The fintech industry has rapidly grown in the last few years and today, more than ever before, startups are entering this new-age market. This year in 2023, GoHenry and M1 Finance have both become two of the most popular fintech companies that offer a wide range of services to their customers.
With such fast development come the challenges that any business faces when trying to stand out from its competition, especially when it comes to marketing strategies. An effective strategy for B2B Fintech companies should incorporate not only a bunch of tactics but should also adapt new ones, all the while keeping an eye on achieving growth objectives.
GoHenry and M1 Finance's Success Stories in 2023
Now let's talk about two thriving fintech startups, and understand why they're in the spotlight in 2023. GoHenry and M1 Finance, both giants of tomorrow, are making strides with their unique approaches.
Let’s start by looking at GoHenry. It's not just a debit card provider for kids between ages 6 to 18, but a truly educational money management platform that prepares them to be financially smart adults. Kids can earn allowances, learn saving habits, make responsible spending decisions and even give back by donating to charities they care about.
Jumping onto some facts here – search interest in GoHenry has risen by a staggering 866% over the past five years! With an average user rating of 4.3 on the Play Market and App Store combined – it has already crossed more than a million downloads across the globe.
Let’s bring M1 Finance into focus next – this is your haven if you want an easy investment experience powered by AI technologies that do up-to-date predictions themselves! Search growth for this automated investing platform went up by an impressive rate of over 1,600% within the last five years, which certainly looks promising.
It has half a million strong users, who rate it as convincingly high as 4.5 (on both the Play market & App Store), endorsing its invaluable utility. These companies with very attractive valuations – GoHenry ($250-$500million) and M1 finance ($1.45 billion), prove the Fintech industry itself provides plenty more room for innovative entries.
Venmo's Digital Marketing Success in Focus
Venmo has established itself as a leader in digital financial transactions. With its sleek app, Venmo offers quick, secure payments between friends and colleagues that eliminate the need for cash. Their app even includes a Mastercard or Debit Card option that can be carried everywhere for utmost convenience.
A unique aspect of their marketing approach is captured by their mission statement, to change how people see money and each other. Kasia Leyden, senior group Marketing Director at Venmo and Braintree explained that this philosophy emphasizes using their platform to build relationships through shared experiences.
Key elements of Venmo's strategy include:
Fostering communities where users advocate for them.
Focusing primarily on mobile marketing.
Creating routines around their service and offering more monetary freedom – they don’t charge fees to send or receive large sums of money and impose minimal fees on credit card-based payments.
Interestingly most members of the Venmo community are millennials under 34 years of age, showing potential growth areas targeting different age demographics.
How B2B and B2C Inbound Marketing Differ in Approach
The buying process in B2B usually needs more stakeholders and takes longer time than the individual-centered quick decisions of B2C. Hence, while creating an inbound strategy for a fintech business catering to other businesses (B2B), understand that several heads are involved in decision-making.
To appeal to these key players across organizations, your strategy should include materials like whitepapers or industry reports that address their varied concerns and requirements. In contrast, if we talk about a personal consumer being marketed to (in a B2C scenario), social media buzz and personalized discounts could be game-changers.
Moving forward with this comparison: fostering customer relations is the major focus area in the realm of B2B marketing, whereas fetching transactions becomes priority when targeting consumers directly. Consequently, nurturing leads through emails and webinars plays well when strategizing for B2Bs; giving great service experience works wonderfully for end consumers (the Cs’ in 'B2Cs').
Moreover, understanding sales cycle variations between both also helps create appropriate strategies – extended cycles involving networking, right up to the final sales exist for most businesses (B2B). In comparison retail consumers act fast, making purchases swiftly based on emotional impulsiveness, thus requiring a different strategic approach.
Top Inbound Tactics for Fintech Startups
In the competitive world of B2B fintech, startups must use strategic inbound tactics. What kind of tactics? Well, there are four main ones to consider.
The first one is search engine optimization or SEO. It's more important than you may think. Research informs us that 57% of marketers in B2B say SEO creates more leads than any other marketing trick. And for businesses serving consumers directly, this grows to 73%.
Next on our list is content marketing which involves creating and sharing valuable free content to attract customers. According to recent data, 64% of B2B companies currently incorporate link-building into their content marketing efforts.
In this regard, a technique used quite widely is outsourcing a business's content marketing process itself – and there’s evidence it works well! Small organizations do it by almost 37%, medium-sized enterprises by as much as 54%, while large companies go all out with a whopping 75%.
Third one is social media marketing. American companies understand its potential, yet possibly underestimate it. Nearly 92% of these companies use it, and a significant 76% of all internet users turn to social platforms for brand research; illustrating how widely accepted this resource is. Imagine how many potential clients your company can reach considering an average person uses up to eight different platforms each month.
Lastly, email marketing also reigns supreme as a potent tool for startups in the fintech revenue worldwide; over $8 billion backs up this assertion and serves as evidence of its effectiveness. Over half the consumers prefer to be approached by brands via emails, reiterating what a powerful asset it truly can be when well-tailored discounts are offered.
Fully understanding these strategies can help transform how startups in the fintech space drive growth.
Conclusion
Finding success within the ever-expanding fintech landscape requires businesses to have a solid understanding of both their target market, as well as the specific nuances that come along with dealing exclusively with larger establishments.
By leveraging lessons gleaned from successful campaigns, businesses can aim towards creating truly personalized user experiences that focus on delivering value over just tracking numbers alone. Investing properly in Search Engine Optimization, Content Marketing and Social Media and Email Marketing will prove its worth once implemented correctly.