What does it take to be a top FinTech marketer? You could be cut out for marketing but not necessarily the right fit for FinTech marketing because of some of the industry’s unique characteristics. Here are some of the most important skills for the job. 

Thinking and talking in numbers

If you’re not interested in numbers, finance may not be the game you want to play. Being able to analyze and present figures is an invaluable skill for a FinTech marketer, particularly when it comes to dealing with business customers. 

That’s not to say that your company’s chief value proposition should always be expressed in a number. If you asked the average person why they like Venmo or PayPal, they will most likely say they appreciate the convenience, but they may not be able to quantify that convenience in terms of time or money. 

However, the more that you can quantify your company’s value proposition, the more compelling your case becomes to consumers. Can you estimate the amount of time that they save by using your service? Or the amount of money they save by wasting less time or spending less on transaction fees? The more specific you can be, the better. 

Communicating with clarity

The point of disruptive technology is to offer people a simpler, easier alternative to the confusing, complex status quo. As a FinTech marketer, your language should reflect that mentality. Write and speak clearly and concisely about your product, using words that people without finance degrees will understand. 

Many marketers make the mistake of believing that business jargon or academic language helps them establish authority with the audience. That may be true when dealing with a niche audience (e.g. banking convention), but the general public will generally react negatively to unfamiliar language. In fact, some studies have shown that people are more likely to view content written in simpler language as more intelligent.

Connecting Your Product to Bigger Stories

Mainstream media outlets are rarely going to be interested in a story that focuses entirely on your product. What is much more likely is that you can get your perspective into an article about a bigger story. For instance, getting the CEO of your company quoted in an article about a major economic issue, such as student loan debt. 

To maximize opportunities for brand exposure, you have to keep up with the big economic, financial and political news and be able to understand what news consumers and publications really care about. Shape your pitches based on what you know they’re interested in and care about –– anything from economic inequality to financial illiteracy. 

Creativity

With so much competition among fintech companies, you have to be creative if you want to grab the attention (and business) of potential customers. The importance of creativity extends to every step of the marketing process: campaign development, campaign execution, lead generation and lead nurturing. In FinTech, simply reminding people that you exist isn’t good enough: you need to clearly distinguish yourself from the competition.

A great example of a marketing campaign that had a big impact was a 40-minute video by American Express, Spent, that put a spotlight on the struggles on the 70 million “financially underserved” Americans. The film featured a wide range of challenges faced by those who lack access to low-interest credit, from a young entrepreneur who is paying off student loans that amount to more than double what she paid to get her degree to desperate families who resort to high-interest payday loans to cover their basic needs. Very little in that documentary had anything to do with American Express, but the content was so much more compelling than a traditional advertising campaign. As a result, far more people viewed it and came away with a positive impression of American Express.  

Don’t forget to measure

One of the greatest imperatives for marketing professionals in today’s wired world is to ensure everything they do online is measurable. FinTech marketing is no exception. Any campaign you run should be conceived with an outcome in mind (number of click-throughs, opt-ins, lead conversions, etc.). As you start out it may seem like you are pulling numbers out of the air, and perhaps to some extent you will. But there are generally accepted metrics for email campaigns that you can easily find (Mailchimp has examples here) based on what industry you are in, whether you are reaching out to businesses or consumers, and more. 

Measuring campaign performance can be a fairly complex process, but with a little planning and preparation you can make it relatively easy to report your results. For starters, make sure any outbound campaign involving email, social media and Google Ad buys is anchored by a campaign landing page that articulates your offer and is optimized for lead conversion. Using the URL of the landing page in all of your outbound content will make it easier to track inbound traffic from all of your marketing channels. Also, use Google Analytics to set up a conversion goal on the landing page that is dependent upon a visitor doing something specific — filling out a contact form, making a purchase, etc. 

Once the campaign is launched, you can use your email solution or marketing automation software to track email performance. You should also use Google Analytics to see how your other key metrics are performing: total inbound traffic, time-on-site, pages per session, and goal conversions. (For more insight on how to use Google Analytics to measure the performance of your B2B tech marketing, read this article we posted on the Swyft blog.) Google Ad buys are also measurable from Google Analytics, giving you a fairly comprehensive tool to use when measuring overall campaign performance. 

The same goes for social media performance, by the way. You may have to ‘wing it’ somewhat until you have a decent sample of how social media audiences react to your campaigns. Eventually, however, you will have a better idea of what success looks like in terms of social shares, engagement, and click-throughs. 

The more you follow this best-in-class approach to marketing campaigns, the better you will get at driving the results your company needs in order to grow and prosper.

About Author:
Dave Manzer is founder of Swyft, an integrated marketing and PR agency in Austin, San Francisco and Houston. Swyft provides full agency services to B2B technology clients in FinTech, cloud services, SaaS, cybersecurity, healthcare technology, and more.