TABLE OF CONTENTS

Challenges Fintechs Face with PR, Marketing, and Sales

PR Challenges

1. Complex Topics: Fintechs often deal with intricate and highly technical subjects. Communicating these effectively to a broader audience, including the media, can be challenging. Simplifying complex ideas without losing the essence or detail is crucial.
2. Thought Leadership Positioning: Establishing and maintaining thought leadership requires a consistent stream of high-quality content and engagement. Competing with other firms for media attention and credibility can be tough.
3. Media Relations: Building and sustaining strong relationships with journalists and analysts is time-consuming and requires ongoing effort. The media often covers a wide range of topics and may not have the depth of understanding needed for complex topics.

Marketing Challenges

1. Differentiation: In a crowded market, standing out from other Fintechs is difficult. Many firms offer similar services, and articulating unique value propositions can be challenging.
2. Content Marketing: Creating compelling and relevant content that addresses the needs and pain points of target audiences requires a deep understanding of those audiences and the ability to produce a variety of content types. You need to be tuned into the buyer’s journey.
3. Lead Generation: Effectively generating and nurturing leads through various stages of the sales funnel involves aligning marketing strategies with sales goals and ensuring collaboration between the two functions.

Sales Challenges

1. Long Sales Cycles: Your services often involve long sales cycles, which require sustained engagement and relationship building. This can strain resources and make it difficult to forecast revenue accurately.
2. Communicating Value: Clearly articulating the value and ROI of your services to potential clients, who may be focused on cost, can be challenging. Demonstrating tangible outcomes and differentiators is crucial.
3. Client Relationships: Maintaining and growing client relationships over time requires consistent communication and value delivery. Firms must balance acquiring new clients with servicing existing ones.

Communication Challenges

1. Complex Messaging: Fintechs need to communicate complex topics clearly and effectively. This involves breaking down sophisticated concepts into understandable messages for various stakeholders, including clients, media, and analysts – all audiences have different needs.
2. Integrated Messaging Strategy: Ensuring that all communication channels (e.g., PR, marketing, sales) deliver a cohesive message that aligns with the firm’s overall positioning and strategic goals can be challenging.
3. Global Communication: For firms operating in multiple regions, tailoring messages to different cultural and market contexts while maintaining a consistent brand voice is a significant challenge.
4. Stakeholder Engagement: Engaging various stakeholders—clients, prospects, media, analysts, and employees—with relevant and timely information requires a well-coordinated communication strategy.

Overcoming these Challenges

PR Strategies

1. Simplifying Complexity: Use storytelling techniques to simplify complex topics. Case studies, analogies, and visual media can make sophisticated concepts more accessible.
2. Building Influencer Relationships: Invest in building and nurturing relationships with key journalists and analysts. Provide them with valuable insights, data, and exclusive access to enhance your firm's visibility.
3. Consistent Thought Leadership: Develop a thought leadership calendar to ensure a steady stream of high-quality content. Engage in speaking opportunities, webinars, and industry events to reinforce your position.

Marketing Strategies

1. Unique Value Proposition: Clearly define and communicate your unique value proposition. Highlight differentiators through case studies, testimonials, and data-driven results.
2. Content Marketing: Develop a robust content marketing strategy that addresses the pain points and needs of your target audience. Use the different formats at your disposal like blogs, whitepapers, videos, and webinars.
3. Integrated Campaigns: Align marketing efforts with sales objectives. Use integrated campaigns that guide prospects through the sales funnel with relevant content and touchpoints.

Sales Strategies

1. Shortening Sales Cycles: Implement account-based marketing (ABM) to focus efforts on high-value targets. Use data and insights to personalize outreach and build stronger relationships faster.
2. Communicating ROI: Develop clear ROI calculators and case studies that showcase the tangible benefits of your services. Use these tools in sales conversations to highlight value.
3. Client Retention: Implement a robust client relationship management (CRM) system to track and manage client interactions. Regular check-ins and value-added services can help maintain and grow relationships.

Communication Strategies

1. Clear Messaging Frameworks: Develop messaging frameworks that simplify complex topics. Use consistent language and visual aids to ensure clarity across all communication channels.
2. Integrated Communication Plans: Align PR, marketing, and sales messages through an integrated communication plan. Ensure all departments are on the same page regarding key messages and strategic goals.
3. Localised Communication: Tailor messages to fit local contexts while maintaining a consistent global brand voice. Use local insights and cultural nuances to enhance relevance and impact.

PR and Marketing Strategies for Fintechs

Our approach to PR is grounded in understanding your challenges and objectives. We follow a structured process to ensure impactful and measurable results:

1. Interrogate the Goals: We start by taking a hard look at what it is you need to achieve as a business. We aim to ask the right questions to fully comprehend the objectives, challenges, and goals. We make it our business to understand the WHY of the PR and marketing programme.
2. Insight and Foresight from Data: Once we understand the why, we turn to data for insights and foresight, analysing trends, patterns, and behaviours of your target audience to make informed decisions that drive impactful strategies.
3. Understand Your Audience: Identifying the needs, preferences, and pain points of your audience to tailor messages and approaches accordingly.
4. Identify Opportunities and Messaging: Our approach to PR ensures we are leaning into the messages that resonate with your audience, ensuring our communications are both relevant and engaging.
5. Use Culturally Relevant Insight to Creativity: Integrating culturally relevant insights to create authentic and impactful content that speaks to your audience's values and experiences.
6. Map Creativity Against Buyer Journey: Aligning creativity with the buyer journey to enhance the effectiveness of our efforts at each stage.
7. Execute: Implementing plans with precision, ensuring every detail is meticulously managed to achieve desired outcomes.
8. Measure: Analysing performance data to assess the effectiveness of our strategies and identify areas for improvement, ensuring continuous growth and success.

Engaging with Industry Media for Fintechs

Building and maintaining strong relationships with journalists and influencers can really help you to be found, known and to attract new clients. As the technology landscape evolves rapidly, so do the journalists covering the sector. Engaging effectively with these media professionals can significantly enhance your PR efforts and help establish your firm as a thought leader in the industry.

Here are some tips on getting this right:

Identify Influencers

Create a comprehensive list of influential journalists, bloggers, and industry analysts who cover topics relevant to you. This list should include those who write about the technology you support, but also the businesses you are targeting. If you have a penchant for retail, manufacturing or maybe, public sector, you should be targeting journalists on those beats.

1. Research Key Publications: Identify the top industry publications and the journalists who regularly contribute to them.
2. Follow Industry Trends: Stay updated with the latest industry news and trends to identify emerging influencers.
3. Leverage Social Media: Use platforms like LinkedIn and X (formerly Twitter) to find and follow influential voices in your industry.

Personalise Outreach

Effective media engagement requires a personalised approach. Understand the needs and interests of each journalist to tailor your outreach efforts accordingly.

1. Understand Their Audience: Research the journalist’s audience to ensure your pitch is relevant and valuable to their readers.
2. Tailor Your Pitch: Customise each pitch to address the specific interests and beats of the journalist. Generic pitches are less likely to get noticed.
3. Build Relationships: Invest time in building genuine relationships with journalists. Engage with their work on social media and provide thoughtful feedback.

Provide Value

Offer journalists exclusive insights, data, and access to key executives to make your pitches more compelling.

1. Share Unique Data: Provide data and insights that are not readily available elsewhere. This can help journalists add depth to their stories.
2. Offer Executive Access: Arrange interviews with your firm’s executives to provide expert commentary and deeper insights.
3. Be a Resource: Position your firm as a reliable source of information and insights. This can lead to journalists reaching out to you for future stories.

Rapid Response and Newsjacking

The Importance of Rapid Response

Once you know your key messaging, storytelling narrative, and key themes along with your differentiators, you can identify rapid response opportunities to insert your voice into the news agenda. Newsjacking involves leaning into *relevant* current events or breaking news to gain media attention and increase your brand’s visibility.

However, effective newsjacking isn't just about reacting to breaking news stories; it's also about anticipating and preparing for upcoming news, a strategy we can call "Projacking."

1. Identify Relevant News: Stay updated on industry news and trends to quickly identify stories where your expertise can add value.
2. Craft Quick Response Statements: Prepare rapid response statements that align with your key messaging and are ready to be deployed at a moment’s notice.
3. Pitch to Journalists: Reach out to journalists covering the story with your insights and comments, enhancing the news with your expert perspective.

Resonance will build out a bank of content that can be used with speed and precision, ensuring brand awareness increases rapidly and that you are being noticed as thought leaders in your target topics/industries.

Check out our case study with Civo to see how we've used content banks to secure national coverage.

Forward Features

Forward features are planned editorial opportunities where journalists seek expert commentary for future stories. Identifying these opportunities in advance allows you to position your firm as a go-to resource for expert insights.

1. Monitor Editorial Calendars: Keep track of upcoming feature topics in relevant publications.
2. Proactive Outreach: Reach out to journalists with your expert commentary well ahead of the publication deadlines.
3. Content Bank: Build a content bank of pre-approved statements, data points, and case studies to ensure quick and efficient responses to media inquiries.

Newsjacking can be quite a daunting task. Check out our five tips to ensure you're successful here.

Positioning as Thought Leaders

Everyone wants to be a thought leader. And there’s a reason. Positioning as experts can help you gain credibility and trust of your prospects. This is necessary for sales. It helps your prospect visualise the work you’ll do together.

It enables you to showcase how you’ll help them today and tomorrow. It helps you take them on a journey.

1. Thought Leadership: Develop and share insightful content that highlights your understanding of industry trends, challenges, and solutions. Blogs, whitepapers, and case studies are excellent mediums to demonstrate expertise.
2. Social Proof: Back up claims with robust social proof. Highlight successful client engagements, including testimonials, case studies, and industry awards. This builds credibility and trust with potential clients.
3. Engagement: Actively engage with industry events, webinars, and forums to share insights and connect with potential clients. This not only reinforces your authority but also keeps you abreast of the latest developments and shows that you are at the heart of your community.
4. Transparency and Ethics: Ensure that your marketing communications reflect a commitment to ethical practices. Transparency in how services are provided and their benefits and limitations can help build long-term trust with clients.

Profiling

Engaging with Events for PR Opportunities

Maximising Event Participation

Conferences, partner events, and analyst events all provide valuable PR opportunities for fintechs. Leveraging these events effectively can significantly enhance your visibility and establish your thought leadership in the industry.

1. Event Selection and Negotiation: We can advise and assist with finding suitable events and negotiating the best packages for you. This ensures that you get the most value out of your participation.
2. Speaking Opportunities: Many events offer speaking slots. We can help identify these opportunities and prepare your spokesperson to deliver impactful presentations. This positions your firm as an authority on key industry topics.
3. Press Engagement: During events, we can identify the press attending and set up interviews at your stand or informally in a coffee area. This maximises your time at the event and ensures you gain valuable media coverage.

By effectively engaging with events, you can amplify your PR efforts, connect with key stakeholders, and reinforce your market presence. For more on why events are valuable for journalists, check out this blog.  

Integrated PR Campaigns

The Importance of Integrated Campaigns

An integrated PR strategy ensures that all marketing efforts are aligned and reinforce each other. Resonance's integrated campaign methodology drives measurable results by ensuring that every channel supports others. This means aligning your website, social media, SEO, and paid media efforts to create a cohesive and powerful message.

1. Hero Asset and Pillar Pages: Develop a hero asset, such as a comprehensive guide or whitepaper, and build a 10x pillar page around it. This page should be designed to rank highly in search engines by being ten times better than the highest-ranking content for that search term.
2. Cluster Content: Support the pillar page with related blog posts, case studies, and social media content. This cluster content will enhance the relevance and authority of your pillar page, driving more organic traffic to your website.
3. Ongoing Measurement and Optimisation: Use data to understand what’s working and what’s not. Continuously try new things and refine your strategies based on performance metrics

FE FUNDINFO CASE STUDY HERE TBC

Analyst Relations

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