Content Marketing Today

You Can Trust Northern Trust to Deploy a Great Content Marketing Strategy

Northern’s implementation mirrors the excellence of their customer care and understanding.

The Northern Trust folks have always been good marketers–particularly when it came to in-person events and community involvement. For example, each year they bring in their top investment professionals to present their best investment advice to capacity client crowds. They also provide custom events for the wealth advisors who look after their clients.

Their people-to-people focus accurately reflects the way that they care for their clients–and the in-depth knowledge they are willing and able to convey. But it’s not all about the money. In fact, each year they host hundreds of their clients on wonderfully unique vacation trips all over the world. Sometimes, a client’s just got to have fun.

Applying Client Understanding to a Content Marketing Strategy

Recently, the company began to extend the reach and quality of its content to print and online products. In fact, in their presentations to financial analysts Northern Trust discusses their fully integrated marketing program, as the slide above shows. Then as now, their people-to-people implementation of content marketing reinforces already strong relationships. Today, the bank has taken content marketing to the next level–in person, in print, and online.

3 outstanding content marketing implementations illustrate Northern’s clear understanding of what is truly important to its clients:

• A content rich, beautifully designed quarterly magazine, Wealth
• A client website that is much more client centric today than it was just two years ago
• A set of interrelated content products that target expert independent wealth advisors who serve Northern Trust clients.

Wealth: Sophisticated business, investment and philanthropic advice for Northern Trust clients

Creating a magazine that genuinely reflects the passions and interests of their affluent clientele came naturally, because they understand their clients so well. Wealth is beautifully designed on high-quality, heavy paper stock. Wealth’s articles are substantial, precisely targeted, and highly informative. Because it carries no advertising, the amount of content delivered is equal to that of a magazine twice its size.

Here’s what its affluent readers learned in the fall 2007 issue.

• How to adopt the kind of best practices employed by institutional investors when it comes to managing a substantial portfolio.
• How to employ a risk management strategy when a high percentage of one’s portfolio isn’t a single stock–as part of a company sale for example.
• How to work through conflict so that a family business can achieve longevity.
• A profile of a ‘ serial social entrepreneur’ who uses a for-profit model to achieve nonprofit goals–and thus achieve long-term financial stability.
• How to manage your estate when you and your partner are married.
• And a bit of fun stuff–an article on the whole house automation.

Only two brief items, totaling just half a page, talk about Northern Trust news. Everything else is completely customer centric.

The implicit message that Northern delivers? It’s very clear: “We care about your well-being and have the knowledge and resources to protect it.”

A Client-centric Website that is Visually Appealing, Well-organized, and Chock-full of Content

Today’s Northern Trust website is better in several important ways from its predecessor of just a few years ago:

• The old site began with a very long description of Northern Trust: “a leading provider of global investment management, asset and fund administration fiduciary and banking solutions for institutions and affluent individuals worldwide. Experience our 115 year tradition of unparalleled expertise in client service.” That was all about Northern Trust–not about the client.
• The old site had a very small visual element
• The old site didn’t really give the appearance of being client centric
• The old site required a fair amount of work to access the kind of information Northern’s clients would certainly want to know
• The old site had a lot of information but included many disparate elements that lacked an easy-to-follow structure.

The New Site: better in every way

As of November 2007, the Northern Trust website is both client centric and client friendly. The new site gives the impression of a bank that you could trust–and that you would enjoy doing business with. Here’s what is different with the new site:

• It leads with a wonderfully warm visual of a father swinging his young daughter on a sunny day.
• To the right of the photo is a graphic titled “having your cake and eating it too” which illustrates the balance between having a good quarter and having a good life.
• It has a very simple, three column division between personal services, institutional services and an ‘about northern trust’ section.
• It has added what it calls a ‘ knowledge Center’ which gives clients access to an incredible amount of financial and economic information–all of which is logically organized.
• They have even added podcasts which offer weekly discussions by their experts on unique approaches to institutional investing, changing behaviors and global pension plans, timely tax tips, etc.
• That very long statement about Northern Trust is still on the site but instead of being in giant green letters at the top, it now resides in small black letters at the bottom.

Delivering More Targeted Content That Resonates with the Experts Who Advise their Clients

Northern Trust delivers dedicated resources for the advisors who counsel their wealthy clients. This begins with a micro site specific to the information needs of these advisors: NorthernTrust.com/wealthadvisor.

Here’s what these wealth advisors can find:

• a site that may be even more visually appealing than Northern’s client website
• detailed information on client solutions
• a broad range of in-depth information relating to financial and wealth services
• podcasts that advisors can listen to whenever it’s convenient
• a series of white papers that offer content to help advisors deal with specific client needs
• access to wealth Magazine online in PDF or HTML format which also includes hyperlinks to even more resources

A Targeted eNewsletter for Advisors that Links Back to Even More On line Resources

Northern provides a bimonthly eNewsletter which provides up-to-date information on many of the complex issues which wealth advisors must understand in order to best advise their affluent clients. This eNewsletter, in turn, reminds them to connect back to their dedicated micro site.

Northern Trust: Delivering Relevant Content that Strengthens Bonds with Both Wealthy Clients and their Trusted Advisors

Although it remains a relatively conservative financial institution in the best sense of the word, Northern Trust has fully embraced the content marketing in person, in print, and online. They are providing content that is all about the client and their wealth related needs.