Whether you’re an existing client, or perhaps less familiar with TOMD, the aim of this guide is to (re)introduce us as a business (partner) who can meet all of your content marketing requirements and objectives.

(‘We understand you’ as a heading?)

First and foremost, we understand you and the industry in which you operate. With a wealth of financial marketing experience, (finance professionals crafting content, designers and web developers), as a financial firm (adviser, network, fund manager) operating in the evolving economic, regulatory and business environment, you can rest assured we have our finger on the pulse.

We thrive on developing purposeful content and want to change the perception of content as purely a tick box exercise, by elevating the need for frequent, consistent, proactive and reactive client communications which can be seamlessly delivered to your clients using our CS Content Distribution Platform.

Why communicate?

It is essential for all firms to communicate with their clients. The benefits of doing so are manifold, in addition to helping with client retention it also helps to increase the number of referrals. The same content can often be used when prospecting for new clients and also on your website and in social media or videos, reinforcing the fact that you are on top of current topics and are a knowledgeable source of information.

With the advent of Consumer Duty, it is more important than ever to not only communicate but to communicate relevant communication to your different client and target groups, clearly, concisely and with purpose.

Despite the proliferation of communication methods at your disposal they all ultimately boil down to delivering good quality content and imagery. It is the distribution of this content and choosing the right distribution methods that is more complicated.

Content was always key long before Consumer Duty but now there is a regulatory driver a play too

Develop a content marketing strategy to meet your objectives

All firms you should have a content plan for the next 12 months – a content calendar – which we can help you develop, covering client communication in all its many forms.

And what are you objectives as a business, perhaps to retain clients, gain more clients, consolidate your offering and presence in the industry? Whatever your overall objectives, determining an objective for each piece of communication you send should be aligned with these…

Keep it simple (but be purposeful and strategic)

Some communications you send are designed to reassure clients, potentiality in periods of market volatility for example, whilst others will showcase your knowledge, experience, approachability and personality – to both existing clients and prospective clients, and the industry. Maybe you want higher social media engagement or presence, to increase your client bank, to build your reputation – whatever your objectives – it’s crucial to determine this at the outset.

Through a mix of high quality syndicated (or pre-approved – J-P’s preferred term) and bespoke content we are the only people in the marketplace creating content, combining it with technology to distribute it and providing a managed service to support you.

We can help you create your plan and provide the content you require and help you to publish it

In a nutshell, as your content partner our focus is to:

• Provide you with a solution and to take any pain away around the creation and delivery of content marketing
• Deliver everything you need and the capabilities to fulfil all of your content marketing requirements, and even the capability to distribute it through various channels
• Put you in control and give you peace of mind, knowing your calendar of content for the year is mapped out, and that plan is intuitive and flexible
• Enable you to focus on your business and clients, the bit you’re really good at
• Save you time by writing, compliance approving, designing our content – the time saving for you is huge, adding real value – another problem solved!
• Define a purpose for each piece of communication
• Create clear, easy to understand, well-pitched, pertinent content to engage your audience
• Enhance your service and overall offering to your clients, placing them at the heart of every piece of content you send to them, consolidating your relationship with them
• Professionalise your business through high quality, regular, compliant communication.

So, sit back and relax… we understand the challenge and can solve the problem

• Identify different client segments – this may simply be taking the time to segment clients based on life stage or the types of products they currently have

• Decide on the number of touch points – you want to have during the year with your clients in addition of course to any reviews you have with them

• Consider how you want to communicate – for example this might be an e-mail newsletter but you may prefer with some segments to send them a printed magazine, with a few extra magazines for your office meeting room perhaps

• Identify the type of content you want to publish – this won’t just be content about financial topics but if, for example, you’re keen on using social media then you will need to consider publishing content about your firm, the people in it, the local community etc.

• Think about the types of areas you want to cover – your content should cover those areas that affect the services in which you provide advice, for example the economy, fiscal events, the markets, pensions, savings etc.

The perfect blend of syndicated and bespoke content

For many reasons, not just Consumer Duty, one-size-fits-all is no longer suitable when it comes to client communication. This involves extra work in not only segmenting your database but also spending time identifying which pieces of content are relevant to them and then distributing that content in the most efficient manner. To achieve this, it is important to be able to access as much quality compliance approved content as possible and is therefore ‘ready to go’ – syndicated content is an ideal way to achieve this and provides the backbone for many firms all year content strategy.

It’s a pick and mix approach at TOMD – we provide it all – select what you need!

At TOMD we publish in excess of 300 different articles each year covering a wide range of topics. It’s important to no longer think of content in terms of newsletters but instead in terms of the individual articles or ingredients that you can use to communicate effectively with your clients and with your target market.

Mix it up to bring in the focus and personality

If you have specific target markets it makes sense to supplement that syndicated content with bespoke content written specifically for you with your clients in mind, this is something that at TOMD we are increasingly being asked to do, it’s a perfect dovetail approach.

In our view this provides the best of both worlds as syndicated content is cost effective, available instantly and has been pre-approved. Bespoke content, while more expensive, enables you to target specific groups with specific messages and can be written with SEO specifically in mind

Big and small – relevant to all

In our view no firm should solely be using syndicated content, even the smallest of firms should be personalising that content not only with their logo and contact details but with personalised introduction paragraphs on an e-mail newsletter or personalised accompanying letters or emails for print or way you are sending out PDFs.

The larger firms get the greater the proportion of bespoke content should be deployed, this may be changing headings and images on syndicated content to make it more your own but it should also include more bespoke articles written with your tone of voice and with SEO in mind.

A very small firm may rely for 95% of their content on syndicated content but for a firm of 20 advisers that percentage may fall to 50% as the brand, tone of voice and particular key messages become more important and better defined the larger you become

While syndicated content is a perfect solution for many firms, when used on your website it will not perform very strongly for SEO although there are some things you can do to improve this, bespoke content on the other hand can be written specifically with SEO in mind and is perfect if you are writing with particular segments or topics in mind (Q – need explanation re what is SEO and why is it important? In simple terms SEO…)

The other important point which all good marketing companies should consider is maximising the use of any content that you publish. For example, if you publish an article on your website we can provide you with pre-approved social media posts which you can publish and link back to the article on your website.

In addition, we can provide snippets which can be used in e-mail newsletters which introduced the article in just three or four lines and then encourage the reader to click here for more they will then click through to your website and read the article in full

The advantages of this are that you are directing them to your website which is where you want them to be and through the e-mail technology that we use at TOMD you will be able to identify which articles they have clicked and therefore what they are interested to read

Your Content Calendar… a simple but useful tool

Content marketing is an ongoing commitment, engaging your readers and publishing in good and bad times.

By developing a Content Calendar outlining all of your content for the year, you’re creating a framework, a reference tool to keep you focused.

Your calendar will need to flex, as macro events dictate…

Always on

We have content ready for distribution but also have the capability to be responsive when ad hoc events / circumstances arise

• Weekly – News in Review – reacting to events
• Monthly – Economic Review – UK centric significant developments, Business Review
• Quarterly – Wealth, Money, Home Finance newsletters and Wealth & Money magazine, plus Quarterly Economic Outlook (early April, July, Oct) and Year in Review (December)
• Event driven – Budget, End of Tax Year, ad hoc e.g. Elections
• Campaigns
• Guides – 23 topic guides including Pensions, Retirement Planning, Tax Guide

4 pillar campaigns throughout the year:

• Jan-March – End of tax year
• Spring Budget
• Autumn Statement
• Year in Review

Comprise – video, posts, social media graphics, PDF, guides (end of tax year), word docs…

Collab

• You can decide what content you want, what campaigns you want and when
• We can compile your calendar
• Dovetail syndicated and bespoke content at add that really personal element
• We’ve got your content covered
• We know what you are going to need across the financial year
• We are proactive and reactive, reacting to the news and delivering ad hoc content
• We know there will be a market blip and you’ll want to reassure clients
• We know the budgets are coming and you need to have content which is differentiated from the consumer news
• We know you have campaigns for the end of tax year
• We know you want to send Christmas cards or videos, you need a full set of guides for different clients – you just don’t know which one you will need when etc.

Example content calendar

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

Videos – revisit adviser profile

Mike wording to edit:

• At TOMD we encourage and help firms to develop a content strategy which incorporates client communication and the campaigns they want to run during the course of the year new line the most obvious being those around the end of tax year and the budget the others will tend to depend on your specialisms and your target market new line By viewing content over a 12 month basis and developing a calendar means that you can identify the most relevant content that we provide and match it to your needs knew line in addition to all the ongoing client communication content we produce, we also publish a series of more than 20 guides which are perfect for use within campaigns new line We provide campaign packages for those firms who want a quick and easy solution but the range of content we provide means that many firms use our publications are now content to develop their own campaigns
• As we’ve said the delivery of the content provides a real challenge for many firms which is why we have developed two primary ways of helping firms and helping them to meet this challenge
• The first is the development of our technology through our marketing store and our new content platform which facilitate easy ways to publish and distribute personalised content
• And secondly, more traditionally, a managed service for those firms are more complex requirements where Pi we will produce and distribute the content for you to your exact requirements

Case study / studies  (CW to write maybe?) – The perfect example – client who takes syndicated, has bespoke, deploys campaigns, posts, a calendar of events, videos (inc adviser profile)-  quote

Video capabilities

Visual, engaging, optimised, tailored, multi-generational appeal – why wouldn’t you be using videos to connect and communicate with your clients? We craft templated and bespoke, personalised videos to distribute to your clients…

Different scenarios

We think content needs to be part of the marketing mix for a firm and the individual advisers within it – each adviser should have their own digital marketing profiles and communication avenues, making it a personal experience for clients and building that connection of trust. Let’s make it personal to truly connect – we can advise on achieving this

Anything is possible

Have you thought about having individual content sites for your clients? We can support firms who wish to adopt an individual web page for a client or client group (profile), driving clients to an individual review video, a bespoke tax infographic based on their tax band…

AI ok

The creation of ChatGPT and AI generally will transform the way we all work over the coming years. Like all things it’s important to identify how it can be used as part of an overall communication strategy and it will no doubt help to enable the generation of content that bit quicker. However, it’s important to bear in mind that as a regulated businesses your requirements for content are that bit more complex as we well know given the hoops we have to get through to provide firms with the amount of content that we publish each year. This includes writing the content in a way that we no well make approval that bit smoother by providing all the relevant sources, adding all the relevant disclaimers and not making any claims which aren’t true. We also, obviously, have to provide text which is new and unique and not a regurgitation of other content. We do all this in a cost effective manner on the range of content that we provide means that, in most cases, firms can have access to any of the content they want whenever they want it