Change is no longer foreign to us especially in today’s economy. Yet, amidst the unpredictable storm, we still see tech, digital, and financial technology (a.k.a Fintech) companies thriving in the face of adversity.
Fintech firms worldwide have raised USD 22.8 billion worth of investments in just the first quarter of 2021 alone, more than doubling the amount raised in the fourth quarter of 2020. With such impressive growth, we can only imagine how much more exponentially Fintech firms will continue to grow in the coming years.
As such, we wanted to find out what Fintech marketing strategies these companies are using to stay relevant and ahead of their competitors.
We reached out to several companies across the globe to share with us their take on growing their businesses. These companies include Aspire, Stashaway, PolicyPal, Token Metrics, Ernst & Young, Endowus, Validus Capital, Spenmo, Comviva, Surer, TradingView, and Bambu.
Here are their insights:
- Aspire
- StashAway
- PolicyPal
- Token Metrics
- Ernst & Young
- Endowus
- Validus Capital
- Spenmo
- Comviva
- Surer
- TradingView
- Bambu
Aspire
About Aspire:
All-in-one digital business account providing business owners in Southeast Asia with the financing tools to solve their cash flow management and working capital needs.
Marketing strategies that work:
Aspire strongly believes that they should be focusing on building trust and delivering a superior customer experience. This is largely attributed to word of mouth marketing being the largest driver of growth for them.
Predictions for 2021:
Joel predicts that data marketing that is insightful and tastefully done will be the foremost trend in 2021.
Joel Leong
Co-Founder & Country Head (Singapore), Aspire
Bio:
As a multiple-time entrepreneur with eight years of leadership experience in Fintech, payments, crowdfunding, and e-commerce, Joel is on a mission of financial inclusion by reinventing digital banking for modern-day SMEs. He has a proven track record of launching new products, identifying core drivers and executing to achieve profitability at scale with a high integrity team.
StashAway
About StashAway:
StashAway is an intelligent online wealth management platform. It is headquartered in Singapore, and is the first robo-advisor to obtain a full capital-markets services license (CMS) from the Monetary Authority of Singapore.
Marketing strategies that work:
Building trust with early adopters
StashAway always engages in performance marketing, but especially in their new markets, they focus on high-touch marketing. Whilst it may not be scalable, their goal in doing so is to earn the trust of people. This is a feat not easily achieved by simple display ads but rather, one that requires the creation of relationships with early adopters. Otherwise, they believe that the company will come across as just another trading app on the market.
StashAway aims to achieve long-term wealth management relationships, which is why they’re investing in those relationships through physical gifts, in-person (or virtual) seminars, as well as personalised messages and calls from their wealth advisors. This way, they can sow the seeds for strong customer retention and word of mouth marketing.
Predictions for 2021:
Partnerships as a promotional tool
Rachel predicts that content and partnerships have been, and will continue to be huge. She believes that the more your company is seen and is being promoted by other brands, the more people will trust the company with their money.
Rachel Dance
Head of Growth Marketing, StashAway
Bio:
Rachel Dance is the Group Head of Growth Marketing at StashAway. She has been working in fintech and financial inclusion organisations since 2012. In addition to working at StashAway since its early days in 2016, her experience includes microfinance in Uganda and Vietnam, private equity and non-profits in NYC, and publishing in Philadelphia.
PolicyPal
About PolicyPal:
PolicyPal is a policy management platform that helps users keep track of their insurance policies on a single app.
With SGD 15 million transacted in EY2020 and SGD 2 billion coverage on their platform, PolicyPal has seen a strong record of users who use their one-stop insurance platform to manage and purchase their policies.
PolicyPal also has a strong consumer acquisition rate with an average of three policies uploaded per user and proven customer loyalty with 45.5% of recurring customers.
Marketing strategies that work:
Launch of loyalty program during COVID
PolicyPal launched a new flexible insurance savings plan during the pandemic, which can be bought digitally through the mobile application. Following this digital transformation, they saw a 40 times year-on-year growth in premiums bought for short-term insurance savings plans from 2019.
They took this opportunity to roll out their Refer and Earn program to give back to and reward loyal consumers. Through this program, consumers can refer a friend, make a portfolio enquiry, or purchase a product to earn credits. These credits can then be used to offset General Insurance premiums, which is in line with the company’s mission of providing affordable and accessible products.
Out of the consumers who purchased short-term endowment plans, 30% of consumers took part in the Refer and Earn program while 70% of consumers purchased the plan through a friend referral. This allowed them to achieve high successful consumer acquisition in EY2020.
Financial literacy education in 2021
PolicyPal is working towards empowering Singaporeans to engage in financial literacy education, in order to build a community of curious learners. They will be collaborating with domain experts, financial advisers, brands and high-profile personalities to share their financial journeys and answer any finance-related questions on social media platforms to engage with users. With a total user base of 100,000 users, this strategy aims to re-engage their current user base, drive downloads and retain active users.
Prediction for 2021:
Personalised marketing to target consumers
Claire predicts a trend in personalised marketing in 2021, where Fintech companies will be able to provide personalised recommendations to consumers based on data analytics gathered from CRM software tools.
PolicyPal focuses on viable machine learning and AI technologies, using predictive analytics to assess the current financial situation and future financial goals of their users, in order to recommend suitable products catered to their needs with AI-driven personal finance management.
Heavy focus on a customer-centric UX
Since most consumers are more tech-savvy being millennials and Gen Zers, they expect a more intuitive and sleeker user experience while making a transaction. Hene, Fintech ecosystems use a unique consumer-centric approach aimed at providing a positive user experience, focused on building an intuitive UX interface to consumers. With the increase in mobile usage, Claire believes that the attention on the UX interface is essential in being the Fintech gamechanger of 2021. Amidst the growing competition in the ecosystem, companies with excellent UX will gain a strategic edge over the rest.
Claire Toh
Head of Growth, PolicyPal
Bio:
With over five years of InsurTech experience, Claire is skilled in planning and executing sustainable and digital growth strategies at scale. She is a results and analytics driven professional who has achieved proven revenue for companies, offering insights on growth marketing and strategic partnerships. Combining her broad-based traditional marketing background and her specialist expertise in insurance, she leverages prior media experience to optimise campaigns.
Token Metrics
About Token Metrics:
Token Metrics help crypto investors build profitable portfolios by using AI-based crypto indices, rankings, and price predictions.
The company strives to be customer-focused and provide customers with solutions for every question or problem they encounter in the cryptocurrency space. This mentality has translated directly into their parabolic growth, at 50% month-over-month in the last 12 months.This growth has been driven largely through organic means with minimal amounts put into paid advertising.
Marketing strategies that work:
Blog posts as a marketing funnel
The Token Metrics Moon Awards is a series of content blog posts that honours the best projects, people, services, etc, in crypto for their respective categories. These blog posts have seen tremendous success due to their vast SEO benefits. People discover their blog posts organically when looking for answers to common questions, like “what is the best low-cap crypto project”, or “who is the best crypto analyst”. This provides Token Metrics the perfect opportunity to share their value proposition as they provide analysis on all projects with links to their platform, giving readers an even more detailed analysis of the featured projects.
Since their customer base votes for the winners of the Moon Awards, it offers the added benefit of engaging their existing customer base and providing analysis on the aspects of crypto they deem to be the shining stars.
Affiliate program & influencers
Token Metrics partners with the biggest influencers in the crypto space in their affiliate program. Influencers partner with them not only because Token Metrics is claimed to be the best tool available for crypto investors, but also because the company’s platform also significantly aids them in the content creation process. In the past few months of 2021, they surpassed their customer count obtained through the affiliate program than they did in the whole of 2020. The affiliate program has not only been successful in terms of the company’s growth but also profitable for affiliates, as seen by the company already paying over USD 500,000 to affiliates in 2021 alone.
Predictions for 2021:
Growth of online forums & communities
Zac believes that the emerging power of online communities will dominate and change the way companies market products to consumers. This was evident in the Reddit mania surrounding Gamestop and the equities market, showing how this power can make or break a company’s reputation. Whether it is Discord, Reddit, Telegram, or any other community hosting platform, learning how to effectively advertise is important, but to cultivate and grow an integrated, online community for one’s company is crucial.
Word of mouth is the most effective form of advertisement and this has become even more evident as consumers continue to build even stronger mental filters to ads. Hence, he predicts that utilizing this trend will allow companies to hit one of the most critical aspects of marketing – presenting their product exactly when a potential customer is looking for the solution they provide.
Cultivating and growing the company’s online community and presence in other communities will make or break many companies in the Fintech space. The Fintech sector has exploded in popularity and innovation and it is their responsibility to keep the momentum going and expand for consumers. If one remains on top of this trend and properly harnesses it, 2021 will be a year of explosive growth.
Zachary McKenna
Senior Marketing and Brand Strategist, Token Metrics
Bio:
After discovering crypto, Zac moved from his career as a hard-hitting hockey player to a financial professional in the marketing department at Token Metrics. This shift allowed Zac to combine his biggest passions of marketing and finance with his unique skill set of marketing strategy, consumer vision, content creation, and branding.
Ernst & Young (EY)
About EY:
EY is one of the largest and leading professional services networks in the world, providing assurance, tax, consulting, and advisory services to clients. They have also worked with government bodies, central banks, and financial regulatory bodies globally.
Marketing strategies that work:
Global network & Fintech expertise as a marketing tool
EY has been working closely with the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to help facilitate capital flows and cooperation in the Fintech community and strengthen the overall ecosystem in the country. By leveraging their extensive global network and Fintech expertise, as well as their commitment to working with industry participants (Fintech startups, investors, governments, educational institutions, accelerators, and incubators), they’ve managed to market and host large scale events effectively.
During the 2017 Singapore Fintech Festival (SFF), the Investor Summit powered by EY and organized the MAS and the Association of Banks in Singapore, had the participation of more than 1,000 startups and 400 investors and 525 connections made among interested parties, with USD 2 billion made available for the Fintech startups.
Continuous value-adding to clients
Building on 2017 SFF, EY expanded the Investor Summit in 2018 to include MATCH, the SFF’s deal-making platform formally known as Meet ASEAN’s Talents and Champions. The nearly 400 participating investors in the MATCH platform indicated intentions to invest up to USD 6.2 billion in ASEAN enterprises the following year and another USD 6 billion in the subsequent two years. Through providing more value each year to companies, EY continues to segment itself as a leading Fintech company.
Predictions for 2021:
EY currently does not have any predictions for 2021.
Varun Mittal
Global Emerging Markets FinTech Leader, EY
Bio:
Varun Mittal is experienced at the cross-section of digital business building and financial services in South East Asia and global emerging markets. He has developed and implemented strategy, technology rollout, ecosystem management, and regulatory engagement for financial institutions as well as digital and internet technology companies. He undertook his MBA at the National University of Singapore and graduated with computer science engineering as his undergraduate major.
Endowus
About Endowus:
First and only CPF advisor in Singapore, helping everyone to invest holistically and conveniently with expert advice at the lowest cost possible.
Endowus was recently awarded the Wealthtech of the Year by the Asia Fintech Awards, on top of two accolades by Asia Asset Management Best of the Best Awards 2021. Despite the pandemic, Endowus grew almost 20x in clients onboarded, with a 7x increase in assets under advice, and doubled their company’s headcount in support of sustained growth and future expansion.
Marketing strategies that work:
Building brand awareness through reviews
Endowus first launched its CPF solution in September 2019 and the first 18 months were centred on building brand awareness to their options available for customers.
In delivering an entire suite of CPF, SRS, and cash portfolios supported by their cash management solution, Cash Smart, and customizable portfolio, Fund Smart, they created a vast array of informative and engaging content through social media, blog posts, infographics, and interactive webinars.
Unlike most platforms which focused on driving quick wins through aggressive acquisition incentives, Endowus remained focused on building brand trust and reputation. This was done by cementing their position through customer reviews, which was reinforced by an overarching integrated campaign covering islandwide OOH to digital executions featuring their best advocates (their clients).
Financial literacy through content marketing
Financial literacy is an ongoing journey as they build on financial inclusion for everyone. From there, content marketing takes centre stage for a D2C wealthtech platform. The awareness, consideration, and conversion funnels are built on short-tail awareness-driving content to long-tail converting pieces. In each content piece, an amplification strategy is cast across social paid, content discovery platforms such as Outbrain, as well as affiliate partners who are integral to having a captive audience.
Focus on a customer-centric UX
A strategic focus on app-first initiatives needs to be layered on top of the overall platform strategy to provide a convenient way for customers to manage their wealth on the go. Having a differentiated platform strategy pegged to customer behaviour on-app and onsite is crucial in identifying the optimal channels to reach the right customers in the most cost-efficient way possible. This strategy is even more pertinent for Fintechs as financial information can be displayed in as much simplicity as needed for the newly initiated, or as extensively elaborate for the savvier investor, enhancing the customer experience.
Predictions for 2021:
Rise of digibanks & robo advisors
Jason believes that the issuance of the digibank licences in Singapore will see a more competitive landscape in 2021, on top of initiatives by local big banks such as DBS digiPortfolio and OCBC RoboInvest. New entrants should focus on shoring up customer acquisition due to rising costs as these new digibanks come armed with the depth of an existing inexhaustible pool of customers to segment in a multitude of ways.
Gamification in targeting younger demographics
Similar to the wave of e-commerce unicorns that have established themselves in South East Asia, customers will be spoilt for choice by the outpour of incentives to drive acquisition and conversion efforts. There is a relatively short horizon for Fintechs to execute innovative customer retention strategies to engage and hopefully retain customers and drive loyalty.
Gamification, tied to a younger, tech-enslaved populace is a likely evolution that will arise from app platforms. With a much shorter attention span and immediate need for gratification, a well-thought gamification strategy presents an opportunity to engage the customer without them having to switch platforms.
Jason Huan
Chief Marketing Officer, Endowus
Bio:
Since his time in UOB, Jason has been entwined in the business of start-ups and technology companies, where he focuses on e-commerce and digital business growth, helping to launch every Rocket brand that first set foot into Singapore.
Since then, he spent almost four years as the Chief Marketing Officer for Lazada Singapore, thereafter CMO for the Philippines before joining Endowus.
Validus Capital
About Validus Capital:
An online aggregator platform for SMEs to secure short-term and medium-term financing, offering access to financing from individual and institutional lenders.
As a P2B marketplace, this award-winning regional Fintech lender is using technology to minimise the cost of financial intermediation and passing the benefit to investors and SMEs.
Marketing strategies that work:
Validus employs an integrated marketing strategy, focused on building a strong brand and driving customer acquisition.
The last year has been challenging for many businesses, but their team managed to overcome obstacles and changes to support key initiatives whilst continuing to build their brand. As a business, they saw strong year-on-year growth in each market and recently expanded to Thailand as seen below.
- Validus Singapore: 36%
- Batumbu: 682%
- Validus Vietnam: 300%
Data-driven marketing
Through leveraging industry and trade data, coupled with utilising demographic data in campaigns, Validus managed to proactively reach out to SMEs at optimal times – when they might require a cash flow injection to manage a stable cash flow or obtain working capital to grow their business. They saw up to 30% open rates and 2x their average CTR in these targeted EDM campaigns.
Multiple channels for content
Validus has created and distributed helpful and valuable content through both online and offline channels that has led to good engagement and supported customer acquisition. Some examples include:
- Thought-leadership/educational industry article
- Article on building a diversified portfolio
- Interactive Diversification Calculator.
Predictions for 2021:
Data & AI as a tool in marketing
X.Y. believes that AI, machine learning, and tech innovation will drive smarter, more streamlined, and more connected MarTech stacks that will power Fintechs’ marketing strategies. The vast availability of data and the advances in AI will see better utilisation of data in delivering personalisation that supports and drives a great customer experience.
Companies will likely shift from creating campaign-specific experiences to a series of integrated and natural interactions based on user profile, behaviour and preferences.
X.Y. Ng
Group Head, Brand & Digital Communications, Validus Capital
Bio:
With over ten years of marketing experience across Singapore and Australia, X.Y. develops and implements data-driven marketing and communications programmes that drive revenue growth and market share in the ASEAN region. She regularly speaks about Fintech lending and has published articles on SME financing and peer-to-peer lending.
X.Y. graduated from Murdoch University with a Bachelor of Commerce in Marketing and Public Relations. Her responsibilities in Validus Capital include brand, digital, public relations, events, partnerships, and B2B marketing for the business.
Spenmo
About Spenmo:
Providing a payment platform to streamline B2B expenses by having all payables in one dashboard, unlimited cards, automated local payments and the cheapest overseas transfers.
Marketing strategies that work:
Clubhouse & partnerships during COVID
There has been a huge rise of Fintech B2C companies like BNPL and robo-advisors in the media recently, but not much in the B2B world. Besides SEO or paid marketing, one innovative marketing tactic Spenmo used as a growth channel was Clubhouse.
Due to the recent surge in Clubhouse users, especially in the start-up community, Spenmo decided to leverage on the Clubhouse platform to build an audience base who will be interested in learning more about Fintech and payments.
Spenmo also partnered with other Fintech leaders to talk about adjacent services like revenue-based financing to drive awareness and reach to the respective platforms. Since their launch of Clubhouse sessions, their LinkedIn following has increased by more than 10%.
Predictions for 2021:
Growth of Clubhouse & podcasts
Ernest predicts that the future of Fintech marketing is evolving from static blogs/webinars to engaging an audience via podcasts/Clubhouse. He gave the example of AWS Fintech, who recently started their own Clubhouse show and telegram community, and Pace, who started their own podcast.
While channels of Fintech marketing may differ from paid marketing to podcasts, an omnichannel approach is a proven strategy to continually engage hand-raisers throughout the buyer’s journey.
Ernest Teh
Sales Development Representative, Spenmo
Bio:
Despite a lack of business expertise, Ernest’s friendly disposition led him to become a facilitator for an entrepreneurship bootcamp which sparked his passion for all things start-up. He believes that there is nothing greater than creating one’s own opportunities and innovating to change a small part of this world – a fantastic process that he feels fortunate to participate in.
In just two years, he has worked at more than five start-ups and found himself at the frontier of the Fintech revolution in Southeast Asia, serving the underbanked through Spenmo. Together with his sociological imagination, he is taking baby steps to help SMEs, start-ups, and enterprises take back control and gain full visibility on their spending.
Comviva
About Comviva:
Global leader in digital solutions, offering white-labelled technology products to telecom operators, banks, financial institutions and Fintechs in over 90 countries.
Their digital financial solutions include digital banking, digital wallet, payment acceptance, electronic recharge, and voucher management solutions, catering to over one billion consumers.
Marketing strategies that work:
Comviva has a comprehensive marketing strategy, using a mix of marketing channels from email marketing to social media. Each marketing channel has its own use, importance, and target audience, which requires different strategies to effectively reach the right target audience.
Focus on thought leadership
Apart from sharing the latest technology developments and trends in the digital financial services domain, Comviva also focuses on social impact delivered by its deployments. Comviva’s flagship mobiquity® platform, powering over 70 digital financial services in over 50 countries, has played a significant role in increasing financial inclusion in multiple countries and has transformed the lives of millions of financially excluded people.
Comviva has brought forward this transformative impact at panel discussions, events or through blogs, social media posts, and newsletters, helping the market understand the relevance of its products. In 2019, Srinivas Nidugondi, the COO of Digital Financial Solutions at Comviva, participated in a high-level UNDP event, Digital Future of Development, at the United Nations Headquarters and spoke about how digital finance combined with other technologies are enhancing peoples’ lives. Simultaneously, Comviva also released a special book containing case studies on how digital financial services are helping in achieving UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Targeted social media campaigns
Comviva works in over 90 countries which vary drastically. Whenever an opportunity arises, Comviva does targeted campaigns on social media channels like LinkedIn with relevant content created and promoted specifically to a particular client or region.
Scientific approach to marketing
Comviva analyses the results of its marketing efforts and continues with what works well. An in-house e-mail marketing tool helps Comviva identify which content has more views, clicks and is liked by the audience. To maintain a high engagement rate, similar kinds of content will be published in the future.
Predictions for 2021:
Byte Size video content
With the advent of COVID-19, people lack the time to consume the large amounts of video content generated, such as webinars and digital events. Hence, Mohit predicts that companies are shifting to bite-sized video content which delivers messages in a short time and is easy to consume.
Growth of data analytics tools
With the maturing of data analytics tools, interesting cases of data analytics are coming up, such as publishing a list of features that consumers use the most and least in a digital banking or wallet app, or a list of articles that have been read the most in a year. All these give a clear sense of where the market is moving towards.
Trend of community marketing
A new trend of virtual meet-ups on social media platforms is gaining traction in the technology industry, including the Fintech industry, where people discuss trends in the industry, get expert advice, showcase their product demos, get real-time feedback from users, and even get referrals.
Mohit Bhargava
Deputy General Manager, Product Marketing for the Digital Financial Solutions, Comviva
Bio:
With over thirteen years of work experience in product marketing and research in the telecom and digital financial services domains, Mohit’s areas of function primarily include evangelizing Comviva’s digital financial products and their impact on transforming the financial landscape globally.
Mohit is an avid believer of “technology for good” and has contributed to various online and print publications on the subject, including GSMA, Fintech Circle, The Hindu Business Line, and Irish Tech News. He is one of the co-authors of ‘The PAYTECH Book’ from Fintech Circle, the first crowdsourced book on payment technologies and new business models in the global payment sector published by Wiley in 2019. He is also the content curator of Comviva’s quarterly digital financial services e-magazine titled ‘Vritti’.
Surer
About Surer:
A fast-growing Insurtech business with a market-first technology that helps all parties in the General Insurance segment automate processes and drive network collaborations.
Marketing strategies that work:
Surer makes use of a marketing playbook that covers several channels that they leverage for different purposes – all of which feeds into a continuous loop, creating a flywheel effect that feeds on each other. Broadly, they have two objectives:
1. Reaching new potential users:
Content
Generating original content, pertinent to an Insurance Intermediary, gives a reason to continuously interact with potential users without being overly pushy. Maintaining a blog to publish articles helps users gain more knowledge while subtly reminding them of Surer’s solutions, with CTAs to sign up. By engaging with industry platforms or influencers, it is possible to leverage their platforms of relevant audiences to share the Surer message.
One of the most successful uses of content is through webinars, where they allow both existing and potential users to join, earn their CPD Hours, and upskill at the same time. This has become a healthy source of leads to share the company’s message, while also value-adding. Webinars have given them over 80% increase in leads since they first started.
Social
Surer uses LinkedIn to disseminate the above mentioned content and to engage potential users directly. Facebook has also been a good channel albeit less effective since they are focusing more on B2B marketing.
Earned Media (Media Releases)
Surer has worked on partnerships and initiatives that give them a good reason to engage the media and value-add to their users at the same time. Media coverage then becomes a channel for more awareness and broader reach.
2. Engaging a user:
Direct
With successful engagement from the above mentioned channels, Surer continues to keep users engaged with a cadence of weekly newsletters and telegram channels, through daily sharing of aggregated news amongst other things.
Incentives and Valued-added Services
Surer fuels this engagement with short tactical campaigns providing incentives and value-added services to drive urgency. Essentially, once a new user is reached, they continue an engagement cadence. With this, they then introduce more users who then fall into the first objective, thus allowing for the flywheel effect.
Predictions for 2021:
While this is not something new or novel, Gordon believes that the insurance industry is hungry for knowledge and different ways in which parties can keep themselves abreast of the wonders of technology.
Insurtech or Fintech is no longer just a buzzword but now something that is seriously considered for solving pinpoints of process inefficiencies and business scalability.
Rise of digital channels
He believes that this has been accelerated by the pandemic. While unfortunate, it is something that has forced the industry to be more receptive to digital transformation. This is so for marketing in the Fintech space as well. A case in point would be the rise of webinars (which is unheard of and likely not be entertained without the pandemic).
Ultimately, Gordon believes that technology will be a very pertinent topic to craft content on for engagement and should be the starting point for building a marketing funnel.
Gordon Tay
Co-Founder, Surer
Bio:
Gordon accumulated over ten years of marketing and business growth experience at 2 SEA unicorns, PropertyGuru and Carousell. He specialises in product marketing and monetisation strategies; building growth programs from the ground-up and is also a certified Scrum Product Owner and Scrum Master.
TradingView
About TradingView:
The world’s leading social network for traders and investors, using the world’s best charts and analysis tools to spot opportunities in global markets.
Marketing strategies that work:
Use of collectible merchandise
TradingView launched Trader Tarot Cards as an April Fools’ Day prank and saw noticeable success. Hundreds of users asked to purchase it and even told them that the joke was on them because they lost revenue by not selling it.
Collectible merchandise resonates strongly with their users as seen when TradingView built up a cult following on their social channels by occasionally giving away the ‘TradingView Mug’ (simply a mug with the TradingView logo on it). They are actively looking to further expand this, not only to engage their existing customers but also as an initiative to achieve wider social media awareness.
Predictions for 2021:
“Just because” marketing
James predicts growth in “just because” marketing – where brands purposefully dial up the randomness and WTF-nature of their marketing just because they can. This randomness is meant to catch attention and be seen as funny, with many sectors engaging in it, from food to cars.
“Just cuz” marketing
However, after the organic Gamestop saga, Wall Street Bets, the rise of TikTok and the recent Dogecoin wars, James believes that more Fintech brands are interested in cultural codes of the “just cuz” movement and predicts more of such marketing campaigns in the Fintech space in time to come.
James Maddison
Chief Marketing Officer, TradingView
Bio:
James has had many years of marketing experience under his belt. Prior to his job at TradingView, he was the Head of Content Marketing for iwoca and a Senior Content Strategist at NewsCred before that.
Bambu
About Bambu:
A global B2B digital wealth tech provider based in Singapore who develops digital wealth management solutions for financial institutions that help their users save and invest for the future.
Marketing strategies that work:
A non-traditional approach to B2B marketing
Bambu tends to steer away from the traditional marketing strategies, such as White Papers or Industry Reports to generate leads, as they were not working for them. They had to be creative and cost-effective with their marketing efforts given that they are a startup, which led them to create fun content that one would not normally associate with B2B Fintech companies.
If something was not working, they would stop, rethink the strategy, and pivot the idea. At Bambu, they believe that it is better to fail at something new than to continue to invest time and money into something that will not show results.
Branding through podcasts and videos
Over the past year, their marketing strategy focused on creating a strong brand through relevant and interesting content, not only for their target audience but also for the industry as a whole.
They launched their company podcast (WealthTech Unwrapped) in 2020, hosted by Daniela and CEO, Ned Phillips. Since then, they have published over 30 episodes, hosted over 25 guests and had 5,000 downloads. Not only has this led to interesting conversations and taught them valuable lessons about their own industry, but it has also brought in leads from big financial institutions.
They also launched two LinkedIn video series, WealthTech Digest (a news bite weekly show) and a panel discussion (where they speak to industry experts all around the world). They post around six to nine videos per week and can receive up to 1,000 views per episode.
These productions are mostly used in organic posts, where apart from the investment in equipment and resources, they are not putting much money into the distribution. With two more shows in the works, Bambu hopes that they can provide some industry insights in a more fun and light-hearted way.
Sticking to basics with Google search campaigns
Although setting up an ongoing Google Search campaign may not be as exciting, it definitely delivers results. The purchasing cycle for products can take months in some cases due to the nature of the decision-making process financial institutions have. To make sure that potential clients can engage with the brand across multiple platforms over time, they modify the content clients interact with to cater to their preferences, behaviours, and decision-making process.
Recognition through events
Continuous participation in events, competitions, and accelerators has allowed them to grow so much in just 5 years. People are impressed when they see how many awards Bambu has won, but they do not see just how many the company has applied to. They had multiple rejections and losses, but by trial and error, it paid off when they clinched the coveted awards. These events and programs all translate to name recognition, media coverage, as well as meeting key people in the industry who can then become partners or clients.
Predictions for 2021:
Multi-prong approach in marketing channels used
Daniela predicts that personalisation with AI is a major tool that one will see in Fintech marketing. Whether it is smart chatbots on websites, personalised emails, or direct messaging across platforms, AI opens the door to next-level marketing. However, AI may not be accessible to small companies and startups with limited resources.
Thus, at Bambu, they are catering to all forms of preferred interactions with their brand and content, with something for everyone. One cannot merely rely on one type of content platform to interact with customers as they expect options and consistency.
Additionally, Bambu will be creating a second website, Bambu Media Hub, launching in Q3 of 2021, to house all their Bambu series, podcasts, blogs, and other content-focused resources.
Shifting emphasis to short and compelling videos
Daniela predicts that another major trend will be video marketing. Most social media platforms are pushing and prioritizing video content. Brands know that to stay relevant, they need to produce interesting, short, and compelling videos. They can then transcribe the audio from videos and create bitesize content, such as social media posts, simple infographics, and images. This means that B2B marketing is starting to adopt B2C techniques, getting smarter, more personalised, more emotional, and overall more interesting than it has traditionally been.
Daniela Galarza
Digital Marketing Specialist, Bambu
Bio:
Daniela, originally from Ecuador, came to Singapore three years ago to join the Bambu team and since then has held several roles in the company, including in Talent Acquisition and Marketing. She now co-hosts a podcast with the company founder and is producing other Bambu media content.
Sustainability, human connection and creativity are some of her passions as she strives to develop engaging and compelling marketing campaigns that inspire and build on the strength of the brand.
We would like to thank every company and expert that has contributed their valuable insights to this expert roundup guide. We hope that after reading this guide, you’ll be able to glean some knowledge on Fintech digital marketing and understand the current and upcoming trends in the market.
If you enjoyed reading this guide, do share it around with others. Please feel free to get in touch with us if you’d like to contribute to the guide as well!