We caught up with a client recently to discuss the upcoming work, and they provided some feedback on the recent article we published titled How Corporate Membership Works. While it gave a clear idea as to what we do and why we do it, one of the lacking elements was the problems we hear from our clients. With that in mind, here’s a follow up to the previous written article with an emphasis on the problems we solve.
Problem Statement 1 – ‘Our content isn’t gaining attention’
Your team has put the work in. They have done the research and produced a piece of valuable educational content covering multiple areas for advisers. The only issue is, no one is reading it – why?
It’s a wildly simple answer… the problem statements weren’t generated by advisers. This is a general statement as I know there is often an attempt to achieve this, but when distribution teams are providing feedback from one to one conversations, it’s the equivalent of an inefficient focus group. Now with over 6,000 advice members, our sample size is a quarter of the entire industry. When a particular issue or problem is present on our platform, we aren’t guessing. We let the data guide us. So, the first step in generating attention for your content is being data driven.
The second answer is who is creating the educational content? I’ve met brilliant content writers before who knew nothing about financial planning. Do you think a nicely worded piece of content written without the audience’s nuanced point of view is going to be well received? The answer is ‘no’. Advice professionals are exactly that – professionals. They spend each and every day in front of clients, doing their best to solve their client’s problems. Someone with this type of experience will pick up on an incorrect frame immediately. Platitudes are the bane of every professional, whether a financial adviser or not. To solve for this, every Content Specialist in XY is an expert in financial planning.
In summary, the reason why your content isn’t gaining traction with advisers is because the premise of the piece is not speaking directly to a prominent adviser problem, and the content is not written from an adviser’s point of view. The reason why content on XY gains traction, is because we do both better than anyone else.
Problem Statement 2 – ‘We aren’t getting meaningful cut through with traditional distribution channels’
Traditional distribution channels are no longer as effective as they once were. There are many reasons for this, but it ultimately comes down to a trend over the last couple of decades which initially started at Gawker. Everything comes down to impressions, views, clicks and funnels. With the new battlefield lines drawn up, the algorithm to prove success to a client was to simply create attention by any means necessary. With no coincidence whatsoever, it was this exact approach which ultimately changed people’s perception of content on the internet. These days people are wary of media, influencers, and large tech companies. The fear of manipulation is always right around the corner. A high-quality community of peers on the other hand is trustworthy. The rationale is obvious – even if something is not entirely correct, if the author has nothing to sell to you, then at the very least they are not conflicted.
As the battlefield lines of audiences and advertisers are redrawn, and the rules of engagement are rewritten, it’s companies like XY who are playing a major role in ushering in a new value-driven model. In a nutshell – the opposite to Facebook. Rather than any company, accessing any audience, and sharing any message – we ensure all content is educational and value driven. There is little value for either an advice member or a corporate member in sharing a logo surrounded by ten others. But if we can take an adviser discussion point, research solutions, and create a piece of education which will increase the advisers capacity immediately – we are confident all parties are rewarded.
So why does the XY ecosystem provide meaningful cut-through? We keep strict ratios of 200 advice members to every corporate member, and we always provide each piece of education with ‘time to shine in the sun’. Every conversation, every file, and every piece of content on the XY ecosystem is valuable, and we want to make sure as many advisers as possible get access to all of it.
Problem Statement 3 – ‘We don’t know what type of adviser we are attracting’
The last problem statement we hear quite often is the hardest to solve. While the trend in marketing had been moving towards data science for quite some time, over the last couple of years it has really begun to take centre stage. There’s a reason for this – people don’t want irrelevant information, and companies don’t want to speak to an audience who have no need for them. If you’re a fund manager and you’re targeting 30-45 year old advisers in practices of around ten staff members – but your product is resonating with 60 year old advisers in single practice advisers, then how do you quantify it? Sure, you can rely on the century old survey technique, but in order to truly understand, you need to be able to make sense of analytics.
Right now our abilities on this are already marginally better than the wider industry, but we have a clear roadmap on how to dramatically improve this moving forward. The gap is quite wide in terms of what is the industry standard right now, and where it could (and should) be. As a former adviser myself, the idea I would only ever be exposed to content which was relevant to me – is a godsend. And as I get to speak to our corporate members each week, the quicker we can help them get to mastery here, the quicker they can begin to save millions of dollars in inefficient spend.
Get in Touch
We have a small number of spots still available for corporate members to join for the 2023 financial year. To find out how, and to discuss whether a corporate membership is right for your company, please feel free to reach out here.
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