Where To Begin With Fintech Ads
According to some sources, as few as 14% of Americans know about how Fintech companies operate, much less what they are. This makes advertising for Fintech companies an interesting topic. Companies who aren’t in this niche could be missing out on some valuable marketing techniques that other companies are using to stay ahead of the game.
Today, we’re going to explain the basics of Fintech, look at examples, and end with some advice. Don’t miss out on these tips!
What’s Fintech Advertising?
A fairly new industry, Fintech is shorthand for Financial Technology. Essentially, this niche and its associated advertising attempts to boost activities in finances. In this guide, we’re going to explore three platforms and examine what they’re doing to help brands advertise their services: whether it be online and mobile payments, financial management, or alternative finance.
Examples of Fintech Marketing on Facebook, Google, and YouTube/Quora
In recent times, these platforms have been hubs for all forms of digital marketing, including Fintech advertising. Let’s look at some examples.
Ellevest — To start, we want to draw your attention to Ellevest. After launching, it became apparent that they had a clear focus on the female market with a new money-management service. Since traditional investment options seemed to exclude women, the service aimed to make investing more accessible for this market. Considering the gender gap, the owners thought this would be an important move.
Nearly immediately, Ellevest gained attention for its pushy marketing strategies. Some might say they were controversial. The marketing channels they chose were as traditional as they come, with huge posters displayed in phone booths and kiosks around New York. However, the content was anything but traditional.
With a silhouette of Trump, one poster read; ‘Women of New York: Cover your a$$.’ Over the coming weeks, more and more women in New York were taking selfies in front of the posters, and the company was at the center of a huge social media campaign.
Meanwhile, they also had a Facebook campaign with similar results. They told women; ‘No Bull: Invest Like a Woman.’ Rather than simply informing women of their service, Ellevest attempted to empower their target audience while helping them to look at their investments in a new way.
TransferWise — As we head to Google and their ad platform, we find TransferWise, a money transfer service. Many companies were struggling to make money transfer cheap and simple, but TransferWise seemed to find the balance well. Considering that they now have three million users, you would think that their advertising campaigns were expensive and extravagant. In reality, they only mentioned three main details:
- Low fees
- International money transfers
- Transfers in all major currencies
In fact, the simple ad also managed to squeeze in a quick line about the referral program. With ‘invite a friend earn $20,’ the ad had everything it needed to pique interest. There were no long explanations, no confusing descriptions, and a referral bonus to top it off.
Square Cash — The second example of Fintech on Google is Square Cash (sometimes referred to as Cash App). With this service, users are able to send money to other people through the app. Despite the app only being a few years old, they boast around seven million users. This is thanks to, in part, their clever Google ads strategy. Interestingly, they didn’t even run an ad specifically for the Cash App. Instead, they ran more general ads about their products including Square Stand and Square Reader.
Quora/YouTube
While exploring Fintech ads, you will hear a lot about Google and Facebook. However, we want to bring your attention to Quora and YouTube as well. These days, customers are asking questions before buying products or even downloading apps. If you can get a presence on these platforms, you will be seen as a leader in your market, which will help stimulate interest about your brand and products.
In any given month, around 300 million users are using Quora, yet not too many outsiders realize the popularity of the platform. As a question and answer service, it allows brands to be a part of the community and come across as an authoritative source. With the ad platform, your service will appear when people are asking relevant questions.
After launching campaigns, Quora is perfect for summaries and spending reviews. On the main page, you’ll see your spending separated into conversions, clicks, impressions, and spend. Here’s some tips for getting Quora advertising right:
- Update your bio (and make it interesting!)
- Track topics relevant to your business
- Answer the right questions
- Find a voice for your brand
- Answer with authority and a genuine passion for the topic
- Keep reviewing the data
- Connect with users
YouTube is another strong platform in Fintech advertising. Especially considering that users actively watch videos, you can be confident that a solid percentage will engage with your ad. As long as it is relevant to what they’re already watching, there’s little reason why you can’t see positive results.
In truth, YouTube is very similar to Quora because you can also upload videos, comment on other videos, and participate in a community where you stand out as a leader. You can educate the audience (more on this in a moment), and people will soon see you as an industry leader.
Getting Fintech Marketing Right — Top Tips
As promised, we want to finish up with important tips for Fintech marketing, whether you’re a Fintech startup, or another business that wants to learn more about this growing niche.
Know Your Value
You have a valuable service that your target market needs. If you don’t know your value, how will you convince anyone else of it? Before doing any advertising, work out your unique selling point (USP) and why your clients should choose you over every other service in this growing market.
Understand the Regulations
With the Fintech boom happening right now, regulations seem to only be growing. Since you’re essentially in charge of the financial future and assets of customers, this is a good thing. Therefore, you need to understand the regulations and ensure that you don’t fall foul with either your products or advertising campaigns.
Become a Teacher
Let’s not forget, more often than not people are actually looking for guidance. Even in the world of Fintech, you have an opportunity to become a leader through content marketing and advertising. You can educate people about your corner of the market, regulations, jurisdiction, and other relevant topics.
In Fintech, it seems that downloads are a big hit. As well as generating leads, a good download will help you answer the questions of your target market. An example of the type of download we would recommend is an extensive guide or whitepaper. Although it will require an upfront investment, the return will definitely come.
Learn Your Audience
By learn your audience, we really mean understand everything about them. No matter your business type, you need to be able to draw up a customer profile. If you can’t do this, how will you steer your advertising efforts in the right direction? As you start to tailor your products and your marketing content, you will see results.
Perform Keyword Research
One of the biggest problems with Fintech marketing and SEO? People don’t know that it exists, and therefore they don’t know what to search. At the moment, you have an answer to a question that consumers aren’t asking. You need to be creative and think about the keywords your prospective consumers might use in order to find your business. What are they asking at the moment when your business could provide the answer?
Eventually, Fintech will be a larger industry; but for now, we need to get creative.
Additional Tips
To finish, we have three rapid-fire tips:
- Focus on the top of the funnel — As a new industry, there aren’t too many people ready to make a decision. Instead, you need to be at the discovery stage.
- Reach out to Gen X and Y — Most Fintech companies seem to be focusing exclusively on Millennials. While they certainly form a large part of the market, you should also target Gen X and Gen Y.
- Use speaking platforms — We’ve spoken mainly of digital advertising today, but we can’t encourage you enough to take advantage of speaking opportunities. Whether at a live event, a lecture, or on a podcast, use your voice and prove that you’re a leader in the industry.