Goldman Sachs and the future of financial marketing

If someone was hacking into your bank account and stealing money, how long would it take you to notice? What if they stole hundreds, thousands, millions?

In 2002, a London secretary gradually stole £4m from her boss at Goldman Sachs. The missing sums went unnoticed for over a year. The story caused huge PR waves and the incident seemingly “‘bad press” for a place that was supposed to be good at looking after money. On the other hand graduate applications to Goldman skyrocketed, and its allure increased. Here was a place you could join straight from college and swiftly make millions in the golden era of its time.

When the 2008 crisis and subsequent government intervention marked the end of that era, Goldman Sachs (GS) was one of its icons. The bank was bailed along with the rest of the financial sector and humbled into becoming a “regular” commercial bank.

10 years on, GS still competes for the very top spots in certain investment banking and financial markets. However, the way it markets itself is completely different. The once elusive investment bank now stands out in the financial industry as a content powerhouse. Its in-house studio fires up content to fuel multiple communication channels and strives to conquer the widest possible audience.

An investigation into Goldman’s content efforts across platforms reveals:

1. How and why GS has embraced content
2. Its approach is very similar to that of a media company
3. The ROI of content marketing for the investment bank

How GS develops content

In search of a different narrative

The Global Financial Crisis was a pivot in the firm’s communication. The firm’s communication was aiming at limited stakeholders: servicing large corporate clients, updating shareholders and attracting talent as can be witnessed in earlier versions of the site.

Back in 2008 faced with an adverse narrative, GS realized that most people did not know the company outside of the news. They looked for ways to actively engage the public.

Today, the homepage invites you straight to “Explore the podcast series” and to browse insights across a variety of topics in a blog-style layout.

This content was first clearly separated from the corporate communication and research, they then gradually redeployed their marketing and communication strategy:

1. Moving to 100% digital
2. Making content freely available to the public
3. Developing social-first pieces

The amount of new content dwarfs the traditional corporate communication. On the YouTube channel, GS still hosts company announcement such as quarterly earning calls and milestones, yet they represent less than 4% of the videos.

In-house expertise as inspiration

Grouped under the “Insights” umbrella, The different media properties of the company used to be named “Our Thinking” which has today become “Insights”, a sign that the emphasis is not on the company but on the audience. They are published as “series” that live on different platforms. Expertise is their common thread, it ranges across various topics: micro, macro, country-specific, global.

Among them, only one format, “Talks at GS”, invites external guests. For all others the speakers are employees, the expertise is in-house.

“Exchanges”, the podcast shows how seriously this content marketing effort is across the firm. The episode about Bitcoin involves 4 global heads of research. Consider for a moment the coordination effort required to bring them together.

The breadth and depth of expertise are on display in this episode on Esports, the booming online gaming industry. GS not only covers the industry but it employs an ex-world champion (Moritz Baier). These guys are serious about their video games.

The podcast content is both specific and accessible by non-specialists, without shying away from high-level questions either (such as ‘what should global media investors do about Esports?’).

Casual delivery, by humans

The podcasts and videos are never anonymous, official views from the firm. Instead, analysts, researchers, MDs appear in person and share their ‘personal’ insights. The most common format is a dialog between a host and one or multiple speakers.

One of the series “Explore GS” is about the CEO talking in front of an audience of interns.

The company goes to great length to avoid looking stiff or scripted. There may be a lot of work behind the scenes and the proportion of jackets off / ties looks carefully curated but overall it succeeds in looking casual and relaxed.

In a heavily -regulated industry, this approach to content makes it easy to stay safe from a compliance point-of-view. The compulsory disclaimers barely affect the audience’s experience.

Goldman Sachs as a media company

Build a scalable content factory

“Lack of time/bandwidth to create content” is reportedly the biggest challenge for financial firms. GS seems to have overcome these challenges. Content is abundant, visually polished and senior bankers take the time to appear on-screen (not staff from the communication department).

In fact, they are ramping up content. YouTube saw 111 videos published in 2016, 132 in 2017 and over 150 published by September 2018. <needs chart or can’t be bothered?>

Although adept at delivering a strong stream of new posts, Goldman also looks for ways to create more posts without adding to the workload. It does so by re-purposing existing assets.

Its podcasts are simply posted as YouTube videos without further editing. Key figures from one article are animated and transformed into videos like this one:

They are later used for Linkedin and Facebook posts.

Multi-channel distribution

Goldman uses multiple platforms for its digital communication. As expected it publishes on Linkedin, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter. It is also experimenting with channels less used by firms in B2B, technical industries: Spotify and Snapchat.

The website is used as a content hub to navigate the different series. Content is tailored for each channel and posted natively. Shorter pieces are created for and posted natively on social media.

What is perhaps missing from what Amanda Rubin, Global co-Head of Brand and Content Strategy, describes as “the most innovative toolkit available” is Instagram (although its retail arm, Marcus, has an account).

Aim at audience development rather than conversion

In the corporate world, the way to measure the efficiency of content is normally measured by a conversion rate. Traffic, views, followers can be vanity metrics as they can be hard to transform into cash and are a means to an end. For a media firm, however, the audience is directly monetizable.

In Goldman’s industry, this could mean trying to get people to sign up for whitepapers like “a CEO’s guide to M&A” (this one is from Bain) or perhaps a less obvious Call-to-Action (CTA). The investment bank takes a radically different approach, addressing topical issues where they can display expertise but with audience development in mind.

This willingness to build an audience is made obvious by their promoted posts listed on Facebook. The call to action is typically to listen, watch or subscribe.

“Lines will continue to be blurred, which creates opportunities to establish our own thought leadership platform, distribute content efficiently and partner with new entities,” Rubin says.

The ROI of content marketing for an investment bank

So, there is no immediate ROI but you can count on Goldman to do things for a return.

Our favorability increases after people view our content rather than see a straight ad

said Kaydee Bridges, VP, digital, social, social media, Goldman Sachs during Advertising Week 2016 in New York City.

Slow depreciating assets

Breaking with the financial tradition of publishing economic updates and quarterly reports, Goldman’s content is evergreen (or at least long lasting). One of its older series received more than 1 million views after a mention on Reddit.

The assets can live and grow autonomously under different brands, series, and platforms. They form an online moat that will not erode easily and will protect the brand for years to come. These asssets will accrue in value over time. Not directly but indirectly by acting as magnets These assets accrue in value over time. Not directly, but indirectly by acting as magnets for visitors, leads, customers and being shared.

Human + Expertise + Audience = Branding

To sum it up, Goldman’s content strategy combines:

1. Valuable content based on in-house expertise
2. People in front of the camera (not just writing behind their desk)
3. Distribution for audience growth, not immediate profit

These elements amount to a brand-building effort that is unmatched in the investment banking industry.

Anyone entering the labor market in 2018 and beyond (AKA Gen Z), will likely encounter the Goldman Sachs brand through one of its various publications before discovering the activities and history of the bank. Alluding to the fact that the ghosts from the Global Financial Crisis are fading away faster.

A lesson for B2B financial marketing

Digital content at GS started as a defensive move following the 2008 crisis and 10 years later has become the sole marketing focus of the 149-year old bank.

By displaying its expertise, showing its human side, and thinking like a media owner the company has strengthened the brand and build assets that can live autonomously and support other ventures. (The focus here was only on B2B activities but undoubtedly there are also positive side effects for Marcus, the bank’s foray into retail activities).

Recently, the bank pocketed over $100m dollar in advisory fees for the Fox-Disney deal. The longstanding relationship with Rupert Murdoch was key but we can imagine that in their pitch Goldman could also argue that they have first-hand expertise about content.

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Thanks for reading!

If you are interested in content marketing for financial brands, check out this free insight report. Inside you’ll find various examples of outstanding content marketing from Fintech startups to Wall Street titans.