Our Manifesto: Who We Are

By way of introduction, my name is Brooks Dyroff. 

After graduating from Boston College, I started my career at J.P. Morgan’s Private Bank.

Among my many analyst duties, I sent weekly and monthly emails to our Ultra High Net Worth clients. 

These emails contained topical market summaries, timely educational articles, evergreen thought pieces, infographics, and more. 

This was a pretty boring task to be completely honest. But what I noticed was amazing… 

I quickly saw firsthand how impactful high-quality content could be. 

Our clients were more engaged, trusting, and actionable. 

Clients would read, watch, or listen to the content in these emails. They would then call our investing team to speak about opportunities, schedule meetings with our bankers, and ultimately make money moves in some shape or form with our team. 

The content also helped generate new business. 

Our clients would share these emails with a family member or friend. Many times this person would then become a new lead.

It was incredible. All of this action from a simple email. 

The Lesson: High-quality content is non-negotiable

What I learned from my time at J.P. Morgan was something I'll never forget. Continuously producing high-quality content is non-negotiable. 

You're dead in the water if your company isn't producing relevant, interesting content. This is especially true if you are trying to attract younger clients. 

A lack of content will lead to a lack of action from your existing clients and a lack of inbound activity from new leads. 

In today’s digital world, high-quality content is the most essential revenue driver for any financial service firm, fintech, or individual advisor. 

It all comes down to two words: retention and engagement. 

And yes, investing in content produces a positive return on investment. More on that below. 

I want to start with what I learned at J.P. Morgan and how content keeps existing clients happy.

Retention

Creating high-quality content plays a vital role in client retention by fostering a strong relationship between the client and the firm. Here's how it helps:

• Building Trust and Credibility: Providing insightful and accurate content establishes firms or advisors as a knowledgeable and reliable source. Clients are more likely to stay with a firm they trust.

• Enhancing Client Engagement: Regularly sharing relevant and valuable information keeps clients engaged. It shows that you are proactive in keeping them informed about market trends and investment opportunities, which increases their confidence in your services.

• Educational Value: Educational articles help clients understand complex financial concepts and the rationale behind their investment strategies. This transparency fosters a sense of inclusion and empowerment, making clients feel more connected and satisfied.

• Regular Communication: Consistent content delivery ensures regular touchpoints with clients. This ongoing communication helps in identifying and addressing any concerns promptly, preventing potential dissatisfaction and churn.

• Value Addition: By continually offering valuable insights and practical advice, you reinforce the perception that you are an indispensable resource. Clients are more likely to stay with a firm that consistently adds value to their financial journey. 

Engagement

Creating high-quality content is essential for engaging and generating new leads. Here’s how it works:

• Attracting Attention: High-quality content, such as insightful articles, market analyses, and investment tips, draws the attention of potential clients who are searching for reliable financial information. This content serves as a magnet, attracting new prospects to your website and overall brand.

• Establishing Authority: By consistently producing expert-level content, you position yourself as an industry leader. Prospective clients are more likely to trust and engage with firms that demonstrate deep knowledge and expertise in their field.

• Email Marketing: Content-rich newsletters and email campaigns keep prospects informed and interested. Regular updates with valuable information nurture leads and guide them towards becoming clients.

• Improving SEO: Well-crafted content enhances your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts, making it easier for potential clients to find you online. Higher search rankings lead to increased visibility and more traffic to your site, generating more leads.

• Engaging Prospects: Educational and valuable content captures the interest of prospects and keeps them engaged. By addressing their questions and concerns through informative articles and videos, you nurture these leads and move them further down the sales funnel.

• Building Relationships: High-quality content allows you to build a rapport with potential clients before any direct interaction. Through consistent and relevant content, prospects feel more familiar with your brand and more comfortable reaching out for further engagement.

• Offering Free Resources: Providing free resources, such as eBooks, whitepapers, and webinars, in exchange for contact information helps you capture leads. These resources demonstrate your value and expertise, enticing prospects to engage further.

• Leveraging Social Media: Sharing high-quality content on social media platforms extends your reach and visibility. Engaging content encourages likes, shares, and comments, broadening your audience and attracting new leads.

And Yes, This Will Be a Positive Return on Investment

Ultimately, will this benefit your bottom line? Absolutely. Let's start with stats related to customer retention:

• Retaining an existing customer costs only a fifth of what it takes to acquire a new one.

• A mere 5% increase in customer retention can boost profits by 25-95%.

• Selling to an existing customer has a success rate of 60-70%, compared to just 5-20% for new customers.

• 72% of companies say that content marketing increases engagement.

And how about generating new leads?

• Multiple studies show that the average ROI for email marketing ranges from $36 to $40 for every dollar spent.

• Companies that blog generate 67% more leads per month than those that do not. 

• 70% of consumers prefer to learn about products and services through content rather than traditional advertisements

• Email marketing is highly effective for driving conversions, achieving a 2.8% conversion rate for B2C brands and a 2.4% conversion rate for B2B companies.

• Email Marketing’s ROI was 28.5% compared to 7% for direct mail 

• Email marketing generates an average of 174% more conversions compared to social media.

Content marketing also SAVES you money

Content marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing methods and generates about three times as many leads.

Here’s the Problem

While the stats above highlight why content and email marketing is essential, there are two problems for independent financial professionals:

1. Unlike large institutions, many independent financial advisors lack access to high-quality, in-house content. When I was at J.P. Morgan, the bank had entire teams dedicated to producing this content. Smaller firms and individuals simply do not have access to the same teams of people that big banks do.

2. Most financial advisors don't have time to create content for their blog, newsletter, or social media channels. They understand content is crucial, but they have a million and one other items on the to-do list. This is why there are so many dead blog pages. I’ve seen it a thousand times. Companies try to create content, but they realize keeping consistent is challenging, so they stop. This is how you end up with a dead blog page where the last post was from 2021. This is not a great look for a potential new lead. It shows you couldn’t keep up with what appears to be a simple task. 

Here’s the Solution

The issues above are real for many financial professionals. This is why Money Marketers exists because we provide solutions to these problems:

1. We democratize access to content. You get access to an entire team of writers, editors, and content managers, just like the big banks. Our team is comprised of professionals that understand finance and understand modern marketing. These types of individuals are very hard to find. It’s taken me years to build a core group that creates high-quality content for this sector. Our experienced team is now your team. We’ve leveled the playing field.

2. We save you time and money. We spend our entire day thinking about content so you don't have to. You can focus on the day-to-day operations of your business and let our team focus on your content strategy.

So does this work? Our track record speaks for itself.

Scaling The Street Sheet

After J.P. Morgan I worked for three years at Blackstone in their real estate division. I had a wonderful time, learned a lot, and met some incredible people. 

I always had the itch to start my own company, so I left and started my own firm, Walk-On Holdings. Walk-On is the umbrella company through which I’ve invested in start-ups like beehiiv, invested in workforce housing properties, and invested in content businesses. 

One of the first acquisitions we made was The Street Sheet, a distressed newsletter with roughly 5,000 followers. Since then we have grown The Street Sheet to over 125,000 subscribers, completely bootstrapped. 

We practice what we preach when it comes to content creation. We do it for ourselves and we’ve also done it for numerous clients. Here’s a sample below.

Engaging and Acquiring Millions With SoFi

How do you keep current customers engaged and generate new leads? That’s the question we set out to answer with SoFi. Ultimately it came down to creating high-quality content on a daily basis across multiple products. 

After working with SoFi to understand their existing and ideal customers, we helped build, launch, and scale, a content bundle for the publicly traded fintech company.

This content bundle is comprised of a newsletter, podcast, and Amazon Alexa skill that are delivered daily to millions of SoFi customers.

We started working with SoFi in February 2020. In 2020 SoFi’s membership grew by 875,000 members to 1.85 million. In 2021 SoFi added 1.61 million additional members, closing out the year with 3.46 million members. In 2022 this figure hit 5.2 million, then 7.5 million in 2023. As of March 31, 2024 SoFi had over 8.1 million members.

This content bundle has aided SoFi’s growth, keeping current members engaged and attracting new customers. The content has helped guide both new and existing members down the marketing funnel to convert on products ranging from mortgages and personal loans to savings accounts.

Maintaining a Reputation with J.P. Morgan

Finding good financial writers is really hard. You need someone who understands industry vernacular and content marketing. This person needs to know what both the SEC and SEO stand for.

Quite frankly, many people who work in the finance industry, aren’t great writers (trust us, we know). They’re also not interested in the marketing space. Conversely, many people who work in the content marketing industry, aren’t great with financial concepts. They’re amazing writers, but they don’t know how to craft crisp, professional financial copy.

This is why companies like J.P. Morgan turned to us. As the world’s largest bank by assets, they needed a team that could do both. They needed a group of great writers who could help explain and untangle complex financial topics.

What is a stock split? What is a P/E ratio? Is it better for a couple to file taxes jointly or separately? 

These are all questions we’ve helped J.P. Morgan answer for their audience of millions.

Modernizing an Amazing Brand With Griffin Asset Management

Griffin Asset Management is an SEC Registered Investment Advisor based in New York City. Founded in 1995 Griffin Asset Management oversees more than $850 million in assets for a range of institutions, foundations, individuals, and family offices around the globe.

Griffin came to us to assist with custom content creation to generate new leads and new business. While producing the custom content, we also helped Griffin update their website so that it was more user-friendly and optimized for lead generation. 

The modernized website combined with custom content has enabled us to personalize our approach to Griffin’s ideal client profile. We worked with them to understand their audience, which resulted in posts like: What the Multi-Trillion Wealth Transfer Means for Markets and the Economy, What if Your Kids Decide Against College? and How Can Couples With Different Investing Goals Meet in the Middle?

Rebuilding a Newsletter Business With Benzinga

We had the pleasure of working with Benzinga to revitalize a handful of their newsletters. This included their flagship offering, Ring The Bell, and their vertical-specific newsletters, Future Finance, Benzinga Real Estate, Cannabis Daily, and Benzinga Mining.

Our team started by meticulously redesigning Ring The Bell, ensuring it was both visually appealing and high-signal from a content perspective. We applied the same thoughtful redesign to their vertical-specific newsletters, giving each a unique appeal while maintaining brand consistency.

To optimize efficiency, we restructured the newsletter production workflow, clarifying responsibilities for every team member. Our editors joined the production process to make sure the content was crisp and professional every day before delivery.

Collaborating closely with Benzinga’s internal development and tech teams, we spearheaded growth initiatives, including integrating new account openers into Ring The Bell. This not only expanded the subscriber list but also nurtured new members' engagement with the brand.

We also worked with the sales team to develop attractive pricing packages and media kits and engaged with sponsors to highlight the value of newsletter partnerships in achieving their marketing goals.

Our comprehensive approach yielded impressive results. Ring The Bell's subscriber base skyrocketed from 40,000 to 200,000, and the open rate surged from 25% to 40%. We also increased the frequency of Ring The Bell to twice daily without significant audience churn, thanks to a strategic blend of content and advertising.

Beyond engagement metrics, our efforts had a substantial financial impact. Initially generating low six-figure revenue, this suite of newsletters was on track to achieve seven-figure revenue by the end of our collaboration. Through these comprehensive efforts, we significantly advanced Benzinga's marketing and revenue objectives.

Two Options to Get Started

So if you're a money manager – this includes financial advisors, asset managers, legacy banks, and fintech professionals – looking to keep your existing clients engaged and generate new leads, we have two options to get started.

Grab and go – $99 per month per user

There is NOTHING worse than a dead blog page or an empty Instagram account. You need content on your website and your social media accounts to show you are active. Plus, it’s a great way to get discovered. Our monthly subscription is low-cost, and high-impact. Every week we create the content below that you can use however you want:

• Market Updates: These posts provide insights into the latest market trends, economic indicators, and analysis of key events impacting various asset classes such as stocks, bonds, commodities, and currencies. Click here to see a sample.

• Social Media Posts: We use official facts and figures to create social media posts that you can repurpose wherever you want. Click here to see a sample.

• Financial Planning Guides: We create comprehensive guides on topics like retirement planning, college savings, estate planning, etc. These guides can serve as valuable resources for visitors seeking in-depth information on specific financial matters.

• Educational Articles: We create informative articles on personal finance topics such as budgeting, saving for retirement, managing debt, and building wealth. Click here to see a sample.

• Investment Ideas: These posts highlight potential investment opportunities, including stocks, mutual funds, ETFs, and alternative investments. Click here to see a sample.

Click here to get started with our grab-and-go content. 

Custom Content – Starts at $1000 per month

In addition to our grab-and-go content, we can also help you create custom content that speaks to a specific audience with the tone and voice of your choosing. This is what we do for brands like SoFi, J.P. Morgan, Griffin Asset Managers, and more. Our retainer pricing starts at $1000 per month.

Click here to get started with custom content. 

To Summarize

So there you have it. That’s how we got started, there’s a sample of our track record, and those are the two options we offer to help financial professionals automate their content and email marketing. 

I’ve been fortunate enough to witness the power of content and email marketing firsthand. If this is something you’re semi-familiar with, but don’t have the time to focus on, we can help. If this is something you’ve never heard of, we urge you to give it a try. If you’re not creating content, your competitors are, and you likely are losing business. Click the buttons below to grow your business today.