John Evans
This article was written by John Evans who is the Marketing Director at Citypoint Trading Limited.
In my experience, any Forex company that wants to publish successful content should ensure that there is a robust organisational process that underpins it. Success doesn’t have a thing to do with the actual content you publish, it starts with the people, processes and priorities that make up your organization- in short, your culture.
Good leadership that believes in content marketing is invaluable.
The culture of your company will be the conduit to establishing a consistent content production funnel to realise your strategy. If you do not have right people in place, all following a collective strategy, and aided by the right tools to fulfil the strategy, then there is a real danger that the exercise will be fruitless.
The best forex companies that I have seen execute a content strategy effectively all have the following in common:
- Their content is varied, written well and is truly ‘worthy’ of reading/distributing.
- Their content is delivered by ‘experts’ in their chosen field.
- Their content is delivered through a medium on their own websites (not just off-site) that is designed with this specific purpose in mind.
- Their schedule of content is extremely consistent, and reliable.
So how can your FX company capitalise on an internal culture of content creation? I have found that the points below go a long way to ensuring that this can become a realistic, and scalable strategy:
People = power
Your content is created by employees. Therefore, it is imperative that the right people are writing the right content:
- They must understand content marketing and how it differs from traditional methods.
- They must show enthusiasm to be trained in content marketing if they are not already experienced. Conversely, they must also have the enthusiasm to teach new people joining the team.
- They have exceptional editing skills.
- They collaborate easily and are true team players.
Content is a reflection of the people who make up your culture. If they are not up to your standards, then your content will not be either.
Board level buy-in is key
This is probably the most important aspect of the culture. If the powers-that-be cannot see the value, or do not believe in the strategy, this will have serious implications for an effective roll-out. Good leadership that believes in content marketing is invaluable. Leaders can inspire participation and help align people around a common goal. An involved board can also boost thought leadership via either encouraging the content team or (in not too rare circumstances) leading by example.
Record and document EVERYTHING
This sounds very simple, and it is indeed very simple…which is why it is even more unforgivable if it is overlooked! Any strategy will become very messy very quickly without the proper control checks in place. This is where documentation becomes crucial. Documents do not need to be convoluted and laborious tasks for the team to complete. It could even be as simple as compelling a simple check list initially against each article, or a simple report gauging the reach of an article that has been published. Every team will have their own type of document procedure that they will want to adhere to (not least because invariably every content strategy is unique…or should be!).
By documenting your strategy and sharing with your team, you can start to align your vision and efforts around a common goal. Once this is achieved, then the whole process for the team will become more efficient, and produce better results
Reinforce through repetition
Again, this may sound quite simple, but actually this is a harder technique for your team to perfect. If you find that you are writing on topics that have particular resonance, then write more about the topic. If you have a relevant voice that can bring worthy content to your readerships (both off site and on site) about a particular topic no matter how niche, then try to exploit this for as long as the topic is sustainable.
Understand the need for content marketing
One obstacle to content marketing success can often be the lack of understanding of how the whole content game is played. Unlike traditional advertising, content marketing is almost more informal, akin to talking with a prospect when they are in need of information, rather than interrupting their day to tell them something.
I find that invariably some training will be required for your team to REALLY understand this concept. As stated above, it is essential to have the whole team buy into a collective vision. Training is a great step towards achieving this.
Choose your best tools to work with
Each company will have a slight twist to add to this point- your team will have a wealth of tools to utilise, but not all of them will be relevant. Additionally, not all of them need to be expensive either.
For example, a tool used effectively might be a simple communication tool- email. Set up an account like content@ or pr@ to allow people to send ideas whenever a flash of inspiration hits them. This will also allow other team members to collaborate on the idea if necessary.
Another example could be Google Analytics . This is free, and will give meaningful inside into what content is received well by your audience, what content captures new users and what content is sticky.
True perfection is imperfect
FX companies that delay releasing content in order for it to be scrutinised by everyone in the company have lost sight of the agenda behind content marketing. The expediency of content delivery is at a higher priority than small grammatical changes. Having said that, obviously the compliance department will need to be able to cast their eye over the content prior to sending out for publication.
