What is content marketing? For financial services firms, it’s the strategic development and sharing of valuable, relevant content that informs and engages investors, builds trust, and drives business growth. Common formats include blogs, videos, whitepapers, podcasts, and social media posts.

This article provides asset managers with a comprehensive guide on best practices in content marketing, why these practices matter, what can help you stand apart and be memorable, and how to implement effective content marketing strategies.

Why Content Marketing Matters to Asset Managers

Why do financial services firms need a content marketing strategy?

Content builds trust

Investors need consistent and thoughtful information to help them make informed and confident decisions. By showing your expertise, investors are likelier to engage, remain loyal, and see you as a trusted asset manager. Moreover, great communication material can make sales easier, build brand awareness, retain investors, and deliver ROI.

Yet most firms don’t do content right. In a 2025 survey, only 29 percent of firms with a content strategy say that it has been extremely or very effective. Another 58 percent said their strategy is moderately effective, 12 percent said it’s not very effective, and 1 percent said it’s not at all effective.

Content drives leads

An impactful content marketing strategy can create leads from highly qualified prospects. Historically, 76 percent of B2B marketers reported that content marketing has helped generate conversations and leads. Thought leadership articles, market insights, and educational resources can create engaged visitors who, over time, become warm prospects ready to talk with you.

A landing page is a dedicated web content page designed for one thing only—to create leads. Landing pages guide your prospects to provide their contact information in exchange for your valuable offer. Landing pages improve lead capture compared to not using them. Regular web pages have averaged a 2 to 4 percent conversion rate. By contrast, landing pages have typically delivered a 6 to12 percent conversion rate on average,

Content builds brand awareness

High-quality content can also build brand awareness and reputation.

However, firms must consistently deliver valuable information that educates and engages audiences. 80 percent of marketers currently identify creating brand awareness as their top goal, with 72 percent focusing on establishing credibility.

Content helps retain investors

No one wants reduced asset outflow and revenue. It’s not hard to understand why client retention is often a top priority for asset managers. The reason: the cost of acquiring a new investor is often up to seven times more expensive than keeping a current client.

Competitors may have similar funds and strategies and equal or better short-term performance. But what if you consistently create insightful, engaging, and unique thought leadership posts, videos, podcasts, emails, and other marketing communications materials? The answer is that great content demonstrates your expertise and builds trust.

Professional service firms that provide personalized content have historically produced the highest client retention rates at 84 percent versus an average of 55 to 75 percent in other industries.

Content can be a great investment

Evergreen content is material that has a long shelf life, meaning its relevance may last years. A thought leadership post we posted almost five years ago, “13 Considerations for Stronger Mutual Fund Marketing and Sales” still ranks highly on Google and continues to generate leads. What’s more, 76 percent of consumers have said that educational financial content has increased trust in a brand.

Content Marketing Strategy

Effectively engaging investors through content marketing begins with an understanding of your audience and alignment with your goals. Firms can create strategies that drive engagement by combining buyer personas, timely content, and organized planning.

Understand your audience

Know who you’re talking to. You’ll want to create buyer personas, which are semi-fictional profiles that represent your ideal customers. Personas help you clarify your investors’ motivations, needs, and preferences. Creating content with buyer personas as a guide ensures your messaging is relevant and more likely to engage and retain your most valuable clients.

Align with your business goals

Your website, blogs, market commentary, and all other content should serve a strategic purpose and serve your priorities. Want to attract new clients? Educate existing ones? Boost brand awareness? When your content aligns with business goals, every article, social media post, and insight helps attract high-value clients.

Build a content calendar

A content calendar keeps your marketing pertinent, consistent, and on time. Your marketing team should map out campaigns, formats, and publishing dates well in advance. Are you adding a new fund or strategy, or approaching a significant anniversary? You’ll want to align these with your content calendar.

Use project management tools like HubSpot, Monday, or Slack, among others, to plan your content calendar.

Stay compliant

As you may know, the asset management industry must follow SEC, FINRA, accessibility rules, and global compliance rules where applicable. Consider your compliance team your partners, not the business prevention unit.

Content Development

Asset managers need to create content that speaks to investors’ needs. The most essential factors are:

Tell stories

The best firms tell stories. Stories humanize your firm and make the people and ideas behind your strategies real and connect emotionally.

Metaphors can also help humanize your story. Creating your firm’s investment story is like a blueprint for building your house. The blueprint shows your vision for the finished home, details the construction plan, and relies on the expertise of the builders who turn your plan into a lasting reality.

Focus on value-added content

Investors want insights, not sales pitches. Firms must create content that educates or solves problems and top concerns, like market volatility, risk mitigation, and building long-term wealth. All material should answer “Does this help my audience?”

Personalize content

Personalization is the new standard for asset management content. Personalized content may be emails personally addressed or communications tailored to client segments. Financial calculators are also great tools for personalization. Investors input their goals, contributions, age, risk tolerance, and timeline, and get immediate personal projections.

In addition, video interviews, webcasts, podcasts, and media appearances help investors get to know you on a more personal level.

Many firms claim to have boosted revenue by 10 to 15 percent due to personalized content.

Use jargon-free language

The world of financial services is full of jargon. Using jargon may sometimes be acceptable, but you must also define it. The terms alpha, beta, and Sharpe ratios sound like Greek to most investors. Explain concepts in plain English.

Diversify formats

Asset managers must create various content formats—such as videos, podcasts, articles, social media, and interactive tools—to effectively engage diverse audiences with different preferences.

In 2025, podcasts have surged in popularity among financial advisors. With good reason. While it may take months or years to build an audience, advisors have received nearly one dollar in new revenue for every dollar spent on podcasting,

Post quality over quantity

The quality of your posts is far more impactful than how often you post. Google’s EEAT framework—Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness—guides search algorithms to favor posts that demonstrate credibility and quality for real people.

High EEAT signals help your content rank higher and withstand algorithm updates. Bland and repetitive posts risk poor search rankings.

Collaborate

Who in your firm generates ideas, writes, designs, fact-checks, and signs off on content creation? The best firms unite sales, marketing, portfolio management, client service, and compliance in a collaborative content creation process. For fresh thought leadership ideas, websites like HubSpot and CoSchedule can generate content inspiration.

Key Investor Benefits by Content Format

Content Distribution

An effective content marketing strategy requires a broad approach that includes SEO, social media, email marketing, and gated content. Posting consistently and repurposing are also critical components.

Optimize for SEO

Financial services firms must optimize content for SEO. But how? The answer is to use relevant keywords, organize pages for readability, and ensure a mobile-friendly design. Include keywords in titles, headers, and meta descriptions. Use keyword research to target investor searches. Good options among many are Google Keyword Planner, Moz, and Ahrefs.

Leverage social media

Social media platforms can be an excellent way to distribute your content. Most asset managers have a LinkedIn platform, but may not be maximizing it for visibility. Do you, for example, regularly and consistently share market insights and thought leadership? Do you contribute and engage in relevant LinkedIn groups? Does your firm create targeted campaigns and use paid ads to attract prospects?

Social media is a must for establishing and maintaining your credibility. 68 percent of institutional investors use social media to research asset management firms before making investment decisions.

Employ email

Email marketing isn’t dead. Email remains one of the most affordable and effective content distribution channels. Historically, email marketing has returned approximately $42 for every dollar spent by financial advisors. While there are variations, a typical ROI for SEO is $4 for every dollar spent, and about $2 for every $1 employed on social media for business-to-business marketing.

Segment your email list to ensure relevance. Use a compelling subject line, add value, keep emails short, and automate where applicable.

Repurpose content

Repurposing material maximizes your investment. It also reaches audiences who prefer different formats. A short video or podcast can become several blog posts, social media clips, an infographic, and an email campaign.

You may have posted a great article on website development several years ago, but it’s been buried by new posts. Regularly review your archives for material that can be refreshed or repackaged.

Post consistently

Asset managers must regularly publish unique and timely thought leadership ideas. You want to provide reasons for prospects to return regularly. What’s more, fresh content signals to search engines that your site is active, improves SEO rankings, and establishes your authority.

How often should you post? The answer it depends on your audience and resources. For many financial firms we work with, a cadence of one or two posts monthly leads to measurable prospect conversations.

Be interactive

Interactive tools like surveys, polls, and quizzes have proven to prompt prospect curiosity and engagement. Historically, interactive content has increased prospect engagement 53 percent over static content. Active participation may increase the time people spend with you and thus provide higher conversion rates.

Use gated content purposefully

Gated content is online material—website assessments, reports, quizzes, and the like, that people can get only by giving you their email or other contact information. Gated content lives behind your fence, and should be used only for high-value and unique insights your prospects can’t find anywhere else.

Gated content helps you capture leads that you can nurture. However, don’t gate too much, or ask for too much information; people will search elsewhere.

Partner with influencers

Credible financial services industry influencers, particularly those on LinkedIn and X, can amplify the reach of your content by sharing your posts and adding their voice to your brand messages with their loyal audiences. In 2024, business-to-business influencer campaigns produced an average 8.4x return on investment.

Content Marketing Measurement

How do investors interact with your marketing material?  To find out, track behavior, collect feedback, and review results. Top marketing metrics include:

Analyze audience behavior

Asset managers can analyze audience behavior by tracking key engagement metrics. Criteria include, for websites, time spent on pages, page views, bounce rates, downloads, and traffic sources.

For other content, email open rates and social media engagement are key metrics. Google Analytics, Hotjar, and Mixpanel are three popular tools that analyze website and content performance.

A/B test everything

Another way to review prospect behavior is through A/B testing, which involves comparing two versions of the same content. Which performs better? Create variations with different headlines, visuals, and calls-to-action to find out.

Listen to external feedback

You may have strong opinions on what marketing materials you like, but don’t forget to ask your audience what they want. Feedback keeps your content relevant and shows clients you’re listening. Among several good options, consider SemRush for social media insight and BuzzSumo for generating content ideas and trending content from competitors.

Report and get internal feedback

We know of asset management firms that audit the performance of their content with senior management every six months. Everyone sits in a big room around a conference table. Participants share campaign objectives, results, and measurement versus goals. They then use this feedback, supported by an executive summary report, to refine content strategy, set updated priorities, and guide future campaigns.

The Final Word: Why Content Matters

Great content marketing helps financial services firms build relationships, prove thought leadership, and drive engagement. Done right, content marketing fuels trust, authority, and can grow your business.

Asset managers who master content marketing will lead the pack. Fail to get content right, and you become invisible. But nail it, and your firm stands out as the trusted expert.

Schedule a complimentary strategy session with Dan Sondhelm, CEO of Sondhelm Partners, to learn more about how great content can support your marketing efforts.

Frank Serebrin is the Content Marketing Director for Sondhelm Partners. He leads strategic and creative content and marketing services for our asset management and wealth management clients.