Can Fintech Firms Afford To Ignore The Importance Of Marketing?

The success of neobanks has raised challenges amongst the fintech industry. Providing a digital alternative to traditional banking, neobanks are, without a doubt, playing a key role in the evolution of banking.

Neobanks exist solely online, without any physical presence and are completely independent of the traditional banking infrastructure. The emergence of neobanks, or ‘digital challengers’, such as N26 and Revolut, has driven improvements in the user experience, reduced fees and driven the digitalisation and automation of various processes.

Equally important is the fact that although these neobanks are fully-digital in the way in which they operate, with little to no face-to-face communication with their current and future customers, they are still proving successful in tailoring their marketing communications with customers in a manner that appeals and engages with them, enabling the development of trust by their customer base despite the relative youth of their brand. This invokes the question: can other fintech firms learn a thing or two from the neobanks?

You’re ultimately engaging with a human being

In many fintech firms, marketing is often secondary to sales, which is not an optimal strategy for a business to abide by. Sales and marketing should be closely intertwined, supporting one another in their efforts and overall success of the business. For all their shared responsibility, the outcome has been contentious; sales dominate in enterprise whilst marketing leads in consumer-facing roles.

It is important for fintech sales forces and marketing teams to bear in mind that for all their efforts to close a transaction involving their enterprise products, there is a human fundamentally involved in that value chain. 

When there is a lack of alignment between sales and marketing, the outcome is negative for both. Misalignment of the goals between the marketing strategy, sales management, and sales force can cause demotivation; signal unnecessary difficulty; and even mask the price for customer acquisition, eroding profit margins. 

For fintech firms selling B2B and enterprise products to banks and financial institutions (FIs), the marketing approach needs to be more human-centric, comparable to how neobanks approach their customers. There is a crucial need to understand human behaviour, what channels they are on, aligning their messaging to connect with customers.

For instance, salespeople tend to be very aware of marketplace nuances when it comes to pricing, as well as customer knowledge and the contemporary competitive landscape. Marketing teams should aim to utilise these competencies in building up a strategy and business story for growing their brand. 

Marketing benefits from early involvement and collaboration with the sales team during initial discussions of marketing strategy. With intense competition and complex customer demands, aligning the sales & marketing plans is a necessary step and part of the dialogue about how fintech firms need to develop their business story and brand equity amongst the customer segments they target.

The digitisation of everything: the era of hyper-targeting requires deep domain expertise

There is an evolution of mindsets as enterprise marketers build channels and methods meant to connect at a personal level, given how enterprise sales imperatives have shifted. With greater connectivity and hyper-targeting, marketers must have a tight focus on making meaning for customers and building enduring brand experiences.

The case for fintech marketing involves specialists with deep domain expertise in their sectors. Senior finance marketers hold experience in working with fintech ventures and FIs in tailoring marketing strategy and communication to their appropriate customer segment. This is a niche, given the need for fintech players to highlight their product offerings in an engaging manner and reaching out to decision-makers and influencers within FIs. 

For instance, prescriptive sales approaches with a clear call to action - backed by a strong rationale to purchase, coupled with a clear explanation of the complex aspects - has been shown to increase purchase ease by 86%. 

This also creates a perception amongst customers that prescriptive brands are forward-thinking. Beyond translating directly into business results, it also boosts the brand equity of the business. Given this, marketing campaigns need to turn their lens towards business storytelling, with the strategic intent of communicating what the organisation wishes to achieve, and the implications this has for its customers. 

Through the gelling of such sales approaches with integrated marketing communications, fintech firms can find ways to communicate their value proposition and business story in a unique and compelling manner. Trust and positive brand image can be built amongst their enterprise customer base, a natural return on investment into their business story. 

In the book “Built to Last”, by Jim Collins and Jerry Porras, it was found that companies that let their purpose (i.e. business story) drive their activities outperformed the general market 15:1 and their peers by 6:1, seeing revenue growth and brand equity growth. This is what neobanks have demonstrated, and what fintech firms need if they wish to stand out in the intensely competitive landscape of today’s fintech.