Time For the Long View

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In my last Say It For You blog post, I shared insights to the way investors tend to invest the majority of their money in domestic equities, ignoring the benefits of diversifying into foreign companies. As content marketers, I explained, using consistent posting of valuable information, we can position our clients as SMEs, giving them a better chance at overcoming their prospects’ home biases….

A second insight into investor behavior that can prove valuable in content creation is what Sam Savage dubs “the Flaw of Averages” (a play on “Law of Averages”.  The S&P 500 stock market index is a good example of the way statistics can be misunderstood, Savage explains.

The US stock market has delivered an average annual return of around 10% since 1926, Dimensional points out. But short-term results may vary, and in any given period stock returns can be positive, negative, or flat. Over the years 1957 through the end of 2023, the S&P Index has returned an annualized average return of 10.26%. But, what is the proper way to view those results?

  • On a daily basis, the index was up 52% of the time.
  • The S&P 500 was up in 73% of the individual years over that time frame.
  • The S&P 500 was up in 95% of the ten year periods of its existence.

At Say It For You, we’ve learned over the years that in content marketing, nothing speaks quite as loud as numbers. Statistics dispel false impressions, grab web visitors’ attention, and demonstrate the extent of the problem the business owner or practitioner can help solve.

At the same time, ethical marketing means promoting products or services in a manner that is both honest and responsible, Nathan Neely points out in the LinkedIn article “Doing the Right Thing”. That means providing accurate information about pricing, ingredients, including being transparent about how data is collected.

In creating content, we want to:

  1. position our business owners or professional practitioners as Subject Matter Experts
  2. provide visitors to our clients’ websites with valuable information and a positive experience
  3. use statistics to both educate readers and stimulate them to action.

Throughout the process, though, we need to demonstrate to prospects the value of taking a long view in their buying decisions.

 

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Target Content But Leave No One Aghast

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The Certified Financial Planners Board ‘Perfect Job” ad campaign has apparently left Certified Financial Planners aghast, Tracy Longo reports in Financial Advisor Magazine. Meant to encourage young people to embark on “perfect” careers in financial planning, the ad depicts prospective CFP®s as snoozing, taking bubble baths, and competing in burrito-eating contests. The apparent intent was showing that careers in financial planning offer life-work balance, but the content ended up offending rather than informing.

As a CFP Board Emeritus® and now owner of a content marketing company, I view this “Perfect Job” marketing fiasco as a cautionary tale. Certainly, when building a plan to connect with an audience, we need to consider not only age, gender, and nationality, but where members of  the target audience are “hanging out” on social media, Interviews, and focus groups. The creators of “Perfect Job” were obviously aware of the high value the younger generation places on work-life balance. But, because they were clumsy in using exaggeration to create a humorous effect, their ploy failed.

A number of years ago, I found material on some research done at the Saimaa University of Applied Sciences on the impact of humor in advertising. The researchers concluded that, while humor is an effective method of attracting attention in advertisements, it offers no advantage at increasing persuasion.

For the content writers at Say It For You, our “employers” are business and practice owners whom we work to connect with their target audiences, positioning those owners and practitioners as Subject Matter Experts in their respective fields. Because we are figuratively “putting words in their mouths”, it is they who must embrace the messaging prior to our “sending it out” to their target readers.

In the case of the “Perfect Job” campaign content, the marketers failed to consider the very financial planners they were positioning as models in the eyes of future entrants into the profession.

In defense of the campaign, CFP Board officials said the ads were “facetious portrayals” intended to help student audiences think about “what their dream job might look like”.

As a longtime content creator, I have learned that “facetious” marketing content too often combusts. As content marketers, the “trick” lies is targeting our content while leaving absolutely no one aghast.

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