Fintech companies and startups predominantly provide AI, Machine Learning, IT, and Cloud services. As the field continues to expand, more competencies are added to the list yearly, which creates more opportunities and challenges for existing businesses. Suppose you run a Fintech company and want to remain relevant amidst all the competition. In that case, you must market your brand as effectively as possible, but how do you choose the right marketing agency for a Fintech company?
We will attempt to answer the above question in this article and explain why you should invest in marketing and branding.
Fintech Marketing Explained
For clarity and industry relevance, let us accept S&P Global's breakdown of Fintech categories, which are
Blockchain
Wealth Management
Payments
Digital Lending
While they are all involved in finance, they require different marketing strategies since they have different challenges and obstacles. Economic tailwinds and interest rate changes impact digital lending or wealth management, while the major obstacle for payment platforms is user security.
Customers who use lending platforms, for instance, are concerned with getting the cheapest loans, while users of payment platforms want to be sure that their funds are safe. Marketers, therefore, illustrate the best outcomes to serve customers' needs through their marketing content.
Explaining the use and benefits of their product and how they align with the user's goals are the cornerstones of Fintech marketing.
So, in a nutshell, fintech marketing content takes the user on a journey and points out the value of using the service and the dangers of not doing so. They use data, performance measurements, and analytics to capture the mind of their audience while also capturing the brand culture and vision in their content.
The Best Marketing Agencies For Fintech
Fintech marketing firms specialize in Fintech PR, and their services are dedicated to vertical integration. Regardless of who your company hires, they must have the core competencies to deliver on their promise to help your company scale and get new customers.
The best PR firms have
Account managers
Content writers
Social media managers
Media relations experts
If the firm you are looking at has a team of the above professionals, this is a good indicator that they know what they are doing.
Fintech entrepreneurs are ventures mostly funded by venture capitalists, but a few have grown to a point where they can sustain their operations without relying on external funding. However, most of them use the services of marketing agencies to sell their stories to the outside world.
Importance of Fintech Branding
So why is it important to brand your fintech company like any other business?
You need to understand that the Industry is overcrowded because of the amazing profit opportunities. Every year, new entrants enter the Industry, raising the competition level. To differentiate our business from competitors so you stand out, you must brand your company to create a unique identity.
Targeting your audience with PR that will resonate with them is the only way to do this. In the last few years, we have seen that the best Fintech companies have the strongest brands. Their cohesive identity aligns with their organizational goals, and their messaging strategy differs from their competitors. They develop a strong brand image using
A strong name
Logo
Visual identity
Tone of voice
All these are harnessed to create a compelling proposition highlighting their service features. The goal is to attract and retain customers, win their loyalty, and drive growth and profitability.
How To Choose The Right Marketing Agency For A Fintech Company
In this section, we want to highlight how to choose the right marketing agency for a fintech company.
These tips will help you target a firm that best serves your short and long-term branding goals. Let's begin!
Goal Definition
The first thing to do is to define your goals before you start looking for an agency to hire. As a business, IU must clearly define what you want; an agency shouldn't do this for you. Once you are sure about this, you will know what to look for in a PR agency. Suppose your goal is to increase brand awareness, for instance. In that case, you must find an agency with a record of crafting and executing successful branding campaigns that drive popularity and user engagement.
While you may not know everything you plan to achieve, it pays to know a few and then build from there. Marketing is not a one-day affair but a gradual process tailored towards achieving an overall goal of social relevance.
Look For Experience
Marketing is an expensive affair, so you want to hire an agency that will not waste your marketing budget with little or no success to show for it. If you are running a startup or a new fintech venture, you need the experience to break even, right? The same is the case with a marketing agency.
The last thing you want is to hire a greenhorn agency who don't know what they are doing. Look for an agency with experience working with outfits in your Industry because they understand and have experience overcoming challenges.
An agency without experience will not be the best choice for your company, and it may cost you a lot to get the word out. Look for an agency with the technical know-how to deliver results.
A Full-Service Agency Is Better
Is the marketing agency a full-service agency, or would you have to pay another firm an extra fee for additional services? We recommend you hire a full-service agency offering all that you need. Having different agencies piece together your marketing campaigns may be a recipe for disaster. This may lead to a broken campaign or a confusing message.
Hiring a full-service agency has inherent benefits; you will spend less, and the campaign will be cohesive from start to finish. Their strategy will also be comprehensive and consider your shirt and long-term goals. Knowing that your campaigns are in good hands will give you respite.
Evaluate Their Case Studies
The best firms release case studies to prospective clients, which is important. Reading case studies is are effective way to gauge an agency's competence. You will find these studies on their website, so take the time to review them. Agencies that have none on their website may be new in the field and have less experience.
Having no case studies may also indicate that they are not proud of their work, so we recommend you try another agency. The things to look out for when reviewing case studies include
Results achieved
Industries they work with
Size of firms they've worked for
Campaign types
How They Fit With Your Company Culture
Another thing to consider when choosing a PR company is how they will fit your company's culture. From experience, we know that having the best marketing team will mean nothing if they don't mesh well with your culture. Review their culture before signing up for an agency to see how they can work well with yours. Intrinsic features like shared values, work ethics, and more are intangibles not to overlook.
Service Cost
You can't overlook costs when deciding on hiring, can you?
During your search, you will likely encounter different service providers charging varying fees for their services. This can be unclear, especially if it's the first time your company wants to run a campaign. But there are down signs to look for.
If they are offering their services for rock-bottom prices that look too good to be true, they may be cutting corners elsewhere. Don't be in a hurry to sacrifice quality for price. You want an agency that offers their services for a fair price. Also, note that the type of service you seek will determine the price. Branding services cost more than social media marketing. Also, understand that the best PR firms charge top dollar for their work.
If you must do it, then you must do it right. Having no campaign out is better than releasing a disastrous campaign because cleaning your image will cost even more.
Level of Creativity
The best marketing agencies have a creative approach to all they do. The agency you hire must adopt a creative approach that aligns with your goals. If your tech company offers cutting-edge technology services, you want an agency that can use digital marketing trends to your advantage. A traditional company will use classic marketing instead because the customer already knows what they are about.
You want an agency with a creative brain box, not a one-cap-fits-all approach. Companies you want to interview will most likely present you with ideas, so take the opportunity to review their approach vis a vis their previous works before making a decision.
Communication
Communication style is as important as their organizational culture. How do they liaise with their clients? Through phone calls, emails, or both? You want a firm with an open communication line and a 100% response rate. This is crucial in case you want to ask for tweaks to an ongoing campaign, or you want a speedy response to an unplanned emergency.
If they are hard to reach or don't respond to messages timely, you will have to micromanage all they do, affecting your focus on another important aspect of your business.
Transparency
Even if they are the most talented agency in the field, reject them if they are not transparent.
An agency may not be willing to share all the information about your campaigns with you, including analytics and materials. They may not tell us upfront how much their services will cost, not releasing this information in piece meals. If they are not transparent about one thing, they may hide other information even when you ask for them. Transparency should be at the back of your mind when making a choice. Key points to take note of when analyzing their level of transparency include
Methods and strategy used
History with similar clients
Results achieved from previous work
How they measure success and track performance
These are information they should freely share with you during negotiations.
Learning Opportunities
Still, we will point out learning opportunities on how to choose the right marketing agency for a fintech company. This boils down to experience, which we identified earlier in a previous paragraph. A good agency will craft and execute a successful campaign for your firm and teach your team how to maintain a positive image for the public. These benefits are offered at no extra cost, and your firm should take advantage of the opportunity.
When working with world-class talents, some perks come along with the experience. Identifying with such an agency will give your company a profile boost.
Always Ask For References
Never forget to ask for references during the interview. A reputable agency should provide a comprehensive list of past clients who can attest to their performance. If they have done it for others, they will do the same for your company.
Benefits Of Hiring A Good Marketing Agency For Your Fintech Company
Here are some benefits of hiring a professional fintech marketing agency rather than handling the project alone.
Time-Saving
This benefit is obvious that is why many businesses hire them. For starters, your company most likely has every member of staff occupied with one take or the other. Delegating one or more staff to handle the marketing side of things will affect your response rate more than you can imagine. Marketing is a time-consuming venture, so having a team of specialists handle it is best.
This is a lot of work, from creating content and campaigns to crafting SEO for your accounts. You also have to measure the impact of your campaigns in real-time so you know if changes or modifications are required. Only a professional agency can do a good job in this regard.
Money Saver
This may not be obvious from the inside, but working with professionals will save you money in the long run. If you do all your marketing in-house, you may spend more money than necessary to correct errors as your team figures out what works. Trial-by-error marketing is costly and may ruin your brand image, which your brand may never recover from.
However, when you hire a marketing I, they are deliberate with all they do. They save you the cost of arranging and organizing all the tools and materials required to launch a successful campaign. Better still, you even enjoy discounts when you hit an order threshold.
Maintain Focus
Contracting an agency for all your marketing needs is great because you will focus on other aspects of your business that your team is already good at, while marketing is left to experts who know how it's done. Successful companies are led by visionaries who know how to delegate responsibilities effectively. Partnering with an agency is a win–win situation if we are being honest. You get the best result on both ends, and your company will be better for it.
Opportunity to Try Different Approaches
The value an agency will bring your company cannot be overemphasized. You can test different marketing approaches, influencing your strategy design. They will give you a bird's eye view of how the public perceives your brand and what service feature piques their interest. By leveraging the information the agency provides, you can adopt new strategies or adapt existing ones to improve the quality of your service.
Work With Advanced Technology and Tools
You don't have to acquire the tools or technology for marketing, but you get to work with them if you hire a world-class marketing agency. A good agency will be updated on the latest trends, recommendations, and insights using the best tools, and the reports and data generated will be made available to your organization. This information will come in handy for future planning.
Remain Competitive
The Fintech space is more competitive than ever before, and more firms are losing relevance and market share because they are upstaged by new entrants with more ambitious and aggressive marketing. If you want your company to stay competitive, you must innovate. Adopting a Strategy that takes advantage of the latest trends is the only way your business will stay relevant. This expertise can only be offered by a professional marketing outfit with experience in the Fintech space.
Conclusion
Choosing the right agency for your company is crucial to remain competitive in your Industry. A good agency will help you grow your brand, increase engagement, and drive growth and profit margins. However, the first step is understanding the importance of fintech marketing and our business goals. Once you are clear about these, you can search for a good outfit.
If you have never recruited one before, this article has robustly espoused how to choose the right marketing agency for a fintech company. Adopt these search strategies for the best results.