If you have been researching on topics relating to Personal Finance, Savings Account and Sim Only plans, you would’ve come across content developed by Seedly. In this instalment of our Content Marketing Rockstars series, we feature Yeap Ming Feng, Seedly’s Head of Content & SEO.
In a few words tell us what Seedly is all about.
Seedly is Singapore’s largest personal finance platform. We aim to help Singaporeans make smarter personal finance decisions with the right content, right tools and the right mindset.
Singaporeans can read unbiased content on Seedly Reads, make use of our community feature to engage in discussions and crowdsource knowledge from peers, before reading real user reviews on our platform for financial products.
Tell us about the origin story of Seedly.
I joined Seedly when we were still a four men team. Back then we had Co-founder Kenneth Lou, Co-founder Chew Teeming, software engineer Pierre Teo and myself all cramped up in a tiny room at the Hanger by NUS Enterprise.
Even then, our mission and vision was quite clear. We felt that in a competitive country like Singapore with our cost of living constantly on the rise, personal finance is actually super important. But like most things that are important, it is “under-consumed” by Singaporeans.
We decide to work towards being a one-stop personal finance platform for Singaporeans, looking to address every pain point in personal finance.
Also, we noticed that most Singaporeans tend to stay away from advertorial (sponsored content), which is why until today, Seedly Reads is working towards being an unbiased content provider and does not accept monetary benefits for our written content.
We observed the importance of real user reviews when it comes to making financial product purchase decisions which is why we have Seedly Reviews for personal finance products.
We are not experts in every topic. But if we can form a tightly knitted community where people can discuss and ask personal finance questions in a stress-free, conducive and well-moderated environment, we should.
With that, we have Seedly Community on our platform. We are now a team of more than 10, and there is not a single day, the company deviates from our ultimate goal of equipping Singaporeans with the right tools and right mindset to make smarter personal finance decisions.
Give us an overview of Seedly’s Content Marketing Approach.
Seedly Reads’ ultimate objective is to be useful, relatable and memorable for our readers. The whole approach is to address certain queries you might have about personal finance in a manner that is easily digestible for someone new to personal finance. In short, if the article can break down and explain a complicated personal finance topic to a five-year-old, it is a good article.
On top of that, we are true blue Singaporeans who love our local culture. We covered all sort of topics from how Kopi Aunties make money, how much does cardboard uncles earn, BTO guides and CPF guides. All these are topics which are close to the hearts of Singaporeans.
At Seedly, we focus on both the “Art” and the “Science” of content marketing. “Art” includes the creative aspect of the written content, from the content topic to the cover artwork on Social Media. The “Science” of it involves SEO Optimising the content, building strong distribution channels for our content.
The content is as good as the number of eyeballs we attract. I strongly believe in it and I like to use the example of a chicken rice stall. You can have the “art’ of cooking the dopest chicken rice in the whole wide world, but if you attract zero customers, you will never be the best chicken rice stall in the world. This applies both ways. If you have a million customers to your chicken rice stall, but your chicken rice tastes really bad, you will have zero customer loyalty and again, you will never be the best chicken rice stall in the world. That, my friend, is content marketing.
Read More: Seedly’s Head of Content on Building an Audience Focused Content Marketing System
When it comes to content marketing, Seedly is in a very competitive space, how do you stand out from the competition?
The intention of the content plays an important role in this case. We want to add that little value to Singaporeans every day and learn something out of it. How we visualise our content is that, Singaporeans can check us out on the train or bus ride home for 5 minutes and feel good or that they learnt something important by the end of their commute.
We strongly believe in having the value upfront above everything else.
On top of that, as a team (while some of the writers are experienced in a certain field), we believe that everyone’s opinion matters and there is always something to learn from everyone! Go on and have a discussion with us about our content, and see your point being mentioned in the article if it makes sense!
What do you think is the future of content marketing?
With technology, the attention span of people is getting shorter. When scrolling on their social media feed, you only have about 0.7 seconds to capture the attention of your reader with your topic and the copywriting of your content. Work towards that!
There is little loyalty to certain content houses. 70% of the population is on social media or search engines for their topic of interest the moment they knock off from work. It is up you to build a strategy on how you can increase the touchpoints with your readers.
What sort of advice would you give to anyone who wants to WIN at content marketing?
Be human, write for humans. The art is as important as the science when it comes to content marketing.
How can people connect with you/your business?
Let’s meet for iced coffee or wine! Holla at me at mingfeng@seedly.sg