8 Essential tips for financial content writing

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Hustling with financial jargon? You’re not alone. Many people struggle to understand financial terms. As a financial content writer or marketer, you have the power to change the scenario. With your adequate financial knowledge and writing skills, you can present complex financial concepts to the audience as demystified. Therefore, financial content writing requires both financial expertise and excellent writing skills. You have to make the point that in this digital era, individuals prefer high-quality, valuable content that can contribute some benefits to their day-to-day lives. So, as a financial writer, your goal should be to simplify complex financial jargon and create user-friendly content that can add some value for the users. 

Here are some simple tips and tricks that will help your financial writing become more resonating and precious. 

Tips and tricks for financial content writing 

Here are vital tips that will help you craft financial content by bridging the gaps by simplifying complex ideas. Also, you should not oversimplify them. 

• Know your audience

Understanding the audience is the utmost important factor for financial content writing. So, you must understand that the language of your content shouldn’t be the same for a 19-year-old undergraduate student who wants to learn the basics of savings and a 50-year-old professional who wants future planning and savings. Thus, you need to consider these questions –

• Who are the end users?
• What is their level of financial knowledge?
• What are the common challenges they have to deal with? 

So, you should remember these points while writing financial content –

• Avoid jargon and use simple, informative language while writing for beginners.
• Simplify financial planning and finance management options while writing for retired people.
• Integrate data-driven insights, explore current trends and use industry-specific terminology when writing for professionals. 
• Provide actionable advice and case studies when your target audience is business owners.

• ‘Type’ of financial content

You can use different types of content to educate your users. Utilising various kinds of content, you can achieve other goals. Also, people remain engaged with versatile content, and you can showcase your expertise and efficiency with each type. Here are the few types you should explore –

• Blogs: These help to explain the core concepts and provide valuable data, news, and essential tips.
• Whitepapers: These types of content provide in-depth exposure to more critical and technical concepts.
• Case studies: These are excellent ways to showcase how financial concepts are working and have been established as universal truths. 
• Infographics: They help to classify vital statistics and trends in an engaging format.
• Videos and webinars: The users obtain clear guidance and product/service demonstrations through this content. 

• Grabbing headlines

Which part of your content will be first visible to the audience? That is the headline. It’s the most vital opportunity to attract the users. Specifically, in financial writing, headlines play a vital role as the content often discusses critical economic challenges of life. Here are some simple tips to create headlines that attract readers.

• Avoid making vague titles. Instead, create titles that show the specific goals behind the content. For example, instead of giving the title ‘How to Save Money for the Future’, you should use a title like ‘8 Easy Ways to Save ₹1 Lakh without Sacrificing Your Netflix Top-up’.
• Numbers play a vital role in increasing your reach on online platforms. So, use the titles such as ‘6 Tips to Prevent Unnecessary Amounts from Your Personal Loan Premiums’.
• Use power words in the headings. These include ‘growth’, ‘boost’, ‘maximise’, ‘expert’, ‘guide’, ‘proven’,’ discover’, etc. 

• Using the ‘benefits’ and ‘features’ approach 

Instead of only writing about the features of your financial products/services, you should explain the benefits, too. The benefits help your audience to clearly understand why they should try the particular product/service. Also, the benefits assist the financial content writer in comprehending how data can be applied to end users’ lives. 

Suppose you’ve written that ‘Our credit card provides a certain amount of discounts for food and entertainment’. However, the information will be more valuable if you write it as – ‘Our credit card provides up to 50% discounts for the foods and entertainment categories’. 

So, this information not only shows the benefits of your product but also reveals valuable insight to the customers. 

• Trust and authority

Finance is a sensitive subject that requires accurate and genuine data. Thus, people look for financial guides who are authoritative and trustworthy. So, you have to pay extra attention to conducting research work. For instance, you can get references from governmental sites and reports, reputable banks, or established financial organisations. This stage of financial content development is time-consuming, but you can’t skip it. Also, be careful about when you have to promote some conflicting numbers such as interest rates, loan amount, net worth, credit score, profit and loss or affiliation with the products or services. 

• Work on SEO

As your goal is to publish financial content in the online space, you must perform search engine optimisation (SEO) for it. So, the first and foremost strategy is to integrate primary and secondary keywords. The secondary keywords should include some long tail keywords such as ‘how can I get a 2 lakh loan in one day’. Furthermore, you should implement other SEO strategies such as –

• Internal linking: Add links to the other articles on your site to keep the readers engaged.
• External links: Add some links to articles on other reputable sites that provide readers with more information about the topic. 
• Use meta tags: Write engaging meta titles and descriptions that help the users to  understand what the topic is about. 
• Header tags: Use header tags such as h1, h2, h3, etc. to break the content into small segments.
• Visuals: Add some eye-catching visuals to bridge the knowledge gap of the users and grab quick attention.  
• Readability: Use small paragraphs, small sentences, and bullet points. Obviously, the content should be free from grammatical errors and typos. 

• Clarity

As financial writers break down complex terms/topics through their work, clarity becomes the key to financial content writing. So, you must describe all the financial acronyms, fintech terminologies, and jargon for your audience. Specifically, these will help those who are not familiar with the topic. Thus, you must explain and clarify the topic clearly. Also, avoid complex sentences and phrases. Suppose you’re defining a complex investment term for a person who doesn’t have enough knowledge about the market. So, how do you explain? 

You should explain the term in a simple language. Tell them how it works. It would be best if you could explain it in a real-world scenario. For instance, in the case of mutual funds, you have to talk about ‘diversification’. To explain it, you can tell them ‘not to put all the eggs in the same basket; instead, diversify in numerous baskets’. Also, don’t forget to add some benefits to it. 

• Engaging Conclusion

Write up a conclusion that summarises the key points from the article and encourages readers to explore further. That implies linking the readers’ interest back to the topic of the content. Moreover, you should add a compelling CTA. For example, you can invite them to sign up for your newsletter, encourage them to download your brochure or subscribe to your YouTube channel, etc. Remember that the conclusion is a great way to craft a long-lasting impression on the readers. So, try to do your best!

To sum up

To become a successful financial content writer in today’s competitive market, you must clearly understand economic concepts. Then, selecting topics based on your audience’s needs is crucial. So, first, construct a strong structure for your content and then start your writing. Also, be careful about the tonality, grammar, SEO, and choice of words. 

FAQs

• What is content writing in finance?

Content writing in finance is a process through which the financial industry communicates and explains complex financial concepts to its audience. 

• How to become a financial content writer?

To become a financial content writer, you can pursue a four-year financial degree. Most financial writers have a degree in a business-related discipline, digital marketing, or journalism. After that, many of them go on to do internships, traditional training, or attend regular seminars/conferences to develop their writing skills.