As the FinTech industry continues to gain momentum, the competition within the market grows stiffer. In fact, FinTech is the leading category of unicorns (companies valued at more than $1 billion). Due to these promising figures, it’s no surprise that more FinTech startups are appearing all the time, nor that existing financial institutions are incorporating such products and services into their business models.
Aside from the need to differentiate oneself, one of the biggest challenges in FinTech marketing is building trust and credibility with potential customers. Many consumers are still sceptical about using online financial services, and organisations must therefore prove that their platforms are safe and reliable.
This article discusses methods for building a trustworthy reputation, as well as some FinTech growth strategies and general considerations for marketing in this industry.
(If you would like to work with a FinTech marketing consultant, please get in touch to discuss your needs.)
The FinTech Marketing Funnel
The marketing funnel for a FinTech company may consist of the following types of activities:
- Awareness: Potential customers become aware of the product or service through various marketing channels such as social media, email marketing, advertising, content marketing, or public relations.
- Interest: Organisations can increase their prospects’ interest by educating them about its benefits, and this may come in the form of content including webinars, whitepapers, case studies, and product demonstrations.
- Consideration: At this stage, potential customers compare the features, benefits, and pricing of various products or services to make an informed decision. Methods to move prospects to the action stage may include free trials, promotions, or consultations to help potential them make their decision.
- Action: Once action has been taken, the focus becomes retention. Retention is achieved through providing excellent customer support, ongoing education, and value-added services beyond the core product or service offerings. These services are designed to enhance the customer experience and provide additional value to the customer.
Examples of value-added services that FinTech companies may offer include:
- Personalised financial advice to help customers make informed decisions about their investments or personal finance. You may of course not be able to give advice dependent on your regulatory status but you can still provide useful guidance and tips.
- Credit monitoring and identity theft protection.
- Budgeting and savings tools that help customers manage their finances more effectively and reach their financial goals.
- Loyalty programs that reward customers for using their products or services, such as cashback rewards, discounts, or exclusive offers.
Analytics should be used to optimise and personalise each stage of the funnel.
How to Build Trust with Customers
As mentioned, building trust is crucial in FinTech. To achieve that, any company should aim to communicate the below to their audience.
Transparency
Organisations must be transparent about their fees, charges, and the risks associated with their products or services. This means clearly explaining any fees or charges upfront and being honest about the potential risks and rewards of using their products or services. With B2C products, this is even more essential as not all customers will go out of their way to thoroughly read through terms and conditions. Anything that they must pay attention to should be made very clear from the beginning.
Security
Due to the handling of sensitive financial information, it is essential to prioritise security and use industry-standard encryption technology and other security measures to protect customer data. It is just as important to communicate this to prospects in order to provide reassurance that their data is safe.
Demonstrate Regulatory Compliance
Companies should explain their compliance with relevant regulations and standards to demonstrate their commitment to ethical business practices and customer protection.
(It’s also important to comply with regulations on the marketing of financial products and services – the best way to do that is to work with an experienced FinTech marketing agency.)
Customer Support
It goes without saying that providing excellent customer support is critical for building trust. Time is of the essence in this industry; no customer will want to wait 24 hours to discuss a technical issue with a transaction, for example. Speed should therefore be of high priority – live chat features and chatbots are the fastest ways to serve customers and a follow the sun service model is ideal, ensuring that support agents are available around the clock to serve customers in any time zone.
Education
For B2C companies, education has a role in building trust (beyond simply educating customers about the business’ products and services). Customers may find it valuable to receive information about financial literacy, investing strategies, and other relevant topics. By providing such resources, companies can show their commitment to helping customers make informed financial decisions.
Social Proof
This is a powerful tool for building trust and credibility in any business and can come in the form of testimonials, case studies, user reviews, and working with influencers. Any social proof that highlights how the product or service provides more value than those of competitors may help convince consumers to switch if they are already using a similar product or service.
Building Trust in B2B FinTech
There are some additional considerations to keep in mind when it comes to B2B:
- Reliability: It’s important to prioritise reliability i.e., delivering products and services that work as expected, are delivered on time, and meet customer needs.
- Customisation: Where there is the scope to provide bespoke offerings to meet the unique needs of individual clients, it is always worth considering. In addition, through understanding the specific pain points and challenges of each customer, companies can provide tailored solutions, and this helps to establish long-term collaboration.
- Reputation: It is important to focus on building a strong reputation in the industry by delivering high-quality products and services, complying with relevant regulations and standards, establishing partnerships with other reputable companies, and demonstrating expertise in the field (this can include providing educational resources, publishing case studies, and offering thought leadership on industry trends and best practices).
- Communication: Companies should communicate regularly and proactively with their customers, providing updates on progress, addressing concerns promptly, and being transparent about any issues that arise.
FinTech Marketing Practises
Customer Outreach
Building relationships is vital in FinTech or financial services marketing and customer outreach is a big part of that, especially for high value clients. At times, customer outreach will focus on specific objectives but on the whole, the focus is on developing relationships and getting to understand the customer’s needs in-depth.
Affiliate and Referral Programmes
Affiliate and referral programs have become increasingly popular FinTech growth strategies for increasing brand awareness and acquiring new customers. In an affiliate program, an external party promotes a company’s products or services to their audience, and in exchange, they receive a commission for any resulting sales. Referral programs, on the other hand, offer existing customers incentives to refer their friends and family to the company’s products or services.
These programs can be an effective way to acquire new customers at a relatively low cost, as companies only pay commissions for successful sales or referrals. Additionally, they increase credibility through word-of-mouth marketing from trusted sources.
It is important to carefully design any affiliate and referral programs to ensure they comply with relevant regulations. Companies must also establish clear terms and conditions for their programs, including commission rates, referral requirements, and other details, to ensure fairness and transparency.
Partnership Marketing
Partnership marketing in FinTech refers to the practice of collaborating with other organisations or individuals to promote a company’s products or services to a broader audience, each party leveraging the strengths and resources of the other to achieve common goals.
Partnership marketing can take many forms, such as co-marketing campaigns, joint product development, or cross-selling arrangements. For example, a FinTech company could partner with a bank to offer their customers new financial services or work with a payment processor to integrate their technology into the platform.
The main difference between partnership marketing and affiliate programs is the level of collaboration and mutual benefit between the companies involved. While affiliate commission can be mutually beneficial, it is generally more transactional in nature, with the affiliate primarily focused on generating revenue for themselves through commissions.
On the other hand, partnership marketing involves a more collaborative approach, with two or more companies working together to achieve common goals. The companies involved typically have a shared interest in promoting each other’s products or services to their respective audiences, with the ultimate goal of driving mutual business success.
Both strategies can be effective in driving customer acquisition and revenue growth, with partnerships potentially helping to achieve broader and longer-term objectives.
Gamification
Gamification is the process of applying principles of game design in a non-game environment and has proven to be successful in B2C Fintech marketing. In this industry, its purpose is often to make something that is dry, engaging instead. After all, nobody is particularly excited about what services they use to transfer money – it’s simply something that needs to be done.
Gamification can be as simple as holding contests or rewarding someone for referring another to use the service; or as involved as creating game elements such as quizzes or visual games to make content that is not so engaging, more shareable. Monzo used such principles for the launch of their banking app where users on a waiting list had to refer a friend to the product in order to move up the list faster.
The Importance of Data in FinTech Marketing
Data plays a crucial role in any marketing strategy, enabling the creation of targeted and personalised campaigns. In addition, it provides insights into consumer behaviour, market trends, and the strategies of competitors, all of which can help organisations to gain the edge by making informed, timely decisions.
Reputation Management
Given that reputation is so important in this field, it is worth closely monitoring public sentiment about one’s brand. By monitoring social media channels and online reviews through sentiment analysis and social monitoring tools, businesses can gain insight into how customers perceive them and address any issues. These tools can also be used to analyse sentiment about competitors.
Leveraging Customer Data to Improve Customer Experience
Gathering customer data enables continuous improvement of the customer experience. The most streamlined way to do so is to use a customer data platform that aggregates data from CRM systems, chatbots, social media and any other sources. Centralising data in this manner allows for the most accurate and robust insights. It also assists with aligning marketing and customer service activities – something that is vital for maintaining trust with customers through consistent messaging.
Provide a Seamless Omnichannel Experience
Customers now expect to be able to interact with a company through multiple channels, such as mobile apps, websites, social media, chatbots, and in-person interactions; to win them over, it is important to meet these expectations and provide a consistent experience across all channels.
A unified view of customer interactions with the brand allows for personalised recommendations, promotions, and support that are tailored to their individual needs and preferences – at every touchpoint.
In Closing
More FinTech companies are emerging all the time due to the great potential this industry holds. Trust is the cornerstone of marketing any financial product or service, and can be developed through transparency, excellent customer support, social proof, reliability and demonstrating commitment to ethical practices.
Partnership marketing and affiliate and referral programmes are all common FinTech strategies that are worth pursuing depending on one’s objectives – and all of them have the potential to enhance a business’ credibility.
To discover how we’re helping businesses worldwide develop leading marketing strategies, contact us – we would be delighted to assist.
