BALANCING CREATIVITY AND CLARITY
CREATING ENGAGING CONTENT IN A REGULATED INDUSTRY

GAIN Credit

The role of a marketing professional requires creativity and innovation. In fact, one of the sacred rules of brainstorming is that ‘no idea is a bad idea’. However, for those working in highly regulated industries this can often be far from the truth. For marketers in financial services, their priority must lie with ensuring they are clear and transparent with their audience, following carefully structured regulatory guidelines, which are there to protect consumers. Natalie Gomez, Marketing Manager at GAIN Credit discusses how working in a regulated industry has changed her outlook on her chosen profession.

“I’d say I had a largely stereotypical view of what finance related content looks like. I thought it would be a little vanilla and very formal”. After writing content for the hospitality and travel industries for almost a decade for Natalie, complacency was a risk. The decision to challenge herself and her writing led her to fin-tech consumer lending. Natalie says her role at GAIN Credit “opened my mind and completely shifted my perspective on content creation”.

GAIN was seeking a marketing professional from a non-finance background to bring in a fresh new perspective to content creation. The mantra, ‘if you don’t understand what you write, no one will’ led to this requirement. The mantra holds true across all industries, but is especially important in the consumer lending space, where clarity and transparency are so important.

“There were a lot of unfamiliar financial terms thrown out initially – I had to double check the meaning of APR when I joined! I’ve asked hundreds of questions along the way, and have worked closely with the compliance team to write in a way that’s most helpful for our customers. Most of our customers would mirror my limited understanding of financial terminology, so putting our heads together to write content has dramatically increased the quality. I’m able to put myself in the shoes of the reader and strongly believe that if we speak clearly and with transparency, we build better relationships with our customers.”

“As a marketing professional, it’s always been important to stay up to date on trends. It’s an ever-changing industry. As a marketing professional in financial services, I’ve found it equally important to stay up to date on the regulations. With the support of compliance, this ensures I can communicate with our customers in a way that protects them from unwittingly entering into a decision they may not fully understand.”

“This has only developed my content writing skills. The best writers will break down information, to make it easy for consumption.”

For people facing a challenging financial situation, seeing an ad that promises ‘We are here to help, instant unlimited cash that you can pay back anytime’ can be tempting. However, there are key details missing here. Many companies in the consumer lending space will fulfil regulatory obligations using finance specific terms without clear explanations. GAIN Credit believes in avoiding financial jargon in favour of simplicity. Natalie explains, “speak to customers, as you’d talk in a conversation with a friend. Financial jargons can be daunting and often require search engines to understand.”

Natalie summarises, “In the past year, I have realised writing content for the consumer lending space isn’t difficult. High quality content in this industry is less reliant on being different and exciting. What our customers need is clarity. But writing transparently with all the required information and disclaimers, whilst being creative, is absolutely possible.”