywriting is to engage your readers emotionally. Be prepared to guide them through any potential downsides of financial decisions and then the upside. This will help them “feel” the need to take action.

After all, COVID-19 motivated people worldwide to finally create a will and estate plan.  No, it was not that they all read about the features of a will or estate plan.  It’s that COVID-19 created the real fear of death or disability and brought it to the forefront.  Now that’s emotional engagement.

Bring emotional engagement into your financial copywriting.  If you’re doing financial advisor copywriting for wealth management, that can mean asking people to think about how they feel about their money.

Or, if you’re writing for insurance, that can mean questions about what happens to their family if something happens to them.

Even if you’re targeting a different segment, such as the ultra-high net worth demographic, there are many emotions to engage.  However, the questions you ask and the topics you hit on may be different.  This group may be feeling stressed about the expectation of higher taxes.  Or they may be concerned about how their kids will manage their financial legacy after they pass away.

As we know, there’s no shortage of human emotions surrounding money.  Good and bad, play them up in your financial content writing.

#4:  Focus on Benefits, not Features

Finally, with financial copywriting, always talk about benefits, not features. Features describe what a product or service does. However, benefits represent how a product or service can help improve the readers’ lives. When people are making a decision, they’re looking for a product or service that will make a difference for them.  So that’s where you need to emphasize benefits.

Personalized portfolio management? Sounds descriptive to those of us in the finance industry, but to the consumer, it doesn’t say a whole lot.

But what if we say it this way?

Our personalized approach means you won’t be placed into cookie-cutter solutions that may or may not meet your needs.  Instead, we’ll work with you to build an investment strategy from the ground up tailored to your life and your goals.  As importantly, you’ll participate in the process, so you will fully understand what you’re invested in and why.  Along with helping you achieve your goals faster, this approach can help you feel more confident during times of volatility.

Hit those pain points.  Does your product or service help people feel more organized and in control?  Tell them!

Bottom line, benefits are personal.  Features are not.  If you can frame the benefits of what you’re suggesting in a way that resonates with them, they’ll be much more likely to contact your firm for help.

Looking for help with financial website content or copywriting?  At Wavelength, we’ve developed engaging, effective content for many clients, including over 85 Registered Investment Advisory firms, hedge funds, private equity and fintech firms.   Contact us for a free consultation.