You check out your competitor’s website, and there it is: a 500-word article on a topic that just hit the news. It includes a link to a product or service their company (and yours) offers. They’re making sales. And you’re not.

You know the calls are coming any minute from your company leadership, wondering how they could do it… And you could not.

• How did they quickly articulate a point of view and tie it to their offering?
• How could they get something written and produced so fast?
• How did they manage to move it through legal and compliance?
• And how could they find someone in IT to publish it on their website so quickly?

It’s an instant news world. And in minutes, companies like yours need to be able to respond to what’s happening in the news to attract new business, deepen relationships with current customers and serve clients better. Examples:

• Regulations change? Here’s what the new regs mean for you, and how our tools help.
• Interest rates going up? Our portfolios take interest rate risk into account.
• Markets plunge? We offer a range of low-correlation alternative investment portfolios.
• Conflict breaks out? Here’s how we’re looking at your exposure in that part of the world.
• Hurricane in your area? Making a claim is fast and easy.

Believe it or not, fast and responsive marketing is not impossible in the financial services industry. It takes thinking about things — and doing them — in a different way. Here are five things you can do to get your marketing department ready to respond to news events in minutes rather than weeks.

1. Set up alerts. Do you want your company to instantaneously respond to interest rate or economic changes, stock market increases or decreases, geopolitical events, or insurance-related natural disasters? No matter what part of the financial services industry you work in, financial networks, news websites and industry groups send out alerts. Have someone on your team sign up for them, and designate a person or two who is expected to take action and respond.. Google also makes it easy to set up alerts. Being first out of the gate is critical to finishing first.
2. Get go-to thought leaders. Of course, it depends on your business and the size of your organization — but who should respond when an event happens? Is it your chief economist? A lead portfolio manager? A product leader? Your sage founder? Whomever it is, set up the relationship and expectation in advance so you can get a their point of view, guidance and perhaps a quote or two. Know the best way to reach them and who on your team should do it.
3. Find the right writing talent now. Writing timely, journalism-style articles isn’t the same as writing standard marketing messages. You need a writer on call who understands the financial implications of world, market or industry events and can write quickly, accurately and credibly about them — while also being familiar enough with your products and services to naturally build links to them. See if you have someone with these skills on your team. If not, you can find these types of writers through creative temp agencies or freelance writing websites. Or an agency focused on financial communications could help.
4. Process. Process. Process. In your position, you have the power to change how people do things. So why not set up a SWAT-like team across disciplines and departments that can respond fast when it comes time to write, approve and publish news-related content? Find a few dependable and experienced people — a marketing lead, writer, designer, compliance person, legal reviewer, web developer — who can react to the news quickly and efficiently and get quality content written, approved and produced in as few hours as possible. Give them the power to get things done, and make yourself available to provide advice and guidance as needed.
5. Have a conversation with your legal and compliance department leadership ahead of time. Explain to them the impact that a timely response will have on your company’s relationships, sales and bottom line. As a problem solver, you know what it takes to break through and get results. You can get your reviewers to think differently by explaining that your timely content will focus on news issues and link to existing, pre-approved product content. News-related content rarely raises legal or compliance issues, so reviewing it — and getting it approved — should be easy. Getting your legal and compliance leadership on your side ahead of time could be the most important step toward becoming a fast, responsive, industry-leading marketer.
6. Get help. Don’t have all the talent and resources you need to respond to timely financial events? Then you should have an experienced financial content-development company on speed dial. When you get an alert that something is happening in your segment of the financial services industry, the agency can write quick content for you. It’s also a common practice to have an agency create a library of articles that can be customized at the last minute based on specific news events. (For example, you could pre-prepare an article on market volatility that could tie to low-correlation or hedged strategies. The article could be customized with specific market-event information at the last minute so it can be published quickly.) The agency can have social media posts and email communications ready ahead of time, along with targeted email and social media lists to help you distribute your content.

Need help becoming a fast, efficient, industry-leading content marketing powerhouse? Find out how working with an agency that’s has expertise in developing fast financial content could take your company to the next level.