If Spider-Man was just a normal guy with a red and blue spandex suit, there would likely be less fans of his comic book. His superpowers are what make him “Spider-Man” rather than “Spider-Guy”, and content marketing is no different. The value of your content is its superpower and what makes it “content marketing” rather than just marketing. 

Luckily, you don’t need to get bitten by a radioactive spider to create content with value—you just have to be concise with your intent and acknowledge what your audience is looking for when reading your content. At Even, we work collaboratively with our partners to generate engaging and actionable content, and we’ve learned a couple things along the way. 

(Fact) Check Yourself Before You Wreck Yourself 

With great power comes great responsibility. When someone reads your content, they’re assuming you’re an expert on the subject, so you should act the part. Don’t make bold assumptions or generalizations; use the power of “sources” to supercharge the point you’re trying to make. In fact, 90% of successful B2B marketers claimed to prioritize their audience’s information needs over their promotional message. Give your audience the factual information they’re looking for, rather than promoting your own agenda—it leads to a trust between yourself and the reader. 

Especially when you’re writing on finance and financial services, it’s important to be compliant and follow the regulatory guidelines that exist to protect consumers. At Even, we utilize programmatic monitoring of content across our platform and an experienced compliance team to create a real-time and multi-tiered approach to ensuring all compliance guidelines are met across our content, the content of our partners, and the use of the Even platform. If you’re interested in building out an efficient compliance framework at your company, our Head of Compliance Jordan Smith has written a great post all about doing so. 

Lastly, proofread what you’ve written. Your content isn’t a baseball card, and it won’t grow in value from having an error. Comb through the letters and syllables of your content and ensure there aren’t any grammatical or spelling errors. The difference between someone monetizing through your content could be as simple as “credit card” vs. “credit lard”—don’t let that “lard” ruin the health of the content you’re serving. 

The Next Big Action Star

Think less of Daniel Craig and James Bond, and more of your reader and the reason they’ve clicked your content. Your reader is there to take action—maybe they’re in the market for a credit card and they can’t decide on which one, or maybe they’re planning a wedding and worried about the cost. They’ve entered your front door as your guests, don’t be rude—offer them something, or more specifically, offer them a solution to the problem or curiosity that led them to you. 

This may be as simple as telling them what their next steps could be, for example: If they’re looking to improve their credit score, give them the steps necessary to improve their credit score. If you’re looking to bring that to the next level (and monetize in the process), you could utilize turnkey solutions Even provides to our many publishing partners that enable them to offer their users personalized financial services offers. With text links to custom branded financial services marketplaces and easily implemented embeds native in your content—we have an extensive suite of tools that could have you monetizing in minutes. So the next time someone is reading your content on how a personal loan could make that kitchen renovation easier, they can get matched with personalized loan offers native within your experience rather than leaving it. By providing your users the solution to their problem, while giving them the contextual content that empowers them to do so, you’re providing them value that will generate further brand loyalty over time. 

Can You Hear Me Now? 

The difference between your content and the content of your direct competitor is the fact that you’re writing it. In a world wherein it’s easier than ever to self-publish and position yourself as an expert as long as you have an internet connection and Google, it’s important to write content that is engaging and has a strong voice. Your writing voice is the combination of your tone, sentence structure, perspective, and more. Most importantly, though, it’s the stamp of what you're putting personally into your content that makes it yours. You don’t need to be an English major and understand the many nuances of poetic prose (though it’s helpful), rather, you just need to take your perspective and merge it with the point you’re trying to make with your audience. 

If you were having a conversation with someone in person, you would sound like you, so why would your writing be any different? When our CEO/Founder Phill Rosen interviewed Kyle Taylor (CEO/Founder of The Penny Hoarder) during a fireside chat at FinCon2019, he also echoed that idea—“I think one of the things that worked about The Penny Hoarder, and one of the things we’re still trying to do today, is to create a space where people can have a conversation. The content in the early days was just my story, but it was very raw.” The Penny Hoarder was founded in 2010 by Taylor, has grown to over 12-17 million unique monthly readers, and is one of Even’s most collaborative and impactful partnerships. That growth can be contributed to a variety of factors, but the seed was first planted via Kyle’s unique voice. 

Ready to Start Writing? 

Content marketing is part-science (don’t forget to pay attention to SEO, analytics, and all the data tools you have at your disposal), and the rest is putting your fingers to the keyboard. The first step in writing good content is writing, and if you’re not doing that, the value of that content is immediately null and void. Once you’ve started that first step, you can start adding the above tips and tricks into the mixture and generate real value for your users. Make sure you’re fact and grammar checking your content, give it a spin with your unique voice, and of course, give your users actionable solutions to the problems they’re trying to solve. If you’re looking for a quick and simple way to add real-time financial services offers to your content, reach out to us and see how easy it is to plug into the Even platform. We have an extensive network of content publishers that partner with us, enabling them to maximize monetization and bring a whole new level of value to their content. We’re not superheroes or anything—we’re just your friendly neighborhood customizable platform for financial product offers.