, ,

Your 2027 Marketing Plan: A Q4 Planning Guide for Financial Services Firms

In Short: This Q4 planning guide walks B2B financial services leaders through building a 2027 financial services marketing plan in seven steps: reviewing 2026 results, setting revenue-connected goals, budgeting against current benchmarks, refreshing the brand story, mapping content to the client calendar, planning for AI search, and choosing who executes. It closes with an October through January timeline for launching the new year with momentum.

Q4 has a way of sneaking up on everyone. One minute you’re wrapping Q3 reporting, and the next you’re answering holiday party RSVPs with a 2027 budget still sitting in draft.

The good news: this is the ideal window to build your financial services marketing plan. You have three quarters of 2026 data in hand, your team has a clear view of what’s working, and January is close enough to feel real. A few focused weeks of planning now sets up twelve months of steadier leads, shorter sales cycles, and fewer last-minute scrambles.

Here’s a seven-step guide built for the accounting firms, wealth advisories, insurance agencies, law firms, payroll providers, and other B2B financial services companies we work with every day.

Why Q4 Is the Right Time to Build Your Financial Services Marketing Plan

Budgets across the industry are tight, which makes a thoughtful plan even more valuable. Gartner’s 2026 CMO Spend Survey found that marketing budgets rose only slightly, to 7.8% of company revenue from 7.7% in 2025, and 56% of CMOs said their teams lack the budget required to deliver their 2026 strategy. When resources are finite, a clear plan helps every dollar work toward the same goal.

Q4 planning also gives you a head start on your clients’ busiest seasons. Tax preparation, ACA reporting, and benefits renewals all ramp up early in the year, and content that’s written, approved, and scheduled before January lands right when buyers are searching for answers.

Step 1: Review What 2026 Taught You

Every strong plan starts with an honest look at the year behind you.

Pull Your Numbers

Gather your year-to-date data (or a trailing 12 months for a full-year view): website traffic, organic rankings, email open and click-through rates, social engagement, form fills, and closed deals. Look for the channels and topics that produced conversations with qualified prospects. If any of the metrics feel fuzzy, our digital marketing glossary defines the terms you’ll see in most reports.

Audit Your Website and Content

Your website is often a prospect’s first meeting with your firm. Review load speed, messaging, calls to action, and which blog posts still bring in steady traffic. Our guide on why you should conduct site audits walks through exactly what to check.

Talk to Your Sales Team

Your salespeople hear buyers’ questions, objections, and hesitations every week. Ask them which topics come up most, where deals tend to stall, and what content would help them close. Those answers become your content roadmap. For firms looking to strengthen the sales side as well, read why sales coaching is the missing piece in your growth strategy.

Your sales team’s most common questions are your best content roadmap.

Step 2: Set Goals That Connect to Revenue

Start With the Revenue Target and Work Backward

Begin with how much new business you want in 2027, then calculate what it takes to get there: average client value, close rate, the number of qualified meetings you need, and the leads required to fill those meetings. This math connects marketing spend directly to growth, and it’s the same case we lay out in The Content Marketing Math Your CFO Will Actually Approve Of.

Pick a Focused Set of KPIs

Three to five KPIs keep everyone aligned. For most financial services firms, a strong set includes qualified leads per month, organic traffic growth, email-sourced meetings, conversion rate on key pages, and sales cycle length. Review them monthly and adjust your tactics quarterly.

Step 3: Build a Budget That Matches Your Ambition

Know the Benchmarks

Gartner’s 7.8% figure reflects large enterprises. The CMO Survey, which covers a broader mix of company sizes, puts average marketing spend at 9.0% of revenue, and smaller, growth-focused businesses typically invest a higher percentage to build momentum. Your right number depends on your growth goals, your competitive landscape, and how established your brand already is.

Allocate Toward Assets That Compound

Organic assets like cornerstone content, a fast website, a healthy email list, and a consistent LinkedIn presence keep producing value long after launch. Industry budgets are heading the same direction: Financial Marketer reports spending shifting toward AI, LinkedIn, video, owned media, first-party data, and measurable pipeline systems. Run your own scenarios with our Marketing Calculator and compare them with our transparent retainer pricing.

Organic assets keep producing value long after launch.

Step 4: Refresh Your Brand Story

A new year is a natural moment to revisit how your firm describes itself. Has your ideal client shifted? Did you add services, bring on new leaders, or expand into a new vertical? Your brand story should reflect all of it.

Financial services firms often find this step the most challenging, a topic we explored in Why Do Financial Services Companies Have Such a Hard Time Telling Their Story? A clear, distinctive story also keeps your website from sounding like every other financial firm’s website, and it gives every blog, post, and email that follows a consistent voice.

Step 5: Map Your Content Calendar to Your Clients’ Year

Financial services buyers follow a predictable calendar, and your content can meet them there.

Plan Around Industry Seasons

Tax firms can build Q1 content around filing deadlines and Q4 content around year-end planning. Retirement plan providers can anchor summer content to Form 5500 deadlines and fall content to plan design reviews. Benefits and insurance firms can lean into renewal and open enrollment season. Mapping topics to these moments puts your expertise in front of buyers when their questions are most urgent.

Lead With Cornerstone Content

Start the year by publishing or refreshing a few in-depth cornerstone pieces on your core services, then build supporting blog posts around them. Our guide to cornerstone content explains how this structure strengthens SEO.

Build a Sustainable Rhythm

Consistency drives results. A realistic cadence, such as weekly blogs, several social posts a week, and a monthly email, compounds over twelve months. Quality matters just as much: in the Content Marketing Institute’s B2B Content and Marketing Trends report for 2026, only 12% of B2B marketers rated their marketing as highly effective, and effective marketers named content relevance and quality as the top factor behind their gains. Add video wherever you can, too. Here’s why you need video in your digital marketing strategy.

Mapping topics to your clients’ calendar puts your expertise in front of buyers when their questions are most urgent.

Step 6: Plan for AI Search and Visibility

Buyers are increasingly asking AI tools for answers, and the firms those tools cite gain an early edge. Structure your content with clear headers, direct answers, and FAQ sections, and keep demonstrating real expertise through named authors and cited sources. We cover this shift in The Answer Economy Is Here and in our B2B search visibility strategy guide.

AI tools can also speed up research and drafting for your team, with human strategists guiding the voice, accuracy, and compliance of every piece that goes out.

Step 7: Decide Who Does the Work

A plan moves as fast as the people executing it. Some firms build an in-house team, some partner with an outsourced marketing agency, and many blend the two with an internal owner working alongside an external team that handles strategy and production. Consider your budget, the specialized expertise you need, and how much time your leadership can realistically give.

Our posts on why financial services companies should outsource their marketing and whether you still need a marketing agency if you have AI can help you weigh the options.

A Simple Q4 Planning Timeline

October: Review and Gather

Pull your year-to-date data, audit your website and content, interview your sales team, and revisit your brand story.

November: Set Goals and Finalize the Budget

Lock in revenue targets, choose your KPIs, and approve the budget.

December: Build Your Q1 Content

Map your Q1 content calendar, then write, approve, and schedule January content before the holidays.

January: Launch With Momentum

Publish cornerstone content, activate email workflows, schedule social posts, and begin monthly KPI reviews.

Start 2027 Ready to Grow

A thoughtful financial services marketing plan gives your team clarity, your budget direction, and your buyers a steady stream of reasons to trust you. The work you do in the final months of 2026 sets the pace for everything that follows.

If you’d like a partner in building your plan, reach out to our team. We’d love to help you head into 2027 with a strategy built to grow alongside your firm.

Frequently Asked Questions About Building a Financial Services Marketing Plan

What should a financial services marketing plan include?

A complete plan covers revenue-connected goals, target audiences and buyer personas, a budget, channel priorities, a content calendar, a focused set of KPIs, and clear ownership of execution. Together, these give everyone on your team the same roadmap for the year.

How much should a financial services firm spend on marketing?

Current benchmarks range from 7.8% of revenue in Gartner’s enterprise-focused survey to 9.0% in The CMO Survey, which includes a broader mix of company sizes. Smaller firms focused on growth often invest a higher share. Our Marketing Calculator can help you model the right figure for your goals.

When should we start planning for 2027?

Now is ideal. October gives you three quarters of data to learn from and enough time to finalize goals, budget, and your Q1 content calendar before the holidays slow everything down.

How often should we update our marketing plan?

Review KPIs monthly and revisit strategy quarterly. Regular check-ins let you adjust to regulatory changes, market conditions, and shifting client needs as the year unfolds.

How can AI help with marketing planning?

AI can speed up data analysis, competitive research, and first drafts of content. Human strategists bring judgment about your market, your compliance requirements, and your brand voice, and they turn the analysis into decisions. Together, they produce a stronger plan in less time.

What if we missed our 2026 marketing goals?

Treat the results as useful data. Identify where your funnel slowed, whether in traffic, conversion, or close rate, and focus your 2027 plan on that stage. Small, targeted improvements often unlock the biggest gains in the year ahead.

 

/by

How Financial Services Firms Actually Get Found Online (Without Chasing Trends)

How Financial Services Firms Actually Get Found Online

Financial services marketing follows a different timeline than marketing for SaaS, ecommerce, or consumer brands. TPAs, retirement plan consultants, tax attorneys, and outsourced accounting firms are selling judgment, compliance, experience, and trust. Prospects research, compare, and wait before reaching out, and when they finally do, they tend to choose the firm that feels established, visible, and credible.

That is how financial services firms actually get found online: by showing up consistently in the places decision-makers already look.

Why Financial Services Marketing Follows a Longer Timeline

Most marketing advice is built for fast-moving products with short sales cycles. Financial services buyers are CFOs, founders, HR leaders, plan sponsors, and attorneys who operate under regulatory pressure and stay skeptical by default.

When a firm jumps from tactic to tactic, reels one month, paid ads the next, AI-generated content after that, the signal it sends reads as instability rather than innovation. In regulated, trust-based industries, credibility compounds slowly and erodes quickly. Consistency, clarity, and authority carry the weight that trend-chasing can’t.

How Buyers Actually Search for Financial Services Firms

Buyers read answers to specific questions, especially the ones they’re searching for under pressure:

  • “Do we need a TPA or just a recordkeeper?”
  • “What happens if our 401(k) fails compliance testing?”
  • “How does an IRS audit actually start?”
  • “What is the risk of staying fully insured another year?”

Most of these searches happen before a buyer knows your firm’s name. Firms that win online tend to do three things well: they answer real questions in plain language, they show depth without overcomplicating the answer, and they demonstrate experience without selling aggressively. That combination is what gets surfaced by search engines, LinkedIn feeds, and increasingly, AI-driven discovery tools.

How SEO Authority Actually Builds Over Time

Search engine optimization today rewards authority signals: firsthand knowledge, topical depth, and consistency sustained over months and years. Google prioritizes content that demonstrates real experience with a topic, and that kind of content builds naturally out of genuine industry fluency rather than keyword density alone.

A 2026 survey of SEO and marketing professionals found unanimous agreement that E-E-A-T signals, experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness, will matter more this year than ever, the only finding in the survey with 100 percent agreement. For financial services firms, that means every published page carries more weight when it reflects genuine, firsthand knowledge of the subject.

Why a Library of Content Outperforms a Single Post

Search rankings build gradually, growing stronger as a library of thoughtful, specific content accumulates over time. Covering a topic from multiple angles, over multiple posts, signals to search engines and to readers that a firm knows the space and has been working in it for a while.

LinkedIn’s Role: Building Recognition That Feeds Your Website

LinkedIn remains one of the most effective social platforms for B2B financial services when it’s used for what it’s actually good at: sparking recognition. The posts that perform best for professional services firms create a moment of “yes, that is exactly what we are dealing with,” which sends prospects toward a firm’s website and its deeper content ecosystem, where trust gets built.

LinkedIn tends to open doors rather than close deals directly. Long-form content on the website carries the relationship forward from there.

Blogs Remain the Backbone of Long-Term Authority

AI tools, social feeds, and referrals all eventually point somewhere, and that destination still matters. Blogs remain the backbone of online authority because they provide the depth AI tools can reference, create searchable answers to complex questions, and anchor credibility when prospects research a firm directly.

Long-form content builds durable authority over time, giving short-form posts on social media something substantial to link back to and draw credibility from. Firms that pair social and email efforts with a growing knowledge base of long-form content build the kind of durable growth that plateaus less often.

Email Marketing Functions as Ongoing Infrastructure

Email works best as a way of staying present consistently without becoming intrusive. For financial services firms, the strongest emails reinforce expertise rather than urgency: regulatory updates, market shifts, common mistakes, and strategic considerations relevant to what clients are already facing.

Done well, email supports long buying cycles and keeps a firm top of mind until the timing finally aligns.

Video Adds Clarity to Complex Topics

Useful, clear video that explains one concept well tends to outperform flashy production, especially in financial services, where credibility matters more than charisma. The firms that succeed with video use it to clarify complex topics, humanize their expertise, and reinforce the written content already doing the heavier lifting.

Conferences and Associations Strengthen In-Person Credibility

Industry conferences and associations remain important for credibility and relationships. A prospect who meets a firm once at a conference will typically research that firm online before following up, so pairing in-person visibility with a strong digital presence is what carries momentum forward after the event ends. When the online presence confirms what a firm demonstrated in person, that recognition compounds.

The Quiet Advantage

Financial services firms do not need louder marketing. They need clearer marketing.

The firms that get found online are not chasing every new platform or AI tool. They are using those tools to reinforce something solid underneath.

Authority. Consistency. Substance.

It is not sexy.
It is not fast.
It works anyway.

Frequently Asked Questions About Financial Services Marketing

How long does it take to see results from financial services content marketing?
Search authority and inbound visibility typically build over months rather than weeks, with momentum increasing as a library of consistent, specific content accumulates.

What is the most effective marketing channel for financial services firms?
No single channel carries the full weight. Blogs anchor long-term authority, LinkedIn builds recognition, email keeps a firm top of mind, and video adds clarity, with each channel reinforcing the others.

Does LinkedIn generate leads directly for financial services companies?
LinkedIn tends to drive recognition and traffic toward a firm’s website rather than closing business directly. The follow-through happens through the deeper content a prospect finds once they arrive.

How much content does it take to build real search authority?
A single post rarely shifts rankings on its own. A growing library that covers a topic from multiple angles over time is what search engines and AI tools recognize as genuine authority.

/by
,

Seven Years In: What a Long-Term Content Marketing Partnership Looks Like for a Financial Services Brand

Some client relationships are short sprints. Others become a running record of how a company grows. SBMA falls into the second category. Digital Storyteller has worked with the financial services firm since 2019, and the seven years in between tell a useful story about what sustained content marketing actually builds over time.

How a Financial Services Company Outgrew Its First Website

When SBMA came to Digital Storyteller, the company had already built something real. Their website, however, was still the one an employee had put together in the early days, back when the priority was simply getting something live. As SBMA grew, that site stayed frozen in place.

The introduction came through Prevailing Wage Partners, a firm Digital Storyteller had already worked with. That referral led to a brand storytelling session with SBMA’s leadership team in their old Mission Valley offices, sitting down with the people who understood the business best to map out where the company wanted to go.

“It really rooted us in where they wanted to go, not just where they were currently, but who they wanted to be and where they were headed.” — Amanda Rogers, Founder and Chief Creative Officer, Digital Storyteller

That early session became the anchor for everything that followed. The deliverables have grown considerably since then, but the direction set in that first meeting still shapes the work today.

Building the Content Engine: 2019 to Today

The early work was foundational: a full website rebuild, a content calendar, and social media channels built from scratch. SBMA’s CEO, Frank, was clear that he didn’t want to be the face of social media himself. His view was that the story belonged to what the company delivered, not to any one person. Digital Storyteller built a LinkedIn presence for him anyway, populated it, and managed it as an extension of the brand.

Search visibility took time to build. SEO in 2019 looked very different from SEO today, and the landscape has kept shifting since, especially with the rise of AI-driven search. Over the years, the work has expanded into weekly blog writing, consistent social posting, and occasional video projects.

“We’re sort of the engine in the bottom of the boat.” — Amanda Rogers

That phrase captures the nature of long-term content marketing well. The work that builds search rankings and brand authority over years rarely gets noticed in the moment. It shows up later, in the results.

Website Refresh Timing: Why Five Years Is a Meaningful Marker

Most web design professionals recommend revisiting a website every two to five years, depending on the industry and how much the business itself has changed. For SBMA, the five and a half year mark coincided with real change: an acquisition and a partnership with AcroShare, a large, likely private equity backed conglomerate.

That kind of shift is exactly what makes a website review necessary. A business can grow substantially without its digital presence reflecting any of it, and periodically asking whether the site still represents who the company has become is part of keeping a brand accurate.

A Parent Company, a Rebrand, and a Website Built for What’s Next

SBMA’s team and service offerings stayed the same through the AcroShare partnership, but the digital presence needed to align with the broader Inspired By ecosystem, AcroShare’s parent company. Digital Storyteller rebuilt the site with that alignment in mind, elevating SBMA’s brand voice and adjusting how the company talked about itself.

That rebuild, completed roughly a year and a half ago, also marked the start of a new layer of strategy: building the site with AI in mind from the ground up, rather than retrofitting it later.

Optimizing for the Way AI and Search Engines Read Trust Today

A year and a half is a long time in search right now. Much of the current work with SBMA involves refining what’s already on the site to strengthen E-E-A-T signals, the experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness markers that both traditional search engines and large language models use to determine who deserves to be cited.

That shift reflects a broader industry pattern. In a 2026 survey of SEO and marketing professionals, every single respondent agreed that E-E-A-T will matter more this year, the only finding in the survey with unanimous agreement. Buyer behavior backs that up: recent research puts the share of B2B buyers using AI tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity during their research process at 73 percent. For a financial services company, showing up clearly and credibly in those AI-generated answers is quickly becoming as important as ranking on a traditional results page.

“We show up first for all the terms that we said we wanted to show up first for, and we do surface as one of the links that large language models are surfacing for people.” — Amanda Rogers

What Seven Years of Partnership Actually Produces

Beyond the blog posts, social calendars, and website rebuilds, the relationship has grown into something broader. Digital Storyteller handles interviews, internal video work, proposal design, PowerPoint builds, and the steady stream of design requests that come with running a growing business: business cards, pull-up banners, Zoom backgrounds, and vector files for milestones like SBMA’s 10 year anniversary.

That range is what a long-term marketing partnership tends to look like once the foundational work is in place. The strategic layer keeps evolving toward whatever search and AI visibility demand next, while the day-to-day production keeps the business running smoothly in the meantime.

Looking ahead, the SBMA partnership continues to track the same shifts every financial services brand will need to navigate: how AI reshapes discovery, how trust signals get evaluated, and how a company’s digital presence keeps pace with its actual growth. The tools will keep changing. The discipline of building a brand that shows up accurately, consistently, and credibly stays the same.

Frequently Asked Questions About Long-Term Financial Services Marketing Partnerships

How often should a financial services company redesign its website?
 Most guidance points to a review every two to five years, with a full redesign warranted sooner if the business has gone through a major change like an acquisition, a rebrand, or a shift in target audience.

What does E-E-A-T mean for AI search visibility?
 E-E-A-T stands for experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. Search engines and AI models use these signals to decide which sources are credible enough to cite, which makes them central to showing up in AI-generated answers rather than just traditional search results.

Why would a company build a LinkedIn presence for a CEO who doesn’t want to post personally?
 A ghostwritten executive presence lets a company build credibility and visibility for its leadership without requiring that person to manage the channel themselves. The content still reflects the company’s expertise and voice, just under the executive’s name.

What kind of ongoing work does a long-term content marketing partnership typically include?
 Beyond blog writing and social management, it often expands into video, design support for internal materials, proposal and presentation building, and periodic strategic reviews like website rebuilds or brand voice updates.

/by
,

Why Sales Coaching Is the Missing Piece in Your Growth Strategy

Marketing and sales often operate as separate functions inside a company. Marketing generates leads, and sales works to close them. The space between those two functions is where growth quietly stalls for a lot of businesses. When a sales team isn’t converting at the level a company expects, the root cause frequently lies in the structure, accountability, and ongoing coaching within the sales process itself.

At Digital Storyteller, sales coaching has shown up repeatedly as a transformative piece of the growth equation. Our CEO and co-founder, Andrew Marr, has spent years working fractionally with companies, refining sales systems, and building accountability structures that fuel growth. His track record includes helping businesses scale from 3 million to 30 million dollars in revenue and navigate acquisitions while keeping sales momentum intact.

What Structured Sales Coaching Actually Builds

Sales functions as a discipline that compounds through structure, not just individual talent. Even highly skilled salespeople perform at a higher level when the following pieces are in place.

A Defined Sales Process

Without a documented, structured approach, every rep ends up figuring out their own path, which leads to inconsistency across the team. A defined sales process keeps everyone aligned and moving in the same direction, giving new hires and veteran reps alike a shared framework to work from.

Accountability in Weekly Sales Meetings

Tracking performance goes beyond hitting quotas. Regular check-ins ensure follow-through on leads, build collaboration across the team, and create a recurring space for improvement. Recent research on coaching frequency backs this up directly: teams coached weekly reach 76 percent quota attainment, compared to 47 percent for teams coached quarterly or less.

Coaching and Skill Development

The strongest salespeople continually refine their craft rather than relying on natural ability alone. Effective coaching provides concrete strategies for overcoming objections, improving closing rates, and maximizing opportunities already sitting in the pipeline.

Scalability and Acquisition Readiness

As companies grow, sales often becomes the bottleneck holding everything else back. Structured sales coaching prepares a team for that growth, whether it’s organic expansion or an acquisition by a private equity firm.

Which Companies Benefit Most From Sales Coaching

Companies with a sales team of three or more people tend to see the clearest gains from structured coaching, through improved efficiency, higher conversions, and stronger revenue growth. Many small and mid-sized businesses operate without a Chief Revenue Officer or dedicated sales leadership, which often results in a few recurring patterns:

  • Unstructured sales meetings with no clear action items
  • Inconsistent follow-up that lets deals slip through the cracks
  • Limited forecasting and pipeline visibility
  • Heavy reliance on marketing to solve sales-side problems

A fractional sales leader like Andrew Marr brings the strategy, structure, and accountability a growing sales team needs, at a fraction of the cost of a full-time executive hire.

How Sales and Marketing Work Together to Drive Revenue

At Digital Storyteller, sales coaching and marketing strategy work as connected parts of the same growth engine rather than as separate disciplines. Integrating sales coaching into a broader marketing strategy helps businesses in San Diego and beyond build a sustainable, scalable revenue system where leads convert consistently instead of stalling in the pipeline.

The research on this connection is substantial. Effective coaching programs are associated with revenue increases of up to 16.7 percent, along with gains of 25 to 40 percent in deal size and win rates. Sellers working with an effective manager, regular coaching, and structured training are 63 percent more likely to become top performers on their team.

Companies that build this kind of structure now are positioning their sales teams to convert more of the leads already coming in, scale with confidence as the business grows, and move through any future acquisition or leadership transition without losing momentum along the way.

Frequently Asked Questions About Fractional Sales Coaching

What size sales team benefits most from fractional sales coaching?
Teams of three or more salespeople typically see the clearest improvements in efficiency, conversion rates, and revenue growth from structured coaching support.

How is fractional sales coaching different from hiring a full-time sales leader?
A fractional sales leader provides strategic direction, accountability structures, and coaching on a flexible basis, giving a growing company senior-level sales leadership without the cost of a full-time executive.

Does sales coaching help during an acquisition or ownership transition?
Structured sales coaching helps a team maintain consistent performance and pipeline visibility through periods of significant change, including acquisitions and leadership transitions.

How often should a sales team be coached to see real results?
Research shows a strong link between coaching frequency and quota attainment, with weekly coaching correlating to substantially higher performance than monthly or quarterly check-ins.

If you’re ready to elevate your sales process, improve accountability, and drive real revenue growth, connect with Digital Storyteller to learn more about fractional sales coaching. You can also see what a long-term growth partnership looks like in practice through our seven-year work with SBMA, or run your own numbers with the Marketing Calculator.

/by
, ,

Why Do Financial Services Companies Have Such a Hard Time Telling Their Story?

storyteller
Read more
/by
, ,

The Content Marketing Math Your CFO Will Actually Approve Of

Summary: Financial services firms often struggle to get content marketing approved internally because the pitch relies on vague promises like “brand awareness” and “engagement,” which rarely survive a budget conversation. The math is more persuasive than the pitch. Building an in-house content team requires stacking salaries for a content specialist, social media specialist, graphic designer, SEO specialist, and email specialist, plus benefits and payroll taxes on top of each one. That total, run through a simple calculator, usually lands well above the cost of an outsourced retainer covering the same scope of work. Approaching a CFO with a side-by-side cost comparison tends to get further than approaching them with a content calendar.

Marketing Pitches Don’t Get Approved. Math Gets Approved.

Every CFO has sat through a marketing pitch full of words like “visibility” and “engagement” and quietly wondered what any of it costs to produce. Not the campaign. The team.

Here’s the number most firms never actually run: what it costs to build an in-house content operation capable of doing what a modern marketing strategy requires. Not one person wearing five hats. An actual team, with actual specialties, each drawing an actual salary.

What “In-House” Really Adds Up To

A functioning content marketing operation typically needs five distinct skill sets: a content specialist to write it, a social media specialist to distribute it, a graphic designer to make it look professional, an SEO specialist to make sure it gets found, and an email specialist to turn it into follow-up. Each of those is a real job with a real salary attached, and most firms underestimate the total because they picture one generalist doing all five.

Add benefits on top of each salary. Add payroll taxes on top of that. The number climbs fast, and it climbs before a single blog post has been written.

Business owners rarely budget line by line for this. Most picture one marketing hire and one salary, so the real number tends to catch them off guard.

For a closer look at why so many firms underestimate this in the first place, Why Financial Services Firms Struggle With Marketing walks through the most common blind spots.

What an Outsourced Retainer Actually Covers

An outsourced retainer replaces that entire stack with one monthly line item, and it covers the same functions: content strategy, writing, design, SEO, email, and social distribution, all working from one plan instead of five disconnected job descriptions.

Run the comparison side by side and the retainer usually comes in well under the fully loaded cost of hiring each role individually, even at the higher tiers. That gap is the number a CFO actually responds to.

More on what that shift tends to look like in practice is covered in Why Financial Services Companies Should Outsource Their Marketing (And What’s Changed).

Why This Argument Works Where the Old One Didn’t

A content calendar asks a CFO to take marketing’s word for it. A cost comparison asks a CFO to check a piece of arithmetic, which is a much easier yes.

This is exactly why the calculator on the Digital Storyteller website exists. Plug in the salaries a firm would realistically pay for each in-house role, and it lays the in-house total next to the outsourced retainer cost automatically. No pitch deck required. Just the math, side by side, for whoever needs to sign off.

Once the budget conversation is settled, the next question is usually what the content itself should actually accomplish. Your Content Isn’t Broken. Your Strategy Is: A B2B Content Marketing Playbook for Pipeline Growth covers that piece.

Try the Numbers Before the Next Budget Meeting

Walking into a budget conversation with a content strategy is a harder sell than walking in with a spreadsheet. The Marketing Calculator does that math automatically: plug in realistic in-house salaries and see the total stacked against an outsourced retainer in seconds.

Run the numbers before the next budget meeting, and bring the answer instead of the ask.

Run the Numbers Before the Next Budget Meeting

Walking into a budget conversation with a content strategy is a harder sell than walking in with a spreadsheet. The Marketing Calculator does that math automatically: plug in realistic in-house salaries and see the total stacked against an outsourced retainer in seconds.

If the numbers make the case, the next step is a conversation about what a retainer would actually look like for a firm’s specific goals and current team. Reach out here to walk through the results together and figure out where a full marketing team fits into the budget already in place.

FAQs

Is the in-house vs. outsourced comparison really that different?
It’s usually more different than firms expect, mostly because the in-house side is rarely priced as a full team. Once benefits and payroll taxes are added to five separate salaries, the total tends to surprise people.

Does outsourced marketing cover the same ground as an in-house team?
Yes, when it’s structured as a full retainer rather than a single service. Strategy, content, design, SEO, and email should all be included, not just one piece of the puzzle.

How do I use the calculator to build a case internally?
Enter realistic local salary figures for each role a firm would need to hire, and the calculator totals the in-house cost automatically and sets it next to the retainer cost for comparison.

Isn’t in-house better for control and consistency?
Control depends on the team and the process, not on which side of the org chart the work sits. A well-run outsourced team follows the same content calendar and approval process an in-house team would.

What if I already have one marketing person in-house?
That’s common, and it’s often the gap the calculator is most useful for. One person can rarely cover strategy, writing, design, SEO, and email at full capacity, which is where a retainer tends to fill in the missing pieces rather than replace the existing hire. That person is also usually the ideal point of contact for an outsourced team to work alongside, since they already know the brand voice, the client base, and what’s been tried before. Rather than replacing that role, the retainer gives them a full team to direct instead of five jobs to do alone.

 

/by
, , , ,

Why Do You Need Video in Your Digital Marketing Strategy?

girl on video using camera on tripod to build her digital marketing strategy

Are you a business owner? If the answer is yes, please tell us you’re incorporating video into your digital marketing strategy… If you’re not, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity.

Why? Because video is crucial to showcasing your brand and ultimately, getting more clients. And what business owner doesn’t want more clients? After you’re done with this article, circle back to find out how to attract the right clients.

But for now, we’ve got Andrew Marr, Owner and CEO of Digital Storyteller on camera to discuss the importance of using video in your digital marketing strategy.

Let’s hear what this ranting Scot has to say.

Why is Video Important to My Digital Marketing Strategy?

So, why is video important? At Digital Storyteller, we love our metrics and statistics. Let’s take a look at the numbers.

Did you know…

The point is so many individuals watch videos nowadays.

In fact, our owner and CEO Andrew admits to watching at least 50 to 100 short videos a day through Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Hey, it’s where his enjoyment sits!

But it’s not just cute puppy videos that grab his attention, Andrew reminds us.

“I learn from videos. Most clients in the financial services world, the clients that we work with, have a hard time with video, and understandably so…”

Why? Truth is, it’s hard to sit in front of the camera and talk, especially about ourselves!

Today, Andrew says, your digital marketing strategy must include not only long-form blogs, newsletters, white papers, etc. but also videos. Why? If not, you’re missing out on a huge group of viewers, and therefore, prospects.

How Can I Get Started?

So, if you’re a business owner, you might be wondering… “How do I get started with this video stuff?”

Don’t worry, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel.

All you need in terms of video length is 30 seconds to a minute. That’s not just a hunch, either. It’s still where the data points: most marketers rate videos between 30 seconds and 2 minutes as the most effective length for driving engagement (Wyzowl, State of Video Marketing 2026).

“But what do I talk about?!” Don’t worry. Think about the questions you receive over and over as a business owner.

For Andrew, these questions include the following:

  • Why should I outsource my marketing?
  • How long does it take to see an ROI when it comes to organic marketing?
  • Why does Digital Storyteller specialize in financial services?
  • How much does your marketing cost?
  • What is organic content marketing?

So, think: What are the five main recurring questions you get? Then, sit down and answer those questions.

Make your videos short and to the point.

If you’re not answering a question that you frequently get from clients, consider telling a story instead. You can tell a story about…

  • How your business helped a client
  • Someone on your team

You can even ask a client to record a video testimonial for you if you’re not quite ready to jump in front of the camera yourself! Here’s how to ask for a client testimonial.

Still Not Convinced?

Video remains one of social media’s best-performing content formats. By using video, you will increase your traffic, up your engagement, AND people will simply get to know you better by seeing your face, hearing you talk, and getting to know your personality!

Read on for more information about boosting your engagement via video in our article “Want to Connect with Your Prospects? Use Video.”

How to Record a Great Video

Need more guidance? Not sure what to wear in the video? Or, how to position your camera? Read our article “How to Record a Great Zoom Testimonial” for all the answers you seek.

PS: These tips apply just as well to non-Zoom video recordings! Happy recording!

/by

The Danger of Sounding Like Every Other Financial Firm’s Website

Summary: Financial services websites across the industry tend to converge on the same language: trusted, personalized, decades of experience, client-focused. This happens for understandable reasons, including templated design platforms, compliance caution, and an industry habit of studying competitors instead of studying clients. The result is a landscape where prospects can’t tell one firm from another, which pushes buying decisions toward price and referrals instead of expertise. Real differentiation comes from specificity: actual client scenarios, a distinct voice, and language that could only describe your firm. That specificity also happens to be what AI search tools and human readers both use to figure out who actually knows what they’re talking about.

Open Ten Financial Services Websites. Count the Differences.

Open ten sites for financial firms in your space (advisors, lenders, insurance agencies, whatever your category is). Read the homepage headline on each one. You’ll find some version of the same six or seven phrases on nearly every page: trusted advisor, personalized service, decades of combined experience, client-first approach, a team you can trust.

Every firm believes these words describe them accurately. Every firm is also, unknowingly, describing every other firm on that list.

Why This Keeps Happening

A few forces push financial services marketing toward sameness, and they build on each other over time.

Templated website builders offer pre-written copy blocks designed to sound professional and safe, and most firms use them close to as-is. Compliance teams add another layer of caution, trimming language until what’s left is broad enough to avoid any risk of overstatement. And when firms look for inspiration, they tend to study their competitors’ websites instead of their own clients, which means the same phrases get borrowed, reworded slightly, and passed around the industry indefinitely.

Each of these decisions makes sense in isolation. A safe headline feels like the responsible choice when the alternative feels risky. Put them all together and you get a category of websites that reads like one long document with the logo swapped out.

What Generic Language Actually Costs You

A prospect researching financial firms is trying to answer one question: which of these people should I trust with something important?

Generic language gives them nothing to work with. If every site promises the same trust and the same experience, the words stop functioning as information and start functioning as wallpaper. The reader skims past them on the way to the only thing left to actually compare: price, or whichever firm a friend happened to mention first.

“If your website could be describing three other firms in your city, it’s not doing its job. Your actual clients don’t talk about you in trust-and-experience language. They talk about the specific thing you did for them.” — Amanda Rogers, Founder, Digital Storyteller

This shows up downstream in ways that are easy to misdiagnose. A firm with real expertise loses a prospect to a competitor with a flashier ad budget, and the conclusion becomes “we need to spend more on marketing.” Often the real issue is quieter: the website simply gave the prospect nothing to remember.

What Specific Language Sounds Like

Specificity comes from the details that are true of your firm and nobody else’s.

A firm that helps manufacturing companies navigate equipment financing can describe the actual conversation a client has when a machine breaks down mid-production and the bank says no. A wealth management firm that specializes in business owners approaching retirement can describe the exact spreadsheet moment a client realizes their business is worth less than they assumed. An insurance agency that works with contractors can name the specific claim scenario that keeps their clients up at night.

These details come from transcripts of real conversations, from the questions clients ask on discovery calls, and from the stories a founder tells without thinking twice because they’re second nature. They read as unmistakably true, which no template has ever managed to fake.

This material is usually already sitting around: old sales calls, onboarding notes, client testimonials. The job is pulling it out and putting it somewhere a prospect will actually see it.

Where This Is Heading

Search behavior is shifting toward AI tools that summarize and compare firms on a prospect’s behalf, and those tools are built to surface specific, well-supported claims over generic ones. A website full of interchangeable phrases gives an AI summary nothing distinct to grab onto. Specific, detailed content gives it something to cite by name.

The firms building genuinely distinct websites now are setting themselves up to be findable, quotable, and remembered: by search engines, by AI tools, and by the humans still doing their own homework before they ever pick up the phone.

Ready to Sound Like Yourselves?

You don’t need a full rebrand to fix this. You need the stories, phrases, and details that are already sitting in your client conversations, pulled out and put to work on your website, your blog, and everywhere else prospects are looking.

That’s the work we do at Digital Storyteller: taking what makes your firm genuinely different and making sure it shows up where it counts. If your website could belong to three other firms in your city, let’s talk about changing that. Reach out to our team to get started.

FAQs

How do I know if my website sounds generic?
Read your homepage and your competitors’ homepages back to back. If you could swap the logos and the copy still works, that’s your answer.

Won’t specific language turn off clients who prefer a more conservative approach?
Specificity reads as more credible, not less. A precise description of who you help and how shows you actually know your audience, which is the opposite of a red flag.

What’s the fastest way to start making our content more specific?
Pull language directly from real client conversations: sales calls, onboarding notes, testimonials. The exact words a client uses to describe their problem are usually more compelling than anything written from a blank page.

Do we need to redesign the whole website to fix this?
Usually not. Most of this work happens at the copy level (headlines, service descriptions, about pages) rather than the design or structure of the site.

How does this connect to AI search visibility?
AI tools that summarize search results pull specific, well-supported claims rather than generic ones. Specific content gives those tools something concrete to cite, which raises the odds your firm shows up in the summary a prospect actually reads.

Can compliance-approved language still be specific?
Yes. Specificity is about naming real scenarios and real details, not about making bold claims that need extra sign-off. A story about a client situation is usually an easier approval than a sweeping promise about outcomes.

/by

Why is My Organic Search Ranking Dropping?

Summary: B2B financial services firms have seen organic search rankings decline since Google’s AI-powered search results rolled out in late 2024. This post explains why, and what to do about it. The shift changed how search results are displayed, reducing direct clicks to websites. For firms with longer sales cycles, the solution is optimizing existing content to appear as the trusted verification link beneath AI summaries, while ensuring content reflects genuine human expertise rather than generic AI output. Video, blog posts, FAQs, service pages, and LinkedIn are all key channels for recovery.

Your Search Rankings Are Dropping. Here’s Why.

If your website has been getting less organic traffic over the last several months, you’ve probably wondered what you did wrong. Did you post too infrequently? Was it the website redesign? Is your content not good enough?

In most cases, it’s none of those things. Something changed in how Google delivers search results, and it hit B2B service providers especially hard.

This isn’t a small tweak. It’s a structural shift in how people interact with search results, and understanding it is the first step toward getting your visibility back.

What Changed: Google’s AI Search Overviews

Starting in late 2024, Google began rolling out AI-generated summaries at the top of search results, often called “AI Overviews.” Instead of showing a list of links and making the user click through to find answers, Google now frequently provides a direct answer at the top of the page.

For someone looking up a quick fact, this is convenient. For a B2B financial services firm trying to attract qualified prospects, it creates a real problem.

The people you’re trying to reach, business owners evaluating a financial advisor, a CFO researching an outsourced service, an executive weighing a long-term decision, are not making those decisions based on a three-sentence AI summary. They’re doing research. They want to read, compare, and verify. But if they never click through to your website because Google already “answered” their question, you never get the chance to demonstrate your expertise.

“We’re not selling lipstick. We’re selling relationships, and that quick snippet isn’t always enough.”, Amanda Rogers, Founder, Digital Storyteller

The Opportunity Inside the Problem

Here’s what most people miss: the AI Overviews don’t replace search results, they sit above them. Underneath every AI summary, there are still links. And those links serve a specific psychological purpose.

People are skeptical. Even when Google hands them an answer, many readers think: okay, maybe, but I’m going to verify that myself. They click the links beneath the summary to fact-check, dig deeper, and find out who actually knows what they’re talking about.

Your goal is to be that link.

To show up there, your content needs to be structured and optimized in a way that signals credibility to both the AI and the humans reading the results. That means your website content, your service pages, your blog posts, your FAQ sections, your video transcripts, needs to clearly demonstrate that you are a knowledgeable, trustworthy source on the topics your clients care about.

Why AI-Written Content Can Backfire

There’s a painful irony here. Many firms responded to the pressure to produce more content by leaning heavily on AI to write it. And there’s nothing wrong with using AI as part of your content process, but there’s a catch.

AI search algorithms are specifically trained to identify and deprioritize content that looks like it was generated by AI without meaningful human input. Generic phrasing, predictable structure, and the absence of real-world specificity are all signals that content lacks authentic expertise.

In other words: if you’ve been using AI to churn out blog posts without a human reviewing, personalizing, and grounding them in your real experience, those posts may actually be hurting your rankings rather than helping them.

What search engines want right now is your expertise, expressed clearly, in your voice, and formatted in a way that AI can understand and surface. That combination is harder to fake than it sounds, and it’s genuinely more valuable than volume.

What You Can Do About It

The good news is that you likely already have more usable content than you think. Here’s where to focus:

Audit what you have. Many firms find that their existing service pages and blog posts just need to be refreshed and reformatted to perform better in AI-powered search. You don’t always need to start over.

Create content that answers real questions. FAQ pages, detailed service descriptions, and blog posts that address the specific concerns of your clients are exactly what AI search rewards. Think about what your best clients asked you before they hired you, and answer those questions publicly.

Use video. Video content is increasingly valuable, both because it’s harder to fake and because it generates transcripts that can be repurposed into blog posts, social content, and website copy, all with authentic, human language built in.

Optimize your LinkedIn presence. For B2B financial services, LinkedIn is often where the actual decision-makers are. Consistent, expert content there drives both direct engagement and search credibility.

Be consistent. One great month of content followed by silence doesn’t build the kind of authority that search engines, or clients, are looking for.

You Can Recover, But It Takes the Right Approach

Losing search rank can feel like a slow leak that’s hard to pinpoint and easy to ignore until it becomes a real problem. The firms that recover fastest are the ones that get specific: they identify which content is underperforming, refresh it with genuine expertise, and build a consistent publishing rhythm going forward.

If you’ve built a reputation as a trusted expert in your field, search engines want to surface you. They just need your help making that case clearly.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why did my website traffic drop even though I didn’t change anything?

Google’s AI search overviews changed how results are displayed, often reducing the number of clicks that reach individual websites, especially for informational searches. Your rankings may not have dropped at all; it’s the click-through behavior that changed. The solution is optimizing your content to appear as a trusted source both within and beneath those AI summaries.

Is AI-generated content bad for SEO?

Not automatically. AI is a useful drafting tool. The problem is content that’s purely AI-generated with no human review, personalization, or genuine expertise added. Search engines are getting better at identifying this, and they deprioritize it in favor of content that demonstrates real authority. The fix is making sure a knowledgeable human is always in the loop.

What kind of content helps B2B financial services firms rank well right now?

Content that reflects specific expertise and directly answers the questions your prospective clients are searching for. That includes detailed service pages, FAQ content, blog posts written in your voice, and video content with transcripts. Thin or generic content is increasingly unlikely to rank.

How long does it take to recover lost search rankings?

It depends on how much optimization is needed and how competitive your keywords are, but meaningful improvements are often visible within 60 to 90 days of consistent effort. The key word is consistent, sporadic updates rarely move the needle.

Do I need to redo all my content from scratch?

Rarely. In most cases, existing content can be refreshed and reformatted to perform significantly better. A content audit is usually the best first step, it identifies what’s already working, what needs updating, and where the biggest gaps are.

What’s the difference between regular SEO and optimizing for AI search?

Traditional SEO focused heavily on keywords and backlinks. AI search optimization adds a layer: your content also needs to demonstrate expertise, authority, and trustworthiness in a way that AI systems can evaluate. Structured content, clear answers to specific questions, and genuine subject matter expertise all matter more now than they did three years ago.

/by
, ,

What Is Cornerstone Content and Why Does Your Website Need It?

Cornerstone Content

If you’ve ever Googled “how do I show up on the first page of Google,” you’ve probably come across the term cornerstone content. It sounds technical, but the concept is actually pretty straightforward — and once you understand it, it changes the way you think about everything you publish on your website.

What Is Cornerstone Content?

Cornerstone content is the most important content on your website. These are the pages or blog posts that best represent what your business does, what you want to be known for, and what you most want to rank for in search engines.

Think of it as the foundation your entire website is built on. Everything else — your supporting blogs, your social content, your videos — points back to it.

Cornerstone content typically shares a few characteristics. It is longer and more in-depth than a standard blog post. It is evergreen, meaning it stays relevant over time and gets updated regularly. And it is the content you are most proud of, the pieces that most clearly and thoroughly explain your expertise.

Most websites have somewhere between four and ten cornerstone pieces. Any fewer and you are not covering enough ground. Any more and you risk spreading yourself too thin and competing against yourself in search results.

Why Does Cornerstone Content Matter for SEO?

Here is the key thing to understand about SEO: search engines do not rank websites. They rank individual pages.

That means if you want to show up when someone searches for a specific topic, you need a specific page built around that topic. Cornerstone content gives Google a clear signal about which pages on your site are the most authoritative and important for a given subject.

When you build supporting content — blogs, articles, videos — and link them back to your cornerstone pages, you are essentially telling Google: “This page is the hub. This is where the best, most complete information on this topic lives.” Over time, that internal linking structure builds topical authority, which is one of the most powerful drivers of organic search rankings.

Without cornerstone content, your website is a collection of disconnected pages. With it, your site becomes a structured, intentional resource that Google knows how to read and reward.

How to Identify Your Cornerstone Content

Start by asking yourself: what are the two to five topics my business absolutely needs to rank for?

These should be the topics most directly tied to your core services, the ones your ideal clients are actively searching for, and the ones where you have the most expertise to offer. Each of those topics deserves a cornerstone page built around it.

From there, every blog post you publish, every video you create, and every social caption you write becomes an opportunity to support one of those cornerstones and send more authority back to the pages that matter most.

Cornerstone Content Takes Time, But It Works

Ranking on the first page of Google does not happen overnight. But cornerstone content is one of the most reliable, proven ways to get there. When you commit to building a strong foundation and consistently creating content that supports it, the results compound over time.

The businesses that show up at the top of search results are not there by accident. They have a content strategy built around the right topics, structured in a way that search engines understand and reward.

If you want to build that kind of strategy for your business, our team can help. Learn more about our SEO and content marketing services and let’s build something that actually ranks.

Frequently Asked Questions About Cornerstone Content

How is cornerstone content different from a regular blog post? A typical blog post is focused and timely, covering one specific angle on a topic. Cornerstone content is broader and deeper. It’s the definitive resource on a subject, updated regularly, and designed to serve as the central hub that other posts link back to.

How many cornerstone pages does my site need? Most websites do well with four to ten cornerstone pieces. Fewer than that and you’re not covering enough ground; more than that and you risk competing against yourself in search results.

Does my cornerstone content need to be a blog post? Not necessarily. It can be a dedicated page on your website, a comprehensive guide, or a long-form article; whatever format best showcases your expertise on that topic. What matters is that it’s thorough, evergreen, and positioned as the go-to resource for that subject.

How long does it take for cornerstone content to rank? There’s no fixed timeline, but SEO in general is a long game. Cornerstone content is a foundational strategy; results build over months as you publish supporting content that links back to it and reinforces your topical authority.

What makes a good cornerstone topic? A strong cornerstone topic is closely tied to your core services, actively searched for by your ideal clients, and something you can speak to with genuine depth and expertise. If you can’t write 1,500+ words on it without padding, it may not be the right choice.

What happens if I already have a blog post on a topic I want to make a cornerstone page? You can expand and elevate it. Update the content to be more comprehensive, optimize it around your focus keyphrase, and start building supporting posts that link back to it. Existing content can absolutely become cornerstone content with the right investment.

 

/by

Do I Still Need a Marketing Agency If I Have AI?

Summary: This post explores whether AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, or Grok can replace a marketing agency for B2B financial services firms. The answer: AI is a powerful assistant, but it doesn’t replace the human expertise, brand voice oversight, and consistency that a dedicated marketing team, in-house or outsourced, provides. AI works best when it amplifies human expertise, not when it substitutes for it. Search engines are actively prioritizing authentic human knowledge, making expert-led content more valuable than ever.

You’ve Got AI. So Why Isn’t Your Marketing Handling Itself?

If you’ve been wondering whether a marketing agency is still worth it now that AI tools are everywhere, you’re not alone. It’s a completely reasonable question. AI is genuinely impressive, it saves time, generates content fast, and can make a solo operator feel like they have a full team.

But here’s the thing: having a powerful tool and knowing what to do with it are two very different things.

Think about it this way. A financial advisor has access to the same stock market data as everyone else. What their clients are paying for isn’t the data, it’s the judgment, the experience, and the expertise to know what to do with it. AI in marketing works the same way.

What AI Does Well (and What It Doesn’t)

AI tools are exceptional at taking your ideas and turning them into polished drafts. They can take a video transcript and convert it into a blog post, a YouTube description, a LinkedIn post, and an email newsletter, in minutes. That’s real, meaningful leverage.

What AI can’t do is be you.

No AI tool knows your client relationships, your firm’s particular philosophy, the way you explain a complex concept to a nervous investor, or the story behind why you started your business. That authenticity is your competitive advantage, especially in financial services, where trust is the entire product.

“No one can be you, and that connection we’re all trying to get at scale is going to be more easy to create when you show up authentically.”, Amanda Rogers, Founder, Digital Storyteller

The most effective content strategy for B2B financial services firms right now looks like this: you provide the expertise, and AI helps you scale it. Video is especially powerful here. When someone can see your face and hear your voice, it builds the kind of trust that a well-written AI blog post simply can’t manufacture.

The Consistency Problem

Here’s what actually happens when most business owners decide to handle their own marketing: it goes really well for about two weeks.

There’s a burst of energy, a few great posts go out, maybe a video gets made. And then a client needs attention, a deal comes up, a compliance issue surfaces, and marketing quietly moves to the back burner. Three months later, nothing has gone out and you’re starting from scratch.

Consistency matters more in marketing than almost any other single factor. Search engines reward it. Audiences expect it. And it’s genuinely hard to maintain when you’re also running a business.

This is the core argument for having someone, whether that’s an in-house marketing person or an outsourced agency, who is accountable for keeping things moving. AI can draft the content. It still needs a human to review it, make sure it sounds like you, catch the typos, and actually get it out the door.

What Search Engines Are Actually Looking For

There’s a practical reason beyond brand voice to keep humans in the loop: Google and AI-powered search engines are specifically designed to surface authentic human expertise.

That means content that’s clearly written by a real person with real knowledge, and that reflects genuine authority in your field, is exactly what search algorithms want to reward right now. Generic AI content, or content that hasn’t been reviewed and personalized, can actually work against your rankings.

The winning formula is human expertise, expressed authentically, optimized for search. That’s a job for a person who understands both your business and how search works, with AI as their assistant, not the other way around.

So, Do You Need a Marketing Agency?

You don’t have to hire an agency. You built a business, you’re clearly capable of figuring things out. But ask yourself honestly: will it actually get done? Consistently? In a way that sounds like you, reflects your expertise, and is optimized to be found?

If the answer is yes, great, lean on AI tools and a strong internal process. If the answer involves any hesitation, it may be worth talking to someone whose entire job is to make sure your marketing doesn’t fall through the cracks.

AI is a remarkable tool. It just works best when a smart human is holding it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can’t I just use AI to write all my marketing content and skip the agency?

You can, and many people try. The challenge is that AI-generated content tends to lack the specific voice, experience, and authority that makes marketing effective, especially in financial services, where credibility is everything. AI also needs direction: someone has to decide what to say, in what order, to which audience, and when. That strategic layer still requires human judgment.

What’s the main value of a marketing agency if AI does the writing?

Strategy, brand voice, consistency, and optimization. An agency knows how to take what AI produces and make it actually sound like you, and makes sure it goes out on schedule, without errors, in a format that search engines can find and rank.

How does video fit into a marketing strategy for financial services firms?

Video is one of the most effective trust-building tools available, particularly in high-stakes B2B relationships. It lets prospects see and hear you before they ever sit across a table from you. A short video can then be repurposed into multiple content formats, blogs, social posts, email content, with AI doing much of the heavy lifting on the repurposing.

How do I know if my current marketing is working?

A good starting point is looking at whether your organic search traffic is growing, whether your website content reflects your actual expertise, and whether you’re consistently showing up for your audience. If any of those are a “no,” it’s worth getting an outside perspective on what to fix first.

What should I look for in an outsourced marketing agency?

Look for someone who takes the time to understand your business, your clients, and your voice, not just someone who promises volume. In financial services especially, the quality and credibility of your content matters far more than how much of it goes out.

/by
, , ,

How to Ask for Client Testimonials (And Actually Get Them)

man using a phone

If you’ve ever wondered whether you should be asking for client testimonials, the answer is a hard yes – and if you’re not doing it consistently, you’re leaving serious credibility on the table.

We hear the same questions from business owners all the time: “Do people actually read testimonials?” “Should I be doing video testimonials?” “How do I even bring it up without feeling awkward?”

This post breaks down exactly how to ask for client testimonials, why they matter more than ever, and the five-step process that makes collecting them simple. Our CEO, Andrew Marr, also walks through the video testimonial approach in more detail below.

Why Client Testimonials Are a Non-Negotiable Marketing Asset

You’ve done it yourself -scoured Google reviews before trying a new restaurant, or checked Yelp before booking a service. Your prospects do the exact same thing before deciding whether to work with you.

A strong testimonial can be the deciding factor between a prospect choosing you or your competitor. Boast found that 72% of consumers say positive testimonials directly increase their trust in a business. That’s not a small number – that’s the majority of your potential clients making decisions based on what others say about you.

Collecting and showcasing client testimonials lets your best clients do the selling for you. It builds trust before a prospect ever gets on a call, and it positions your business as one that consistently delivers results.

Why Video Testimonials Are Even More Powerful

Written testimonials are valuable, but video testimonials take it a step further. They put a face and a voice behind the words, which makes them far more persuasive and harder to dismiss.

Asking a client to record a short video testimonial might feel bold – many of us weren’t raised to talk openly about ourselves or ask others to advocate for us. But here’s the reframe: when you ask a client for a testimonial, you’re not asking for a favor. You’re giving them a platform to share a genuine success story.

The questions that resonate most with future clients are simple ones:

  • How did we solve a problem for you?
  • How did we help you save time or money?
  • What was it like to work with us?
  • Why would you recommend us to others?
  • How have others in your industry benefited from what we do?

Video testimonials don’t need to be long or highly produced. A focused, 30-second to one-minute video recorded on a phone or over Zoom is more than enough. If your clients need a little guidance on how to record one well, send them our article: “How to Record a Great Zoom Testimonial.”

Once you have the video, distribute it everywhere – your website, blog posts, LinkedIn, email campaigns, and beyond. A great testimonial should work hard across every channel.

How to Ask for Client Testimonials: A Simple 5-Step Process

The biggest obstacle most businesses face is overcomplicating the ask. Here’s a straightforward process that works.

Step 1: Ask – It Really Is That Simple

No testimonial has ever arrived without someone asking for it. Reach out to long-term clients who know your work well, newly satisfied clients who are still riding the high of a great outcome, and anyone in between. The ask itself is the hardest part, and it’s easier than you think.

Step 2: Remove All Friction

Make it effortless for your clients to respond. A short form with two or three guided questions takes them five minutes or less. Timing matters too – ask while your work together is still fresh, either during the engagement or immediately after wrapping up. A quick text message works just as well as an email.

Step 3: Offer Something in Return

You don’t have to send a gift card to incentivize a testimonial. Think about what your clients actually value – sometimes it’s as simple as featuring their business name and logo on your website, giving them added visibility with your audience.

Step 4: Publish It Where It Can Do the Most Work

A testimonial sitting in your inbox isn’t helping anyone. Post it on your website with a professional headshot, share it on social media, embed it in relevant blog posts, and include it in your sales materials. The more places a testimonial lives, the harder it works for you.

Step 5: Put Your Testimonials Where People Are Already Looking

Don’t let a great testimonial live in just one place. Your homepage and services pages are the obvious starting points, but think beyond your website. Post testimonials on your Google Business Profile, where they directly influence local search rankings and first impressions. Share them as social proof on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram. Drop them into email campaigns and proposals. The more surfaces a testimonial appears on, the more trust it builds – and the more work it does for your business without any extra effort on your part.

Start Collecting Client Testimonials Today

Knowing how to ask for client testimonials is only half the battle – the other half is building it into a consistent habit. The businesses that do this well don’t wait for clients to volunteer praise. They have a system, they ask every time, and they put those testimonials to work across every marketing channel.

If you want help building that system or turning client stories into compelling content, let’s talk.

Frequently Asked Questions About Client Testimonials

How do you ask a client for a testimonial?

The best way to ask for a client testimonial is to keep it simple and timely. Reach out shortly after delivering a successful result and explain that their feedback would help other businesses understand the value of your services. Providing a few guided questions makes the process easier and increases the likelihood of receiving a response.

When should you ask for a client testimonial?

The ideal time to ask for a testimonial is when a client has recently experienced a positive outcome. This could be after completing a project, reaching a milestone, achieving measurable results, or expressing satisfaction with your work. Asking while the experience is still fresh typically leads to stronger and more detailed testimonials.

Should I ask for written or video testimonials?

Both written and video testimonials can be effective. Written testimonials are easier for clients to provide and can be quickly added to your website and marketing materials. Video testimonials add a personal element by allowing prospects to see and hear real clients share their experiences, which can build trust more quickly.

What questions should I ask in a client testimonial?

Focus on questions that highlight the client’s experience and results. Helpful questions include:

  • What challenge were you facing before working with us?
  • How did our services help solve that problem?
  • What results did you achieve?
  • What was it like working with our team?
  • Would you recommend us to others, and why?

Can I use client testimonials on my website and social media?

Yes, but it’s important to get permission before publishing a client’s testimonial. Once approved, testimonials can be used on your website, Google Business Profile, social media platforms, email campaigns, proposals, and other marketing materials to build credibility and trust.

How many client testimonials should my business have?

There is no perfect number, but consistency matters. Businesses should aim to collect testimonials regularly rather than gathering a large batch once and stopping. A steady stream of fresh testimonials demonstrates ongoing client satisfaction and helps keep your marketing content relevant.

Do client testimonials help with SEO?

Client testimonials can support SEO by adding fresh, relevant content to your website and increasing trust signals for visitors. Reviews on platforms like Google Business Profile can also improve local search visibility and help potential customers find your business more easily.

What if a client doesn’t respond to my testimonial request?

It’s common for busy clients to miss or forget testimonial requests. A polite follow-up message a week or two later is often enough. Making the process as simple as possible, such as providing a short form or a few questions, can significantly improve response rates.

Should I offer incentives for testimonials?

In most cases, satisfied clients are willing to provide testimonials without financial incentives. Instead of offering gifts or payments, consider highlighting their business on your website or social channels, which can provide additional exposure and value.

How often should I ask for client testimonials?

Asking for testimonials should be part of your regular client process. Whether you serve a handful of clients each month or hundreds each year, creating a repeatable system ensures you’re consistently collecting fresh social proof and strengthening your credibility over time.

/by
,

Why You Should Conduct Site Audits

Why You Should Conduct Site Audits

You See a Doctor Every Year, Shouldn’t Your Site? The same way that your own health sometimes requires a little TLC or a trip to the doctor’s office for extra attention, your site does too.

Read more
/by

The Most Powerful Thing Happening in B2B Marketing Right Now Is Completely Invisible

And no, it’s not the dark web. Calm down.

Every so often a term shows up in a marketing conversation that sounds like it belongs in a Netflix thriller. “Dark Social” is one of those terms.

Say it out loud. Dark Social. You half expect someone to hand you a trench coat and a burner phone.

Here’s the twist: it’s not sketchy. It’s not a hacker thing. It’s not even particularly dramatic. But it might be the single most important thing happening in B2B financial services marketing right now, and almost nobody is paying attention to it.

Let’s fix that.

So What Actually Is Dark Social?

Dark Social is what happens when someone reads your content and shares it privately, through a text, a Slack message, an email, a WhatsApp thread, a Teams channel, instead of clicking Like and moving on.

The person on the other end clicks the link. They read it. Maybe they forward it. Maybe they book a call.

Your analytics? They see absolutely nothing. Or worse, they log it as “Direct Traffic”, the analytics equivalent of ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

It’s called “dark” because the sharing path is invisible to tracking tools. Not because anything illegal is happening. Not because someone is operating out of a basement in Eastern Europe. Just because iMessage doesn’t send Google Analytics a heads-up when your article gets forwarded to a CFO.

(That’s the whole mystery. Underwhelming? Maybe. Consequential? Enormously.)

Here’s What Dark Social Looks Like in the Wild

You publish an article on LinkedIn. It gets seven likes. You stare at it. You question your life choices.

Meanwhile, somewhere across town, a CFO reads it and types to a colleague: “Hey, this is literally the problem we were just talking about.”

That colleague sends it to two more people. Someone screenshots it for an executive team meeting. A benefits consultant forwards it to three clients.

By the end of the week, forty people have read that article. Three have forwarded it. One has booked a meeting with you.

Your analytics report: “Direct traffic.”

That invisible chain reaction? That’s Dark Social. And in B2B financial services, it’s not the exception. It’s how the game is actually played.

Why This Hits Differently in Financial Services

Let’s be honest about the industry for a second.

A CEO isn’t going to comment publicly on LinkedIn: “We’ve been struggling with our 401(k) plan administration and honestly have no idea what we’re doing.”

A CFO isn’t clicking Like on an article about plan fiduciary liability while their employees scroll past it.

An HR director isn’t sharing a post about benefits renewal problems to their public feed where their broker might see it.

These conversations are private by nature. High-stakes decisions, the kind that involve retirement plans, insurance, compliance, legal exposure, financial strategy, don’t happen in the comments section. They happen in side channels. In executive threads. In the “hey, can you take a look at this?” texts sent between trusted colleagues.

The more sensitive the topic, the more Dark Social dominates.

Which means: public engagement metrics in this industry are almost structurally misleading. A post with three likes and zero comments might be quietly circulating among a dozen decision-makers right now. A viral post might generate zero business.

The scoreboard you’ve been watching? It’s not counting the right game.

Public Engagement Measures Attention. Dark Social Measures Trust.

Read that again. It matters.

When someone stops scrolling and clicks Like, they’re paying attention. That’s nice. Attention is good.

When someone copies a link and sends it to a colleague with a message like “you need to read this,” that’s a trust transfer. They’re putting their credibility behind your content. They’re essentially saying: this person knows something, and I trust them enough to bring this into our private conversation.

Trust, in B2B financial services, is the actual currency. Everything else is noise.

Dark Social is where trust moves. Which is why brands that optimize for Dark Social tend to see something counterintuitive: posts with low visible engagement that quietly generate inbound leads, booked meetings, and referral conversations.

It feels like magic. It’s actually just math, the kind that happens in channels your analytics can’t see.

What Makes Content Travel Through Dark Channels?

Not everything gets shared privately. Some content gets scrolled past and forgotten. Some content gets forwarded to a room full of people who need to see it.

The difference isn’t production quality. It’s not post frequency. It’s not even a topic.

It’s whether the content makes someone think: “I need to send this to someone.”

Dark Social content tends to be:

Insightful in a way that feels insider. Not “here are five tips for retirement planning.” More like: “here’s the thing your broker may not be telling you about your renewal.” Feels like someone let you in on something.

Practically useful in an active conversation. When someone is already dealing with a problem, plan compliance, advisor liability, benefits strategy, and your content speaks directly to that problem, it becomes ammunition for their internal discussions. They share it because it does work for them.

Slightly provocative. Not inflammatory. Not clickbait. Just willing to say the thing that’s true and a little uncomfortable. The kind of sentence that makes someone go: “Oh. Yeah. Someone finally said it.”

Safe to share privately but not publicly. This is the nuance. Sharing an article that implies your company has a 401(k) problem is awkward on your public feed. It’s perfectly reasonable in a private message to your CFO.

Content that checks these boxes doesn’t just get read. It gets forwarded. And in B2B financial services, being forwarded into the right private conversation is worth more than a thousand LinkedIn impressions.

A Quick Detour: Dark Social ≠ Dark Web

Because someone, somewhere, is going to ask.

The Dark Web is a different thing entirely, intentionally hidden corners of the internet that require specialised software to access, associated with anonymity, encrypted networks, and (depending on who’s using it) everything from legitimate journalism to things we’d rather not think about.

Both are called “dark” because visibility is obscured. But the type of invisibility is completely different. Dark Social is invisible to your analytics platform. The Dark Web is invisible to your browser.

One is a marketing attribution challenge. The other is infrastructure. Completely different concepts, zero overlap, and you don’t need a Tor browser to participate in either.

(You’re welcome for that clarification before the next team meeting.)

What To Do About It

Here’s the honest answer: you can’t fully track Dark Social, and that’s okay.

What you can do is create content worth sharing privately in the first place.

That means writing for the person who’s going to forward it, not just the person who’s going to like it. It means creating content that earns its place in a private conversation between two executives, content useful enough, sharp enough, and credible enough that someone puts their own reputation behind it by hitting send.

It also means resisting the urge to measure everything by visible engagement. Some of your best content will look quiet in public. That doesn’t mean it isn’t working. It might mean it’s working exactly the way high-trust B2B content is supposed to work, invisibly, through the channels that actually matter.

The internet is shifting. Broadcasting publicly is losing ground to sharing privately. The people who figure out how to be useful in private conversations, not just visible in public feeds, are the ones who are going to win the next decade of B2B marketing.

Dark Social isn’t some shadowy threat. It’s an opportunity dressed in a slightly dramatic name.

Go make something worth forwarding.

Digital Storyteller helps financial services companies create content that actually works, the kind that travels through private channels and earns trust in rooms you’ll never see. Organic only. B2B only. No vanity metrics sold here.

/by
, , ,

Why Financial Services Companies Should Outsource Their Marketing (And What’s Changed)

outsourced marketing

As a Financial Services Company, making the decision between outsource marketing efforts and keeping them internal can be a challenge.

Read more
/by

RESOURCES

Blog
Privacy Policy

GET IN TOUCH

2710 Lone Jack Rd
Encinitas, CA 92024
858.945.1069
info@digitalstoryteller.io

Follow a manual added link

© Digital Storyteller 2026

Get The Secret Sauce

Delivered right to your inbox (napkins optional)



© Digital Storyteller 2026