A best-selling author promotes an up-and-coming author.
A billionaire tech investor speaks on a podcast and mentions his favorite software and practical tools for success.
A celebrity invests in a popular financial app or becomes a pitch-man for reverse mortgages.
These are examples of endorsements, and when used as part of your content marketing strategy properly, they can help your business sell itself.
You can learn how to secure and use endorsements for your financial brand, too.
The social proof is in the pudding
We’ve been discussing creating content that markets your business: case studies, customer testimonials and success stories are powerful tools to convert your readers to customers.
But some may argue the most impactful social proof is an endorsement from an esteemed colleague, well-known industry leader, or even a celebrity.
The greater their individual influence, the more likely your business will benefit from tapping into the influencer’s respective audience and followers — not too shabby for your content marketing efforts!
Think influence, not celebrity
For experimental lifestyle hackers, an endorsement from Tim Ferris is as meaningful as Lebron James wearing the newest Nike shoe might be to sneaker snobs.
But don’t fret if you can’t secure big names like Warren Buffett to endorse your value stock or Ryan Reynolds to become a stakeholder in your budgeting app.
You can start by looking among your peers and colleagues and asking anyone who might be an industry thought-leader.
Then invite them to … be featured in, or write a guest blog, for you…. be a guest on your podcast, or appear as an expert on theirs… or any other similar effective platform to leverage influence.
Tips of the influencer trade
Just remember these tips from content marketing guru Neil Patel for finding the “right” kinds of guests:
- The guest’s content should be focused on your niche and industry
- Your audience should be interested in their industry
- Your guest agrees to participate in marketing their guest blog on your website via their social media channels
You can help guests along with talking points and an outline to ensure the blog’s purpose in endorsing a certain feature of your business, product, or service is achieved.
If the person you want for the endorsement isn’t keen or available to write a guest blog, then also consider the following:
- Interviews: Invite subject-matter experts (SMEs) or influencers to endorse you via an interview or podcast, which can be transcribed and converted into a blog post.
- Do the writing for them: Offer to write the guest post and make it easy for them to promote it with ready-to-go social media copy and images.
- Highlight a partnership: Leverage a successful mutual collaboration and highlight combined work efforts that led to a great result.
- Cross-mail each others’ email subscribers. If both of you have a decent size mailing list, create a joint venture mailing to something of value like a blog post, newsletter, or podcast you just released.
Endorsements from influencers is one of the most effective ways to help you show (not just tell) others why your financial brand is unique and credible.