📈 Case Study: Creating educational web copy for a financial startup
About the business
- Pre-launch insurance services provider
- Main service page content + blog content
Nature of the work
The challenge
My client was a funded, pre-launch cyber insurance startup. The business was preparing to enter a market that had as much an awareness problem as a competitive one.
Cyber insurance was still an emerging product. Most small business owners understand that a threat exists, but few understand what the product is, why they need it, and, crucially, how to buy the right policy. That was exactly the gap my client was aiming to fill.
With a brand-new business, there was no existing copy, brand voice, messaging, or content design guidelines. The challenge was to build the entire written identity of the business from scratch, before launch, without the safety net of customer testimonials, case studies, or proven results to lean on.
Compounding the challenge, content in financial services is highly regulated by the FCA around being clear, fair, and not misleading.
The time-poor audience of small business owners are not necessarily tech-savvy about insurance products, so educating them while driving urgency around the product would be key.
The approach
The starting point was understanding what would actually move a small business owner to take action. Cyber insurance is an uncomfortable purchase. It’s technical, it’s ‘yet another’ essential cost to a business, but the repercussions of cybercrime can be incredibly scary.
Working with the business owner, it was decided that fear would definitely be part of the messaging. Most small businesses deal with some sort of sensitive data, be it PII, customer data, or financial data. Can they afford to take the risk?
Urgency was also part of the equation. Content would lean heavily on industry statistics around the frequency and severity of cyberattacks on small businesses, the scale of GDPR fines for non-compliance, and the real-world cost of data breaches. These gave any content real weight and credibility.
Yet they weren’t scaremongering — these are real scenarios which business owners are contending with.
It was important to strike a balance between urgency and fear, and driving action and conversion. While attention could be grabbed, it needed to be sustained. So driving conversions from cold customers would be key, across all messaging.
A content strategy was built to guide users through the funnel, from cold first interaction through to purchasing a policy. Educational blog content (‘What is cyber insurance?’, ‘Why does my business need cyber insurance?’) would capture top-of-funnel searches from people in the awareness stage, while service and landing pages would take warmer audiences and move them efficiently toward a purchase decision.
The work
With no existing copy to iterate from, the work began with establishing a tone of voice and a differentiator from similar (larger) businesses selling similar policies. Authoritative enough to be trusted on a serious subject, but speaking in a way that appeals to small business owners who just want to protect their business and get on with running it.
As ever, the homepage had to do heavy lifting — introducing the brand, establishing credibility, and making the value proposition land immediately. For a pre-launch business with no social proof, that meant the copy itself had to carry the trust that testimonials and case studies would eventually provide. This carried through to critical service landing pages: demystify the product, and sell the low-cost, done-for-you approach.
To drive traffic, the educational blog content operated at the top of the funnel, targeting small business owners who were beginning to understand the need for the product but hadn’t yet committed to a solution. These posts leaned heavily on data and real-world examples: breach statistics, regulatory fines, and cautionary stories. The aim was to make the risk feel severe enough that a low-cost purchase would take away the headache, without tipping into scaremongering that would undermine the brand’s credibility.
Throughout, copy was written to reflect the simplicity of the product itself. As the entire business hinged on the ability to buy cyber insurance quickly and easily, the content had to reflect that.
Achievements
Pre-launch copy created and approved for the site launch
Keyword research and content plan created to build on the initial site launch
Stronger messaging which would benefit all channels
Key takeaways
- Content can do heavy lifting when social proof and other proof in the pudding work doesn’t yet exist
- ‘Boring products’ doesn’t have to mean boring content
- It is entirely possible to beat global brands with well-researched, niche content
- Content should reflect the product — in this case, punchy, to the point, and purposeful
- Upper-funnel content will always be valuable to get a new brand in front of in-market customers