I used to carry the fear and concerns of meeting finance professionals for many reasons yet interestingly; I always wanted to have sound investment and finance advice. Most of the people share my feelings. And they end up searching it online.
So, if you’re finance professional and haven’t started your blog yet because you aren’t sure about its worth and your time, this is time to correct yourself. Your blog can be the first quickest way of making your prospects comfortable and confident with you while establishing your authority and authenticity to masses.
Especially, when financial decisions are such a sensitive subject, blogging is a win-win opportunity for the financial planners to win their audience trust without making them work.
Here are 9 great blog topics you can use to build your reputation and grow your income:
1. Retirement planning – Helping people ensure a secure future
The average savings of a 50 year old in most of the countries is not nearly enough money to retire on. People in this age bracket are looking for advice on how to increase their savings in the coming decade to ensure they’re financially capable of retiring in their sixties. Moreover, nearly every young working adult has dreams of retiring in their twenties or thirties and living out the rest of their life in the lap of luxury.
I have recently met a 26 years old young man who wants to retire before 30 and enjoy a good part of his life exploring different adventures and hobbies. Another gentleman, I met recently, who wants to earn enough within next 3 years to retire. Such people can surely make their plans easier and comfortable with a finance planners’ assistance.
2. What’s new in the industry – Taxes, regulations, updates, there’s so much for citizens
When you’re an authority in any industry, people are going expect that you know what’s going on. If you know about (or predict) things that are happening, readers going to respect and recommend you to others. What could be a better way than blogging to talk about amendments to tax laws, foreign investment rules, loans, company acts and other specialized investment accounts.
3. Tell touching stories about you or your clients
These can be both negative and positive. Don’t focus on empty customer testimonials. For example, tell the visitors to your blog exactly how you helped someone after their finances collapsed (don’t use real names without permission or use imaginary names). Then write another post telling everyone how you helped a young couple buy their first house. To make them believe, saying isn’t enough, you need to show it happening.
4. Upcoming workshops and speaking engagements
Post about any events that you’ll be hosting or featured at, workshops or free group sessions you’ll be teaching, etc. Making a pre and post event blogpost does an amazing job in keeping audience interested and engaged. Announce about free webinars, customer appreciation events, etc.
5. Guest interviews
These can be customers, other industry investment experts, bankers, politicians, or anyone really. A great idea that isn’t used often is to do a one-on-one consultation with a client who has a common retirement or investment goal shared by many, such as mortgage, or saving money for their kids college fund. This can really build authority quickly.
Who do you think your readers will come to when they want help with a common financial dilemma?
6. Money Mistakes to avoid
Everyone makes mistakes when it comes to money management. From putting money into a savings account that offers virtually no dividends, to dumping their retirement savings into a high risk mutual fund that may not be around when it comes time to collect. The biggest one is not planning your annual and monthly budget.
Anyone can tell someone what they should do. But when you “show” them, they intimately understand the consequences of making the wrong investment decisions and you become the authority.
7. Common customer questions
Answer common questions that clients ask you when they’re at your office or prospects meeting in person at various events:
- How much money per year do I have to save to retire at 55?
- Can I spend my inheritance or should I save/invest it?
- What insurance to take?
- Should I accept the attractive-looking early retirement offer from my job?
- Mutual funds or stocks?
- Gold or silver?
- Property or gold?
- How should I minimize taxes?
“Common questions” are the ones that are asked repeatedly, and knowing the answers builds your reputation and by consequence, your income when they trust you enough to use your service and recommend you to friends.
8. How to’s
When you can tell people the correct way to do something on their own, they’ll naturally come to you when they get stuck or decide to let a professional oversee things.
• How to create a reasonable budget.
• How to make an estate plan.
• How to get out of insurmountable credit card debt.
• How to hire a financial planner and when should I hire one?
Who are blogging already? Financial Advisers Making A Mark & Money
There are hundreds of them around the world and you’re not short of blogging inspiration. Here are few to have a look at..
Start Today Benefit Tomorrow!
Position yourself as an authority online (blog, social media, guest posting) and people will naturally find your offline business. Digital content lasts forever, meaning a small investment of your time today (ie., creating compelling content) will continue to payout indefinitely.
The ink on a physical advertisement will always eventually fade. Competitors will continue to pop up on the same stretch of street that your business is located on, diluting walk-in traffic to your business.
By offering free information and entertaining content to current and prospective customers via your blog, you get free advertising for your business that will continue to pay off for years to come.
So, how do you feel about starting your blog or resuming if you weren’t serious yet? I’d love to help if you have any questions about starting a blog or how to write great.
Sunita Biddu is a digital business coach and power blogging mentor helping coaches and small business owners. She helps with building a strong and profitable online presence and reputation that creates a self-sustaining business. Sunita writes on this blog once a week about easy-to-use guides and articles about business, coaching, social media and blogging. You can grab some of her free resources and ebooks from the resources section.