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Everyone gets it. High fashion and celebrity get the eyeballs. Talking about money is rude and boring. So how to highlight the importance of securing their financial futures to Aussie consumers? You may not have George Clooney as the face of your product – but there are still ways to reach your audience with your message. Take #fpweek as an example.
Whether it’s scraping together coins for a coffee at the end of the payday cycle, trying to buy a house in a capital city (thank you, Sydney) or working out how you can retire early so you need never read about marketing again, money is often at the centre of our universe. However, most of us don’t really think about how we should manage it in practical terms.That’s where the Financial Planning Association’s (FPA’s) 15th annual Financial Planning Week comes in. It kicked off this week (and yes, with help from BlueChip).
It’s all about helping ordinary Australians learn more about being smarter with their money. With a depth of content and involvement of experts that make it one of the most practical and valuable consumer events of the year, you can nonetheless bet that more Australians give Fashion Week higher priority.
Most of us in financial services don’t have a George Clooney or Kim Kardashian to spruik our wares (in some cases maybe just as well …). That leaves us with the (familiar) challenge of attracting the eyeballs of our intended audiences using other means.
Here’s how we’ve been addressing some of those challenges in relation to Financial Planning Week.
Specifically, we’re talking about:
- Overcoming the dreaded glazed eye effect when it comes to getting Australians to talk (and do something!) about their finances
- Reaching a large target market – try all of Australia, both young and old!
To get over these hurdles, we looked at effective ways to amplify the message to make sure as many Australians as possible hear it – and are inspired to change their money habits for the better as a result.
Ambassadors
The first port of call in amplifying a message is getting a helping hand. And who better than those who already feel passionate about the cause?
We therefore enlisted ‘ambassadors’ to help spread the word about the importance financial literacy for Australians. These ambassadors were FPA leaders – Chapter Chairs from all around Australia who were all too willing to help out.
The benefit of this approach is that it isn’t just one person touting the message, but many – most of whom have their very own multiple inbuilt networks.
Sure, we did some heavy lifting, organising radio interviews and coaching ambassadors on how best to engage with media. And of course, plenty of planning and forethought on the messaging front is required. But after that it was all up to them.
They all sent communications to their databases and members, they tweeted and they harnessed their local media connections to make sure their communities were aware of the upcoming events.
Bloggers
The FPA may be no fashion blogger, with millions of breathless readers hanging onto its every word – and we all understand that. But equally, we know that influencers – those with large loyal followings across our many audience segments – come in all shapes and sizes.
We reached out to 12 influential people with the right expertise, following – and interest in helping out. That included Zoe Lamont at 10thousandgirl, who specialises in supporting young women in achieving their financial goals, to multi-national corporate Zurich, which handled the insurance angle – and many points in between.
Each of the 12 provided blogs which they then tweeted, retweeted and hashtagged. As a result, Twitter was on fire with #fpweek and a buzz was created.
Each blog has also been used to drive traffic to ‘Ask an FPA Expert’, offering blog readers free advice – one of the most popular and valuable features of Financial Planning Week.
Media
And of course, let’s not forget about media, the old-fashioned amplifier.
We lined up stories online for Financial Planning Week with maximum SEO, asking media to include the link to ‘Ask an FPA Expert’ to make it easy for interested consumers to head straight to the site and find what they need. In so doing we also ensured the term remains owned by the FPA for next year when it is searched.
Stay tuned for other blogs that demonstrate how amplification and atomisation of your content and assist you reach your audience and campaign goals – without Kim Kardashian.
And while we’re talking social media, if you haven’t already, why not download our latest eBook: Social Media and the Financial Services CEO. It’s good – and it’s free.
