Avoid These Mistakes in Your Crypto and Fintech Copywriting

Cryptocurrency and fintech have quite a lot in common. They both meet at the intersection of finance and technology, and they both require a bit of know-how to create impactful copy and content. Not just about the respective industries, but also the way you write and the things you should avoid if you don’t want to get tossed in the regulatory hot water.

A well-versed fintech copywriter has these traits down pat, and most companies have a compliance team to catch any mistakes. But what can you do to improve your writing? Read on to learn more about what you should avoid in your fintech, financial and cryptocurrency content and copy.

Financial Compliance Should Always be on Your Mind

So you’ve got your keywords ready to go for your SEO blog posts. You’ve got your outline fleshed out, and you start to sit at your computer to punch out the copy. As the words flow out, you hit your stride and produce a well-written and engaging piece of work. But hold on. Did you think about financial compliance?

Financial compliance laws serve a pretty important role in the industry. In a nutshell, we use these rules to protect consumers from misleading, deceptive or otherwise inappropriate advice. They help consumers make sound financial decisions and means you need to be careful with what you put in your copy.

Regulatory bodies like the FINRA, SEC and National Examination Risk Alert monitor what goes out into the world regarding financially linked industries. If you're writing about anything finance related, you need to be careful — this, of course, includes fintech. So what should you have on your mind in regards to staying within the lines of financial compliance?

“Not Financial Advice”

If you’ve ever delved into the world of retail investing and trading, you’ve probably heard or seen the phrase, “this is not financial advice; I am not a financial advisor.” It can actually get pretty tiring hearing it over and over. But nevertheless, it's important to be transparent.

You don’t want to provide blanket advice. It’s a surefire way to get flagged. So make sure to avoid promoting a specific product — as tempting as it may seem. The fact is, whatever you are promoting may work for some, but not for others. 

So if you can’t dole out your sage financial wisdom, what should you do? Well, try asking critical questions. You can even delve into the benefits of whatever product or service you might be promoting, but be careful not to offer any sort of financial guidance.

Non-Compliant Links

It's not just what you have on the page that can get you in trouble. You also need to be mindful of what you're linking on the page. Look, SEO is important. You may already know how to use anchor text to create a killer linking structure, but if you’re sending people to some iffy websites, all that expert SEO craftsmanship may be for nothing.

To meet the demands of compliance, you should only link out to websites you trust completely. Even articles with great statistics or interviews can be a problem. Stick to hard facts that someone can easily verify. In most cases, following this rule won’t just keep you compliant but will also help define your writing by pulling information straight from the source.

Focus on the Process

In fintech copywriting, it can be hard not to promote a product. In most cases, that’s what copywriting is all about anyway. But if you want to stay compliant, you’ll need to temper your appetite for promotion.

Instead, focus on the process. Instead of saying “x product is the best,” try to ferry the reader to the decision themselves. Yes, it can be tricky, but again, in the end, it will make your copy stronger and more impactful.

This is a great opportunity for educational content. You could craft some truly illuminating tutorials or product comparisons where you size up your competitors. Whatever it is, just make sure you keep an eye out for compliance issues.

Be Careful with Promotional CTAs

Let’s say you're developing a newsletter for an AI-powered trading algorithm. The product might be amazing, and it could be making your users plenty of money, but you can’t say all that. In most industries, CTAs are the tool to get the sale. Within fintech, your CTAs need to be all about engagement.

Again, try and shift the focus away from the product itself and talk about the process. How does your algorithm work? What does the process look like for someone interested in your service?

This is a great time to highlight the industry, talk about the latest news and educate your email list on the benefits of working with AI — just make sure to leave out the kind of CTAs you’d expect from other industries. Keep your brand right in front of your readers, but never try to solicit a sale.

Special Considerations for Cryptocurrency

You may have gotten to this point and wondered where all the cryptocurrency-specific advice is? Well, here’s the thing about the crypto-verse; it’s still the wild west out there. While we’ve seen some strides toward full-scale adoption, like the first Bitcoin ETF, we are still in the very early stages of industry development.

But that won’t be the case forever. In fact, with leadership at regulatory bodies having their eyes set on regulating the industry, financial compliance will be a major part of how we write about cryptocurrencies, decentralized finance and the similar subsets of the space.

Even in the industry today, you’ll see the same general best practices you’d expect from other finance-related industries. So, even though the rules are still being written, you’ll want to act as if those regulatory bodies are checking up on what you’re creating — very shortly, they will. 

A Quick Word on Advertising Channels

You can’t talk about cryptocurrency without mentioning the millions of scams, Ponzi schemes and down-right evil projects mucking up the space. Advertisers are very wary of letting these kinds of projects advertise on their platforms. As a result, many advertisers are pretty strict about what kind of crypto content they will allow.

Take Google, for example. While they have changed their tune to allow exchanges and wallets on board, those two categories only represent a very small portion of the industry. Even social media platforms are starting to cull the influx of crypto creators swarming their sites, like TikTok. Even content that falls into the education category has gotten the ax.

You’ll need to keep a keen eye on the news in the market, make sure you’re staying within those changing rules and always make sure you abide by the general compliance guidelines. It also means you might need to target your copy toward specific platforms that do allow crypto advertising. Usually, these are crypto-related brands like CoinMarketCap. 

This presents a different challenge, writing to a more educated audience. But we’ve got some tips on how to improve your copy if you’re a cryptocurrency or fintech copywriter.

Looking to Add a Professional Fintech Copywriter to Your Team?

If you’re still a bit confused about what to write and how to write it, it might be time to hire a professional writer. Here at Hire a Writer, we’ve got the fintech copywriters you need on your team to get the most out of your marketing strategy. Quality copy goes a long way to help build your brand and communicate your message. Reach out today to get a conversation going.