The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated adoption of electronic payments across consumer markets, including low-touch and contactless payment alternatives. Furthermore, increases in fees for traditional financial transactions, such as standard checks, further accelerated the push to implement new payment technologies. Moreover, the transition from cash payments to contactless payments in the B2C space has entered the B2B space. For example, via debit and credit cards, and mobile devices, including in industries outside of traditional finance sectors. This democratization of payments will continue its rapid acceleration into 2023, resulting in increased spending into the critical fintech required at every stage of the payment landscape, from processing to networking and data security.
For B2B marketers in the Fintech space, this opens up a wealth of opportunities to market to previously out of reach customers as more businesses outside of the traditional financial space start to embed digital and mobile payments into their organizations’ capabilities. However, marketing to companies and industries who are new to payments, let alone, the advanced digital and mobile fintech required to process them poses new challenges. In our article on marketing to B2B enterprise technology clients, we covered how to create clear, cohesive messaging to the right audience at the right time and place. In this article we’ll go over how to leverage that messaging and use content strategy to create sales and marketing content for all types of B2B fintech buyers.
2023 will see increased demand and spending on critical fintech technology
Straits Research’s market forecast report predicts the B2B payments market size will reach $2,515 billion by 2030 for a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10.8%. Moreover, Ben Ellis, SVP and Global Head of Visa B2B Connect claims the cross-border global payments market represents a $10 trillion opportunity as the need for digital solutions to accelerate payments that traditionally take days and are prohibitively expensive and inefficient.
The democratization of B2B payments trend will continue to accelerate the demand for real-time, fast, anywhere payments. As a result, the demand for the financial technology that’s critical at every stage of increasingly complex and modular global payment networks will continue to increase. In 2023, there will be a wealth of opportunities for new and existing Fintechs to develop solutions that will continue to democratize B2B payments as spending on new technology is projected to increase, including in organizations outside of banking and finance.
Traditional finance companies and those new to handling payments will need more than just the networks and solutions involved in processing payments. They also will need solutions to combat the security and fraud issues inherent to the transfer of money and data across multiple networks, including internationally. Moreover, as companies in all industries look to improve efficiency, increase value and lower costs, technology companies servicing the financial and payments industries will need to find new ways to market the software and services businesses needed to make financial transactions faster, safer and more convenient. Here’s how,
Use digital marketing to reach enterprise fintech customers
The fintech buyer journey is complex. There are multiple entry points, with purchasing committees made up of as many as 10 individuals. In 2023 and beyond, besides banks and other financial institutions, who understand finance and traditional payments models, there will be companies who are new to both payments and finance. Large banks may be more familiar with B2C mobile and digital payments, but still require a more nuanced understanding of how to adapt and apply that knowledge and experience to creating new advanced B2B national and global payments ecosystems. Regardless of the level of audience maturity in this area, fintech should use digital marketing to reach target audiences where they look for technology solutions – online.
How to lay the foundation for a successful digital marketing strategy
Align martech stacks
As we enter an economic downturn, fintech marketing must be precise to bring in a greater number of high-quality leads. Especially in fintech, where there’s increased pressure to prove marketing attribution. For this to happen, it’s critical to align your sales and marketing efforts at key touchpoints along the customer journey.
“Fintech CEOs are demanding that they know where their investments are spent and what the return is. That’s where martech alignment comes in. Surprisingly, about 80% of businesses aren’t doing it,” explains John Edelmann, Executive Director of Innovation and Client Development.
When you have alignment, you can track return on ad spend (ROAS) and return on investment (ROI), optimize and improve your campaigns to get the best returns. This starts by making sure your martech stack is set up correctly. This means your website, your CRM and your sales marketing automation tools.
If your digital transformation isn’t bringing in the outcomes you expect, your efforts may be out of alignment.
Use a data-driven marketing strategy
In addition ensuring martech stacks are aligned, financial businesses must use a data-driven digital marketing approach. To garner the data, you need to undertake everything from search engine optimization (SEO) to digital advertising, landing pages and content that generates leads and more importantly, sales, takes research.
To compete in the highly crowded and competitive fintech sector, a data-driven approach will uncover:
- Who your target audiences are online
- What keywords they search for online
- How easy or difficult it is to navigate your website
- What your competitors are doing online
- Where there are valuable opportunities to reach your prospects
- What type of content you need create in order to generate marketing qualified leads (MQLs), and nurture those leads to become sales qualified leads (SQLs) and ultimately convert those leads into sales.
When you integrate real data into your digital marketing strategy, you will target the right audience with the right message at the right time (in the buyer’s journey) on the right channels.
Craft content that connects with B2B fintech customers
Content is the fuel that powers your B2B fintech marketing engine. To reach fintech buyers online in 2023, you will need to create a wealth of organic content that includes blogs, articles, white papers, eBooks, social posts, videos, emails, etc. You will also need to develop creative advertising content, including digital display ads, social ads and video ads. Furthermore, you need to craft high-quality, engaging landing pages that align to your existing online and offline brand experience. More importantly, all the digital content you create must include messaging that connects with every member of the B2B fintech purchasing committee.
How to craft content that resonates with enterprise fintech buyers
During an economic downturn, customer dynamics shift and the long B2B sales cycle grows even longer and more complex. As everyone hunkers down to weather the recession, marketing must be narrowly targeted to get the best return on marketing dollars. Fintech businesses that base targets on pre-recession data (or assumptions) begin to miss their mark.
Base personas on data and research. Many businesses have the unfortunate conviction that they know the mindset of buyers and decision-makers. Your sales and customer service teams can help uncover the challenges, goals and driving factors that lead a decision-maker to a buying decision. But this is just a small piece of the buyer puzzle. To truly understand your customer, you need to perform research and analyze data for various decision-makers, businesses and verticals. And buyer personas aren’t one-and-done. In a down market, customer dynamics tend to shift to value-based solutions.
Use personas to develop on-target messaging. When your customer personas are on-target, you can develop on-target messaging. To communicate value in the competitive fintech sector, your messaging must be more strategic than ever before. You need to know how to speak to different decision makers in different verticals, with solutions for the specific geographies and climates.
Support your messaging with research, data, internal experts, partner experts, cross-promotional sharing, external validation, and in-market research. Business-minded decision-makers want to see real-world results that are statistically significant.
Accounts-based marketing (ABM). A highly targeted and highly personalized approach to customer acquisition is effective during a downturn. And it’s a strategy particularly suited to B2B fintech businesses. An effective ABM strategy makes it easier to track return on investment (ROI) and optimize campaigns, which means less wasted spend and lower risk.
Measure the success of your digital marketing efforts
Key to digital and content marketing success is measuring, analyzing and optimizing your campaigns. This means knowing which hard and soft key performance indicators (KPIs) to track, performing A/B tests on your digital campaigns, and using your martech stack to measure success. You can then adjust your campaigns to get the best results.
Measuring results is an ongoing endeavor. As markets and technologies evolve, so do buyer dynamics. There are also seasonal considerations. This is all to say that what worked last year, last month or yesterday may not work tomorrow. When you keep diligent metrics and understand what they mean, it becomes easier to optimize your campaigns accordingly.
Put fintech technology marketing strategies into action
To get the best possible returns on your fintech marketing investment, you must align your martech stack, and use a data-backed approach to tailor your marketing efforts to your target audience. You must then measure and adjust your efforts to ensure success in gaining an edge over your competitors.
If you’re looking for help with your marketing strategy, work with an established B2B agency that specializes in B2B marketing for fintech businesses. With over 20 years of marketing experience in the fintech industry, Elevation uses a data-backed process to understand your audience. We can align your martech stack, create targeted messaging and develop a digital marketing strategy that brings the results you expect. Contact us to learn more regarding how our marketing services can benefit your fintech business.