What does a financial writer do? 10 different types of finance writers

1. General financial writer

A general financial writer has a good understanding of most of the different styles and formats published in the financial industry. Such a person often comes with a background working for a financial firm or in financial services but decided to embark on a freelance career after having gained knowledge in a plethora of different financial fields.

What work experience does a financial writer have?

Most financial writers I know fall into the catch-all category of a general financial writer: they might have worked as an investment banker or on the buy side, but ultimately decided it was important for them to work in many different fields rather than staying in just one job.

So, before embarking on a freelance career, they sometimes already worked in financial writing roles as employees or simply liked to write and decided to use their financial knowledge acquired through work as an asset for their freelancing business.

2. Financial subject-matter experts

When a person has spent their entire career in a specific field, they naturally acquire deep subject-matter expertise. This is why many people looking to hire a financial writer require the person to bring subject-matter expertise to the table.

Writing from an in-the-know perspective

In writing, subject-matter expertise is also called writing from the in-the-know perspective. In-the-know means that the person possesses the knowledge, which is very important and vital to the respective industry, but which is not necessarily public knowledge or can be corroborated by public sources.

One example is confidential information linked to a particular way a company is dealing with processes, such as when writing B2B sales collateral. In such a situation, your ideal writer should be a nexus between the product and the sales function, having access to vital company information and sufficient subject-matter expertise about the respective industry to shape the collateral from an in-the-know perspective, so it is convincing for prospective customers and easy to work with for your sales team.

Examples of industries with in-the-know perspective needs

Throughout my writing career, I came across a number of financial industries, where subject-matter expertise is not only important, but without being in the know, even a great writer would struggle to write accurate and convincing content.

Payment service providers and payment gateways

The payment services industry is notorious for a lot of jargon and complex processes which in addition, are different from country to country and jurisdiction. If you are looking to hire a writer for a payment services business, it is really important that this person brings sufficient subject-matter expertise to the table and ideally has worked in the industry before.

Understanding the relationship between customer, payment service provider, payment gateways, merchant banks, merchant acquiring banks and retailers and all the associated fees is a very complex topic and it is difficult to get this information from public sources. On top, as for niche-payment use cases, public information might not even be accurate — hence, the writer would need access to internal information to be able to write any kind of sales-collateral or other more complex content.

Investment management and asset management

Investment management, asset management and related industries such as portfolio advisory and structuring are not only dealing with industry jargon but in particular, they are highly regulated.

While there is necessarily a compliance review involved with any content going outside the firm to clients or the public, it is nevertheless important that a writer servicing those industries understands the regulatory landscape, even before compliance needs to intervene.

Insofar, as in asset management and investment management industries, writing needs to be done from an in-the-know perspective. Content should clearly outline the firm understands the challenges their client's face and also is aware of any regulatory aspects. Quite often, copy and sales collateral in those industries is actually focused on regulation, as a way to educate clients about any changes in the regulatory landscape which might affect them.

To a lesser extent, this is true when writing market reports and fund investor letters, as here, one talks about the development in the markets and the performance of the respective fund.

Yet, even if this is information that can be sourced from public sources together with the funds’ performances, a great fund investor letter writer should have an understanding of what is important to communicate. One such point clearly is performance attribution so that the reader can discern what influence active management had on the performance of the relevant fund in the respective month.

As a result, most writing for investment and asset management is done in-house and some highly specialised agencies have started to offer services as well. For smaller funds, however, it makes sense to outsource this sort of writing to individual freelancers with the right qualifications, such as a background in asset management or a certification such as the CFA designation.

3. Financial copywriter

The term ‘financial copywriter’ is a catch-all phrase for any writing that is considered ‘copy’ — these can be blog posts, sales-collateral, thought-leadership articles or any kind of insight papers, which are most often referred to as ‘white papers’.

Copy means the writing is paid for by the company, has some sort of promotional nature and stands in contrast to editorial articles, which are independently published by journalists and should never be tied to compensation agreements.

Insofar, it is also a wide reach of what a financial copywriter does and what they need to be capable of. Many jobs, however, which are posted for ‘copywriters’ have the gist of being targeted at junior writers with a more creative element in their work. Creative elements often stand for more light-hearted content, aimed at a younger audience and distributed through online channels such as social media.

What does a financial copywriter do?

As the term copywriter implies, the financial copywriter is tasked with producing a variety of content considered to be copy. This includes:

• Blog posts
• Sales-Collateral
• Newsletters
• Websites
• Direct-response marketing
• Emails
• Whitepapers
• Thought-Leadership content
• Linkedin article
• Social media posts

How to find the right financial copywriter for your job?

As outlined, copywriting is a very broad spectrum and not all financial copywriters are good at writing any sort of copy. For example, I am good at writing blog posts and white papers which aim at educating the audience and are also written to be effective for search engines. I also excel at writing thoughtful sales collateral when being at the nexus between product and marketing, when a client has already a good collection of written content, which mainly needs to be tailored to the audience (and the sales team).

However, I am a terrible website copywriter at anything which has to do with a more aggressive sales approach, such as landing pages, direct-response marketing or emails.

So in order to find the right finance copywriter for your project, you should ask a number of writers what kind of content they enjoy writing and if they have done so in the past. Every professional freelance writer will let you know in case they are not the right person for the job before they start.

4. Financial SEO writer

Quite naturally, a financial SEO writer is a financial copywriter who brings SEO, or search-engine-optimisation experience to the table. Most copywriters have a good understanding of SEO, however, an expert financial SEO writer can help your content not only to appeal to clients, but also help it rank in Google, Bing and other search engines.

What does a financial SEO writer do?

A great financial SEO writer writes for the user but understands what Google and other search engines need to make sure an article ranks. Personally, I believe most SEO hacks are bs and Google knows very well what kind of content is written with the reader in mind and which other content has been written purely with the intention of ranking on Google.

A good finance SEO writer will know how to respect these two points and craft your content in a way that is optimised for both the user and the search engine. The key points for making sure SEO writing works well, are the following:

Writing for the reader

As already stressed, the main SEO hack in finance is writing useful content people actually read. Google understands this when it queries and indexes links and will promote content that is read and answers important questions to the top.

Understanding how to structure an article

A great financial content article needs to be structured well. This includes using suitable header tags, answering questions the reader may have and making sure the article flows well and can be read from start to finish without losing the tread. This is especially important when writing long-form content, which is what most search engines prefer.

Including a suitable meta-description, featured image and SEO title

When writing financial articles which are supposed to rank on Google, a great financial SEO writer will include a meta-description, featured image and an SEO title in addition to the article he or she has written. Some writers also offer to add nice social media messages so the articles can be shared straight to Linkedin or Twitter by your social media team.

SEO knowledge

Understanding SEO, in my view, means knowing mainly what not to do. Not working with any keyword-stuffing tools, something a lot of SEO agencies actually do and sell or being overly SEO and keyword-focused. And not using mindless AI-generated content.

The way I’ve written this article is like I’d do it for most of my SEO-focused work: helping the reader, writing in an educational manner, thinking about some keywords for SEO ideas in mind, writing long-form, but not optimising.

How to find a good financial SEO writer in the UK?

Good financial SEO writers are extremely rare, both in the UK and in the US. The reason for this is that the person needs to possess various skills, including financial subject matter expertise, SEO skills and an excellent command of words.

Linkedin job ads

Many companies are trying to hire financial SEO writers for a full-time position in-house and naturally go to Linkedin, Indeed or other job boards to post their ad stating they are looking for an SEO writer in London, New York or wherever the business is based. However, such jobs can be difficult to fill. The reason for this is that many seasoned finance SEO writers prefer to work with multiple clients on a freelance basis in order to have exposure to more variety. Quite naturally, most job ads thus are targeting junior job seekers.

Upwork and freelance platforms

The best pool of freelance financial SEO writers is available on Upwork. Upwork is the world’s leading freelance platform and has defended this lead against competitors such as Fiverr and other challengers over the past years. You will be able to find many great freelance finance writers using such freelance platforms — simply post a job ad stating your requirements and wait for talent to contact you with a quote. One disadvantage of Uppwork is however, that the quality of applicants has declined over time, especially since the launch of ChatGPT has encouraged many people to try out a freelance writing career with the help of AI.

Contact freelance finance writers directly

The most effective strategy to find a suitable and qualified freelance financial writer is contacting writers directly via their website. Many writers set up a website to showcase their portfolio and ability in writing and outline what financial content they excel in. If you invest a bit of time and search Google for ‘financial writer UK’, ‘financial writer London’ or any similar query which suits your location, you should be able to find a number of writers offering their service.

5. B2B financial writer

The term B2B financial writer, which is often used by companies looking for freelance financial copywriters, is used to describe a writer who has experience in creating B2B content, meaning content intended for decision-makers at other enterprises.

How is a B2B financial copywriter different from a general finance writer?

B2B content has a slightly different approach and tonality than B2C content because it is intended to communicate to C-level executives and also people even higher up the hierarchy such as CFOs and CEOs. Hence, a B2B financial writer needs to have the necessary expertise to understand how to communicate to such an audience as opposed to writing for a general audience or prospective consumers of a company’s products.

6. Personal finance writer

Personal finance refers to the everyday financial life of people and typically deals with questions such as “How can I save money?”, budgeting issues and building financial wealth and financial independence. So, it is quite distinct from financial copywriting done on behalf of an enterprise.
Typically, a personal finance writer is somebody who has a blog dealing with budgeting on attaining financial independence and for enterprise clients, such a writer would deal with very generalistic content intended for a broad audience.

7. Financial journalist

Many jobs of financial writers involve a journalistic element such as interviewing people or reporting news and answering the key questions of who, what, where, when, why and how.

Whenever a job entails such details you will probably be best off hiring an experienced financial journalist or a writer with a journalism background for your project. A financial journalist has often a very different approach to a topic than a writer would have.

The reason for that is that many journalists have a more investigative approach to their work, meaning, they would try to first get a picture of the story through interviews and speaking to sources, and only then add publicly available sources and facts to arrive at the complete story they want to tell.
Writers, like me, on the other hand, have a more academic approach, meaning they have expert knowledge about the relevant subject, conduct research from publicly available sources or materials the client gives them and out of this information they form and shape the story.

What topics does a financial journalist cover?

In finance, journalists focus on writing, where the key to the story is getting information which is not publicly available, time-sensitive or both. This means, journalists are most sought after for projects, where it is important to speak to people with the knowledge of what is happening:

News

Newspapers and newswires cover a range of topics, but I’m not writing this article for hiring managers at the Financial Times or Bloomberg. However, if you have a small news outlet, it might be suitable to hire writers with a journalistic background rather than general financial writers because of their experience in dealing with editorial work as opposed to copy.

Mergers and acquisitions

There are many magazines or even in-house writers who are hedge funds and investment managers who are tasked with gathering information revolving around the latest merger-and-acquisition stories. Such writers are typically former journalists, who know well how to speak to sources about confidential subjects without crossing the line of enticing the sources to reveal inside information. As the high nature of confidentiality and experience such work involves, if you are operating in that space, seek out experienced former journalists to conduct such work.

Start-ups and venture capital

In the start-up space information advantage is key. Venture capital firms want to know which deals are hot and what startups to follow. Hence, there are a number of magazines which exclusively deal with startup stories and also mix data-driven content into the picture. If you are working on startup-related news, press releases or venture capital content, it is most suitable if you try to find freelance financial writers with a journalism background for your endeavours.

8. Technical financial writer

The term technical writer or technical financial writer covers a very broad range of topics. In a nutshell, what it means is that the writer is not only confident and has expertise in financial topics, but also a broad range of technical skills and an understanding of how technology operates. This is especially important for FinTech companies, where often the business is run more like a technology business dealing in financial matters than the other way around.

What skills does a good technical financial writer need to posses?

While a wide range of financial and technical skills are useful to make a great technical financial writer, the following four are key to excel at this job:

Understanding APIs

With open banking and payment rails becoming increasingly more API based, a good technical writer should have an understanding of not only what an API is but also how it operates. This includes understanding the differences between REST APIs and web sockets and also understanding if the API in question is bi-directional, meaning that it allows for both POST and GET requests, or if it is an API to simply query data with GET requests.

Knowledge of programming languages

While the financial technical writer will not be required to code, he or she will need to be able to understand the structure of a project to be able to write release notes or entries in a company wiki or knowledge-management system.

Experience with project management frameworks

While a technical writer is not a project manager, he or she should still understand how different project management frameworks work, so he can approach the right people in the organisation with confidence.

A knack for knowledge management

A diligent technical financial writer will understand the basics of knowledge management and how to organise an organisation’s knowledge management, such as by utilising wikis, central data repositories, documentation hibs and knowledge management tools such as mind maps.

9. RFP Writer

An RFP, or request-for-proposal writer is something that companies should keep in-house and not outsource to freelancers. The reason for that is that not only a lot of confidential information about your company and client’s requirements are necessary, but because of the high urgency of most requests and the need to collaborate internally.

The RFP writer receives a request-for-proposal through internal channels such as from sales, where a client is asking for details about a solution they are looking to tender to various firms. The RFP writer then needs to collect all necessary information from various internal departments and people such as product, IT and sales and package the information into a document to answer the client’s RFP.. Typically, whatever is sent to the client also needs to get through hoops of approval through legal and compliance functions. As a result, freelancers are not ideally suited to doing this kind of financial writing job.

10. Financial UX/UI writer

A financial UX/UI writer is tasked with creating a narrative around user stories for fintech applications. This involves understanding both the tech side, design and the user side. It is a very specialised role and has a nexus between design and writing.

I hope you found this article informative. I offer a wide range of services in financial writing, with subject-matter expertise in a wide range of fields. Contact me with your project details and I’ll get back to you with an initial assessment.

Not all writing is the same and especially with regards to copywriting, there are many nuances in financial writing. I decided to write a short intro for my audience to help you understand which kind of writer is ideal for your project and what they actually do.
This article is intended for anyone looking to hire a financial writer in the UK on a project; be it copywriting, article writing, financial journalism or academic projects.