Showcasing your expertise – the value of thought leadership

Guest Blog Writer: Katie Priddis, Head of Marketing, Puma Investments

22 August 2024

“The basic economic resource – the means of production – is no longer capital, nor natural resources, nor labour. It is and will be knowledge.” Peter Drucker, Management Consultant

As a financial adviser it is integral to gain the trust of your clients. Through illustrating your knowledge and the depth of your expertise and experience this will strengthen your relationship with your partners and clients to build that trust.

A core way of achieving this through your marketing activity is by creating and implementing thought leadership campaigns. Building a strong content strategy is key and there are a number of ways of implementing this through multiple channels:

Be targeted in your thought leadership approach

While thought leadership activity should be core to your marketing strategy you also need to be targeted in your approach and the topics you choose. Firstly, so you don’t flood your target audiences with too many messages but also to avoid spreading yourself too thinly. It’s better to own and build a reputation around a targeted number of topics and themes rather than on anything and everything relevant to your sector.

Choose to build campaigns around topics that you know will resonate with your clients such as Inheritance Tax Planning and in response to relevant events that you know will impact your audiences, such as Budget announcements. In addition, focus on areas that you’re passionate about – the more you care about a topic the more that will come across to your audience.

Consider supplementing your thought leadership campaigns with data and research

Although your own knowledge and expertise should be central to the development of any thought leadership campaign, sourcing research and data will help to bring it to life. For example, obtaining trends data from your own clients to highlight their financial planning priorities or industry data to underpin a message. Data will also help to reinforce your insights and recommendations, for example to highlight the challenges investors are facing in the current environment.

Amplify thought leadership activity across multiple channels

It’s integral when planning your thought leadership campaign to consider the marketing channels that you will be utilising to amplify it and reach your target audiences, for example through an email marketing campaign or a webinar to ensure you’re broadcasting your expertise to a broader audience.

One channel that is beneficial to building your brand reputation and engaging with your target audience to showcase your experience and expertise is LinkedIn. Once you’ve determined the thought leadership topics you want to own going forwards, LinkedIn is a great platform to share this, drive discussion within the industry and with your target audience and showcase the breadth of your expertise. Consistency is key on this platform – posting regularly (at least once a week) and sharing content that will genuinely be useful and engaging to the audience you’re trying to reach.

Finally, those journalists that write for both the trade financial adviser / wealth management media and the national personal finance media (targeted at the end investor) are always keen to take insightful thought leadership content. In addition, these journalists are always looking to expand their network of spokespeople to support the stories they’re writing and provide expert opinion. Building a dedicated PR programme is a great way to build your brand and reinforce the breadth of your knowledge.

So, what are you waiting for? Thought leadership activity is a great way to build and reinforce your knowledge and expertise and ultimately do more to engage with your clients and potential clients.

Puma Investments offers a range of private equity, property finance and quoted equity investments, supporting growing SMEs and professional property developers across the UK. With an established track record of achieving attractive returns for investors and the businesses it supports, it has raised over £1.1bn in capital. Visit their website here, or follow them on LinkedIn.