Fintech is an exploding market, accounting for over 650 VC-backed deals in Q2 2021 alone, with $30.8 billion in funding. Market Data Forecast anticipates that Fintech will grow by over 23% annually through 2026, reaching a market value of over $320 billion in that time period.  As the fintech market fills with startups and scaleups, standing out above the noise will be a critical challenge for any fintech organization that desires to be successful. Fintech organizations that have a growth marketing strategy to acquire and convert inbound leads will have a leg up on the competition. 

Before we dive into growth marketing strategies, let’s chat about inbound marketing for a moment. 

Inbound vs. Outbound Marketing for Fintech

A lot of B2B organizations rely on outbound marketing for lead generation and driving sales. Traditional outbound marketing efforts, like trade shows, seminars, cold calling, are slowly fading out of favor with B2B organizations because of the manpower and cost required to manage these efforts. Inbound marketing, however, relies on capturing demand and meeting users that need you: not the other way around. 

Think of it this way: it costs significantly less for organizations to convert a lead who is coming to them, than it is to generate a prospect and convert them via cold calling. Fintech marketing teams that may have previously generated customers via outbound marketing are now shifting to an inbound marketing strategy. 

Know Your Target Audience

It seems obvious enough, right? Every growth marketing strategy should start with identifying the target audience and the value propositions for the organization. If this sounds fundamental, it’s because it is. 

Knowing your target audience rules out potential strategies that were on the table, and unlocks opportunities you may not have previously considered.

For example: if you are a B2C fintech organization – you probably aren’t going to put the majority of your ad spend on LinkedIn. 

Alternatively: if you are a B2B fintech organization that provides solutions to SMB owners, you may discover subreddits or Youtube channels that are large gathering places for your target audience that you can add in your targeting. 

Knowing your target audience also helps you figure out how to communicate with them. Since there are SO MANY fintech startups and scaleups, being able to speak directly to the needs of your target audience clearly will help you stand out above the noise. If you are developing a fintech marketing strategy, grab the Value Props Exercise spreadsheet from the Tuff blog and start identifying your target audience’s needs. 

Know Your Funnel 

The marketing funnel has three main components, top, middle, and bottom of the funnel. Matching your messaging and strategy for each stage in the funnel is incredibly important. 

Many channels, such as Facebook, can serve as multiple stages of the funnel for fintech marketing efforts. Here are some examples of an effective funnel for a fintech organization that Tuff currently partners with: 

• Top of Funnel: Prospecting ads on Facebook centered around value propositions, Youtube Ads with a brand-focused video that directly addresses value propositions
• Mid Funnel: Non-branded PPC Search Campaign, Retargeting campaign on Youtube, remarketing display ads
• Bottom Funnel: Branded Search Campaign, Retargeting campaign on Facebook with an introductory offer

Some additional funnel strategies that could be a good fit for your organization: 

• Lead capture in middle of funnel combined with a bottom funnel email marketing drip campaign aimed at converting leads 
• Prospecting on Reddit, LinkedIn, or other demographic-based acquisition channels
• Partnering with influencers to reach your target audience

Focus Efforts on Demand Generation 

In order for inbound marketing efforts to be successful, people need to know about your organization and how exactly it helps them. One of the most common issues fintech organizations run into is that users don’t know that they need their services or product to be successful. 

Chris Walker at Refine Labs says the following: 

“Most marketing teams only focus on capturing existing market demand. They wait for people to look for them. Then try to capture it with SEO, SEM… They spend all their time and effort and money fighting over the 0.1% of the market that is actively buying…All of the upside is in marketing to the 99% of the market that isn’t actively buying.”

A common example I use in explaining demand generation is Uber. Before Uber, people had taxis, or they relied on friends or daily for rides when they needed it. People didn’t know they needed Uber, until Uber came along and showed everyone why ridesharing was a better alternative to the status quo. 

Explaining your organization’s solution to a problem can be tricky. This is why it is important to spend time with value propositions and identifying how to best drum up demand. 

One disclaimer on-demand generation: using tools such as Google Analytics to determine attribution is only as accurate as the data it is being fed. Not all engagement, consideration, and offsite activity can be measured in Google Analytics, and can possibly make your demand generation efforts look less effective than they truly are. This leads us to…

Rely on Your Zero Party Data

Once you’re up and running with your campaigns, generating leads, and possibly sales – it’s time to figure out how you are capturing your target audience’s attention. With demand generation efforts, analytic tools can be inaccurate as to true attribution. This applies to both inbound and outbound marketing efforts. 

For inbound marketing efforts, if a user hears about you via a Facebook campaign, but does not click the ad, and later finds you via organic search, Google Analytics will tell you that the user found you organically – and make you feel great about your SEO efforts. For outbound marketing efforts, replace Facebook with a trade show, direct mail, or even a cold call, and you could run into the same issue.  

The way to solve this is easy: generate zero party data. Zero party data is data that customers share with brands. Intentionally collecting zero party data can be as simple as asking users how they first heard about you when they sign up. Zero party data is only as accurate as the information is being shared with you, so instead of relying solely on analytics tools or zero party data, look at both often, and develop insights from there. 

Spend Time with CRO 

CRO, or conversion rate optimization, is the ongoing effort of refining your site’s user experience to improve your lead capturing abilities. Getting traffic is one thing – converting them is another. Fintech organizations that spend time continually evaluating their site, implementing tests, and smoothing the path to conversion can see higher returns on their acquisition efforts. 

Some ways that CRO can be included in a fintech marketing strategy are: 

• Testing different value propositions in the hero section of your landing page
• A/B test call-to-actions or sign-up perks
• Incorporating gamification, or other engagement tools on your site

The great thing about CRO is that it is a continual process – as your learnings grow, so do the possibilities.

If you are unsure about how CRO, zero-party data, or demand generation can be incorporated into your fintech marketing strategy — let’s talk.

Richard Meyer

Richard has spent the last five years working at digital agencies, exploring various industries and company lifecycles. I’ve created and implemented growth campaigns on just about every platform for startups, $20,000,000 a year companies, and everything in-between. When not at work, I can be found cheering on the Penguins or Steelers, spending time with my wife and son, playing disc golf, baking, or walking my dogs.