How to write great financial content for SMEs

Perhaps you’ve produced financial content like blogs, email newsletters and guides for some time now, but you’re yet to see the results you were hoping for. It’s time to take a step back. How can you generate engaging, high-ranking content all while keeping your customer's needs at the forefront of your strategy?

Here’s how to write great financial content for SMEs.

Refining your personas

It can be tempting to lump SMEs into one homogenous group – but a tech startup founder will have pain points that a farm shop owner would never come up against. 

Many content producers feel that providing entry-level financial advice will ensure they reach a range of audiences, but this strategy can backfire, with larger or more niche enterprises seeking specialist guidance tailored to their industry.

So, it’s vital that we reassess our personas if we want our content to have a genuine impact on the audience we’re trying to reach.

Start by showing you understand your audience's challenges, and what they want to know.

At a recent roundtable with Inkwell, Suzanne Worthington, Senior Writer at lawtech scale-up SeedLegals, explained the firm’s goals when establishing their personas:

“As a startup we’re trying to position ourselves as specialists in our niche. We aim to prove we know our audience and show we understand high-level government policies, especially when we're trying to be a cheerleader for initiatives such as the Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme.

“However, you have to accept that you aren’t specialists in everything. When it comes to things like the Budget, we did a media roundup linking to the free sources of reliable media, such as the Guardian and the BBC, to point people to the best coverage, ” she explained.

Pay attention to how your content is performing, and play to your strengths – what is your audience responding to? 

While discussing the recent Budget announcement Fraser McKay, Communications Manager for TaxAssist Accountants, reflected on adapting to their audience’s needs:

“At first we’d create really in-depth reports focusing on all the changes that affected business owners, but we have since found that our clients just want headlines and a little bit of an explanation. These ultimately act as prompts to generate a deeper and more personalised discussion with an expert.”

To learn more about making your personas and content more specific, read our article on refining personas.

Developing your content strategy

Once you’re clear on who you’re targeting, it’s essential to develop a clear strategy. 

Organising your content into themes is a great way for customers to find what they are looking for quickly. Financial guidance could fall under multiple categories, so dividing your content into pillars will ensure you’re covering a range of topics without straying from your niche. 

Financial management platform Sage is a great example of how to curate and segment your content, with themes such as “Money Matters” and “Making Tax Digital” covering key areas of interest for its audience.

It’s also important to consider the type of content you’re putting out there. Roundtable attendees said gated assets are providing the greatest ROI because they offer an opportunity to capture data.

“What we can measure in terms of bringing actual revenue into the company is our ebooks,” Suzanne said. “Gated content works amazingly – it’s content that people want to download and it works beautifully as a lead generator. In just a year, we can see these leads converted into tens of thousands of pounds worth of revenue.” 

You can find out more about Inkwell’s approach to gated assets, on our creative and design services page.

Making your content accessible

We often see brands favouring a dry, formal tone when talking about finance, instead of something more conversational. But the more you lean into a conversational format, the more traction you’ll get with founders and small business owners.

Taking the time to use the language your customers are familiar with rather than jargon-stuffing is key to making your content more accessible. 

Spending time on the “shop floor” and interacting face to face with your customers enables you to get in the mindset of your audience. Offering guidance in this way builds trust in your brand, which can lead to more sales in the future.

On this topic, founder of ScaleUp Global, Will Miller, explained how honing in on relevance is essential to creating accessible content:

“For us, our aim is to curate everything, so if you were going to read five articles today, what would those five articles be for you in your particular role at your stage of growth? It’s micro-relevance that can be really engaging for people.”

For others, ensuring you have the right people to deliver the content on your team is crucial, as Suzanne explains:

“I’ve noticed that there’s a new type of writer or content producer: data storytellers. Years ago, they were needed to explain the company's results and insights to the rest of the team to help them make better decisions. But now, data storytelling for your customers is becoming more prevalent. It requires a different way of thinking.”

When you’re writing financial content, it’s important to have technical writers in your team, but they need to be able to write for an audience that likely doesn’t come from an accountancy or financial background. Are they able to create accessible content that is both informative and engaging?

Keeping things fresh

If you’ve got a high-performing blog on your site, sometimes all it takes is a few tweaks and updates to maintain the top spot on Google. It’s worth keeping track of what you’re going to update as part of your ongoing content strategy.

Want to keep your copy fresh? Our article explains why your old content is as important as your new content.

Finally, whilst some believe AI to be the death of blogs, others argue we should be using it to our advantage. For example, if you’re writing an article about a financial topic you’ve covered several times before, tools like ChatGPT can provide new ideas.

Ready to take your content to the next level? Head to our content strategy services page to learn more about what we do, our impact and how we can help your business.