Captivating Large Target Audiences with Thought-Provoking Financial Copywriting
A financial publication’s value as an ad & subscription revenue generator depends on attracting an engaged readership. In 2015, I wrote one of Zero Hedge’s most popular finance articles of all-time. Read by nearly 220,000 members of the “fight club”, it was as much a boon to the publication as it was to my client.
(DISCLAIMER: The opinions expressed by others on Zero Hedge have never “necessarily reflected my own”. What’s more, the focus of the site has changed significantly since the original “Tyler Durden” was a fellow Seeking Alpha contributor who wrote about the Great Recession.)
In case you didn’t know, the original “Tyler Durden” started out by publishing Zero Hedge articles as a Seeking Alpha persona not long after the 2008 Financial Crisis. I actually learned of ZH and got the idea to write as various personas on SA by reading the O.G. “Tyler’s” SA articles circa 2009.
As Zero Hedge’s traffic grew to rival that of Seeking Alpha itself, I submitted several articles to the various “Tylers” to promote various businesses that catered to its readership, including precious metals dealers, internet privacy companies, and the nonprofit I founded to promote monetary policy reform.
The following financial opinion article I wrote on behalf of a precious metals dealer was read by nearly 220,000 Zero Hedge followers, making it one of the most-read ZH articles of all-time.
The article also generated dozens of thoughtful comments (regular consumers of financial news & opinion are educated readers & writers), making it one of ZH’s most engaging articles of all-time.
As I previously noted (and discussed in further detail on the Copywriting for Ad & Subscription Revenue page), regular consumers of financial news & opinion are smarter than the average meme stock trader: They read.
Well-crafted financial copywriting compels the reader to take action: The above article generated “a good number of sales” for my client (those were the owner’s exact words) from nearly 220,000 targeted, engaged readers.
NOTE: Although I don’t know how to quantify “a good number of sales”, I can estimate my client’s R.O.I. nonetheless: He paid me $350 to write it ($500 when adjusted for Jay Powell inflation), and the company’s average sale netted just over $300 at the time. So, my client’s R.O.I. was $300 multiplied by “a good number”, minus the $350 investment. I don’t know how many digits a “good number” has, but the return was certainly in the hundreds–or even thousands–of percent.
Also of note, a “Tyler” praised me when I asked for a screenshot of the article:
I can tailor my high-yielding financial copywriting for different audiences.
Given that Zero Hedge is…well, Zero Hedge, I crafted the above article using the “edgy” financial copywriting style the O.G. “Tyler” popularized. (He was a securities trader after all.)
Although the above article was a tremendous success for my client, ZH’s advertisers, and for ZH itself, I think the more tempered “director’s cut” (presented below) would be more appealing to a more mainstream–yet independent thinking–financial news & opinion audience:
I also wrote a more tempered article for Zero Hedge to promote my former nonprofit. It wasn’t quite as popular as the other one (>150K readers instead of >200K), but it got the job done: It brought donations that enabled Solidus.Center to host some national events in which it promoted reform of Federal Reserve monetary policy.
Although this particular article was pretty tempered for Zero Hedge, I think it could be tempered a little more for publication by a mainstream financial news & opinion site.
So, here’s my “director’s cut” of this one:
So…ask yourself:
Am I really getting a good R.O.I. on my financial copywriting by hiring commoditized copywriters? Could I get a better return on my investment by commissioning a real business writer to create financial news & opinion articles that compel my target audiences (plural) to become paying customers?
My financial copywriting services are just a call to action button away. ⬇️
