The Fintech sector has been the real winner in the age of the internet but with the name comes the problem that it seems like almost every startup is calling itself a fintech.
Fintechs often need to appeal to three different stakeholders, their customers, their staff and potential funders but the good news is that the basic methods of standing out work well for all of these.
So if you run or are responsible for the marketing of your very own fintech, how do you go about standing out in what is becoming an increasingly crowded field?
In this post we examine:
- Know your customer
- Think about your brand values
- Choose your channels
- Develop a distinctive brand voice
- Forget the tech
- It’s all about testing
Let’s dive in and look at how you can stand out from the fintech crowd.
Know your customer
This has to be the starting point for any marketing activity and knowing your customer is something that many finance companies have to do as a matter of course.
However, the things you need to know about your customer are different from the data you collect to comply with regulatory requirements.
It’s helpful to draw up a picture of your ideal customer, or at least the customer that each marketing campaign is aimed at.
These personas are a method of defining the sort of things that people are interested in, worried about or need from your business.
You’ll need basic demographic information like typical age range, socio-economic group etc., but you’ll also collect things like what social media they like to use or what TV channels they watch.
The more you know about your customer, the more closely you’ll be able to match your product offer, and thus your marketing campaign, to their values.
Think about your brand values
What does your company stand for?
Why should people choose you?
What group of consumers are you most aligned to?
Your brand values, whilst they may seem like a really nebulous marketing thing are actually a very important part of how you communicate with people.
Are you the greenest credit card company in the world? Do you offer a donation to charity with every policy sold?
Whatever it is, it is your brand values that really hook people into becoming net promoters, so understand your brand and don’t hide your light under a bushel.
Choose your channels
Hardly a week goes by without a new channel being launched upon the unsuspecting public.
But there is an important point here and it is that you shouldn’t try to do everything on every channel.
Yes, TikTok is big and yes a lot of sports manufacturers have sold a lot of trainers by paying influencers, but is that really where your target market hang out?
Choose the channel that is most aligned to the people you want to talk to and do it really well. Only once you have got the hang of it can you think about doing something else.
It’s tempting to try and speak to people in every way you can, but that rarely works in practice.
Develop a distinctive brand voice
How do you talk to your customers?
Or more importantly, how do your customers expect you to talk to them?
If you are a young brand that is aiming squarely at millennials then you’ll speak differently from the way a company working with over 60s will.
If you are a fintech then we’d probably argue that street slang is out in any situation unless of course it is in the occasional Twitter burn, but really, people are looking to their fintech companies to be at least a little bit professional.
That having been said, you do need to find your voice. It may take a few goes before you are happy, but it is worthwhile.
Forget the tech
You’ve spent years perfecting the platform. It’s fast, responsive and you can do all sorts of things with it and you are rightly proud of it.
So the natural inclination is to show it off.But make sure you make it relevant to your customers and prospects. They want to know why they should use your platform to buy their car insurance, finance their new fridge or get a smashing new fixed-rate mortgage.
In other words (and this is where we go back to “know your customer”) they want to know how it is going to make their lives better.
So don’t tell people that you have no early termination fees or that your platform is 21 nanoseconds faster than the industry average.
Tell them that your product will help them keep their food cold, get their kids to school and allow them to buy their first home.
It’s all about testing
One thing that marketers are good at is selling their services, but you need to be careful that you don’t fall for the hype.
You do something, see if it works, tweak it and then see if that works better.
Sure that seems simple, but actually, some of the best campaigns in the world didn’t work the first time around. Did you know that Microsoft invented the tablet a full ten years before Apple? They just didn't quite hit the spot with their marketing.
So the mantra has to be “test, test and test again”.
It seems obvious, but “me too” marketing isn’t going to cut it in the world of fintech.
Sometimes it can seem a little daunting, especially if you have never been heavily involved in promoting your company. So understanding that you have to stand out and make your voice heard is the first step in developing an awesome campaign.
To learn more about growing your fintech business, check out our other blogs and resources.