Too often, financial services firms, confident in their strong brands, miss the mark on communication. They silo it to one department, overlooking how sales, marketing, and customer experience all shape the message. Strategies are often disjointed or overly focused on what the firm wants to say, not what clients need to hear.
This internally focused approach is like walking into a global cocktail party, impeccably dressed, ready to talk endlessly about services or expertise, only to be met by disinterest or even boredom.
In financial services, an industry in which success depends on customers and partners feeling understood and well-served, this disconnect leaves a lot of money on the table.
Take for example, one type of communications – thought leadership; the 2024 Edelman-LinkedIn report highlights that 75% of decision-makers see thought leadership as a more trustworthy basis for assessing a company’s capabilities and competencies than its marketing materials and product sheets, but less than half think that what they read is good.
Multiply this across all forms of communications, and capturing the missed opportunities to connect with customers and partners becomes a significant strategic growth opportunity.
In the age of AI, many financial services marketers try to capture this by generating more: more reports, more posts, more noise.
But without an externally focused and human-centred “why”, this flood of content will fail to resonate. That’s because it’s authenticity — not volume — that has the power to cut through the clutter.
Deeper motivations
Innovators and entrepreneurs have long grasped that creating customer-centric connections is the foundation of success. They know the hard truth is that no amount of self-promotion will outperform focusing on and serving market needs.
Stories of scrappy fintech startups using this point of view to spot opportunities that legacy firms overlook often feel mythic, their insights simple yet bold. But this ability isn’t magic—it’s a replicable process available to anyone.
The key? Truly listen to what clients need, understand their deeper motivations, craft solutions using your unique expertise, share them, listen again, and refine.
Rolled into a framework, this is design thinking: empathise, define, ideate, prototype, test.
Applying empathy
Traditionally used for product and service innovation, design thinking forces empathy into the creative process, ensuring solutions address real needs compellingly.
It is rarely applied to professional services communications, but it should be. Like innovation, communication is a creative discipline that succeeds by creating products and services (content, campaigns, experiences) that connect with audience needs.
Even more critically—as AI commoditises services—what sets firms apart is no longer going to be what they deliver, but how authentically they emotionally and intellectually connect as a brand and service.
Design thinking can be a vital tool to reimagine those connections, generating the customer empathy, understanding, and context needed for companies to not just shape what they say, but why and how they say it.
In short, when applied skilfully to communications, design thinking can transform strategies, storytelling, and customer experience into engines of trust, differentiation, and lasting impact.
Craftsmen become innovators
Design thinking shifts communicators from craftsmen to innovators, deepening client connections – as opposed to simply churning out content. Here’s how its five steps apply to building effective communication strategies:
1. Empathise: listen deeply to your audience
Great communication starts with understanding your audience’s emotional world. A financial services firm might learn that high-net-worth clients don’t just want returns—they crave security amid economic uncertainty. This insight pivots messaging from performance metrics to peace of mind.
How to apply it: Conduct client interviews, partner with an agency for data-driven research, use social listening on platforms like X, or create empathy maps to uncover fears, aspirations, and needs. What anxieties drive your clients’ decisions? What inspires their trust?
2. Define: pinpoint the human-centred challenge
Frame your goal as a client-centric problem. For example, instead of starting a design effort with “We need to promote our new service,” use what you’ve learned through empathising to ask more emotion-driven questions. “How might we reassure clients feeling?” or “How might we give clarity for clients feeling overwhelmed by financial turmoil?” This approach keeps the focus outward.
How to apply it: Write a clear, client-centric problem statement. Test it with advisors, a specialist agency partner, or a small client group to ensure the statement reflects their realities.
3. Ideate: dream up bold solutions
Brainstorm creative ways to address the challenge. Could a video series on navigating market downturns, a podcast featuring client success stories, or an infographic on wealth preservation resonate? No idea is too bold at this stage.
How to apply it: Gather a diverse team for a design workshop. Prepare and use creative prompts like “How might we simplify complex markets for clients?” and list every idea. Leverage an agency partner to maintain objectivity, efficiency, and keep the output strategic and productive. Narrow down ideas based on emotional impact and alignment with client needs.
4. Prototype: build quick, testable concepts
Turn ideas into tangible drafts. Mock up a LinkedIn post, script a client webinar, or outline a thought leadership piece. Keep it rough; perfection isn’t the goal yet. For instance, draft a tagline like “Building Wealth that Lasts” and see how it lands.
How to apply it: Create low-fidelity versions fast. Share them with a small group of advisors, an agency partner, or clients for initial reactions.
5. Test: refine with real feedback
Iterate based on audience responses. Did the webinar feel authentic? Did the post build trust? Did the engagement of the video exceed expectations? Scale what works, refine what doesn’t.
How to apply it: Use surveys, A/B tests, or client conversations to gauge impact, make iterations, and elevate the ROI on distribution. Tweak tone, format, or content until it resonates with the right audiences.
Designing for impact (not more noise)
In the age of AI, content marketers are feeling increasingly pressured to produce more, faster, and cheaper. It’s a tempting logic—more darts at the board should mean more bullseyes.
But in professional services, where trust is everything, this is a trap that cheapens brands and drives disengagement.
More content doesn’t equal more impact; it often just adds noise. Audiences, overwhelmed by digital overload, crave authenticity, not volume. They can tell a message crafted with care from one churned out by an algorithm.
The true power of AI is not in boosting quantity but in improving quality. It serves as a gateway for communicators to be more innovative and impactful, allowing them to think like entrepreneurs—solving real problems with precision instead of overwhelming channels with content.
This shift is critical to meeting client needs with empathy and insight.
Enter design thinking—a human-centred framework that changes the game. It moves the focus for communicators from output to outcome, from production to connection. In professional services, where thought leadership can either blend in or break through, this approach can build the formidable edge needed to stay competitive.
Contact me if you’d like to learn more.
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