The complete guide to inbound marketing for fintech startups

Global investment in fintech has more than trebled in the last five years and innovative companies have benefited from increased government support. The number of businesses attempting to succeed in the sector has multiplied, making it harder to stand out.

How do fintech startups market their solution to a wider audience when so many competitors – often with a higher budget – are trying to do the same?

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The benefits of inbound marketing

The days of cold-calling – a form of outbound marketing – are over. Instead, the growth of search engines, greater consumer choice, and the immediacy of digital solutions has resulted in inbound marketing becoming the most effective digital marketing strategy to attract new business.

More cost-effective

Inbound leads cost 61% less than outbound leads on average, and the average cost per lead drops by 80% after 5 months of rolling out an inbound strategy. Blogs, social media and organic search content are some of the most effective strategies in the fintech space, and the cheapest to produce.

Builds consumer trust

According to research of B2B decision-makers prefer to do their own research. Valuable, educational content gives consumers the information they really need, helping them make an informed decision about your brand and remain loyal.

Makes your fintech startup a more viable option for investors

According to Business Insider, major investors want to “understand the product being built...and how scalable it is”. An effective inbound marketing strategy develops as your business grows, nurturing leads and turning them into long-term customers.

Creates intelligent data

Inbound campaigns provide segmented, intelligent data which can be used to understand the wants, needs, and behaviours of your existing and potential customers. Nurtured leads buy 47% more often.

Inbound marketing best practices

SEO

61% of marketers are making SEO a number one priority.

Primarily, SEO has always included keyword research and link building in various forms. However, as Google’s algorithms are changing all the time, SEO never stands still. One thing remains though - your customers are searching for an answer to their problem in Google right now. If you don't appear as the solution, you're not going to be generating many leads.

High quality content is the key to effective, lasting SEO - the average word count of first-page results is now 1,890. Google crawls pages for content length, relevance, authority, and how well it links to other sources. Fintech is a dynamic industry which presents plenty of opportunity for thorough, consistently updated, value-adding content.

Blogging

47% of potential buyers will read 3-5 pieces of content before considering speaking to a sales advisor.

Blogging has three major benefits - it helps brands rank for search terms, ensures content is regularly updated, and communicates to visitors you're a thought leader in your sector. Even updating years old blog posts and repurposing them can increase organic traffic by 111%.

Planning is key when you're developing a fintech blogging strategy. Tap into your keyword research and find out what specific pain points and problems you can address. Find out what your competitors are doing well and what they’re missing.

Audience retargeting

Customers who see retargeting ads are 70% more likely to convert because they’re already familiar with your brand, and 26% of total retargeted visitors will convert. If you’re not retargeting, you’re potentially losing a huge amount of potential customers.

By making use of cookies on your site, you can keep tabs on your website traffic and target ads through social media and the Google Display Network. These users are more likely to become paying customers.

The more refined your retargeting, the more you can tailor relevant advertising to the most relevant group of customers, maximising the chances of conversion.

Pay Per Click (PPC) ads

Inbound marketing is organic – users discover you, rather than you explicitly selling to them. However, PPC ads are still an effective way to target prospects across a variety of channels when used in combination with inbound.

Highly targeted PPC ads can increase lead conversions by 50% compared to purely organic traffic, and 52% of ecommerce shoppers will click on PPC ads. If targeted well, they can appear right in front of potential customers when they’re ready for their questions to be answered.

Managing a PPC account effectively means balancing keyword competitiveness, distributing budget effectively, writing the most compelling ad copy, and linking to the most targeted landing pages.

Other inbound marketing methods include:

Email marketing

Did you know that customers who buy through email spend 138% more than those who don’t?

[http://www.convinceandconvert.com/convince-convert/15-email-statistics-that-are-shaping-the-future/] That's because, as opposed to outbound marketing, where you're trying to reach as many new people as possible - including a large percentage who won't be interested in what you have to offer - inbound email marketing focuses on building relationships with those you have identified as likely leads, for example through targeting specific buyer personas, using personalisation and creating shareable content to communicate your expertise.

Video marketing

Businesses using video to communicate with their customers grow 49% faster than businesses that don’t.

[https://www.vidyard.com/blog/infographic-marketers-who-use-video-outperform-their-peers/] That's no surprise: video is a great way to get across key information in a stimulating way and, the best thing is, you can use it for almost anything! Whether you need to give your customers a demo of your new financial product, or you're looking for a way to promote your company through giving your customers a peek behind the scenes of what goes on at your offices, video can easily create an emotional connection and encourage people to see you as the right product or service for them.

Social media marketing

55% of B2B buyers look for company information on social media before making a purchase.

[ https://www.vividfish.co.uk/blog/55-of-b2b-buyers-search-for-information-on-social-media] Social media is a great way to attract both new and returning customers. To make your social media inbound marketing efforts a success you need to portray yourself as an expert or thought leader in your field, and a great way to do this is through the creation and promotion of great content, whether through owned (your dedicated social channels), paid (advertising) or earned social media (gained through others sharing and talking about your content).

Brand activation

Brand activation is all about getting your brand name 'out there'. When you first started your company, no-one knew you were: you had to 'activate' yourselves by promoting your brand and giving your potential customers a memorable experience. Brand activation doesn't stop once you're up and running, though: whether it's through experiential marketing, sampling campaigns or in-store brand activation, you should always be looking for ways to make your brand stick in someone's head. Some great examples in the world of fintech can be found here: https://gomedici.com/10-best-marketing-campaigns-and-stunts-from-the-fintech-industry/

What works best for you will soon become apparent, but it's recommended that you use a combination of the above.

The inbound marketing funnel

How are customers going to arrive at your site? What do you want them to do when they get there? How are you going to convert them?

Customer journey will depend on the service you provide, the pages visited, how regularly you want buyers to return to your service, and what kind of buyer they are. A relatively low value B2C purchase will have a very different customer journey to a more high value, long-term B2B service.

HubSpot’s inbound methodology provides the blueprint:

Stage 1 - Attract

The inbound marketing process of converting strangers to site visitors. They might find you through a variety of means, fuelled by your SEO efforts, social media strategy, content offers, PPC, and more.

Stage 2 - Convert

Anonymous visitors start to become identifiable leads through dedicated landing pages, clear calls to action, and contact forms to help them register interest in what you have to offer.

Stage 3 - Close

The conversion gradually becomes a service user. This is often managed through email workflows which nurture the individual, educate them, and demonstrate what your product or service can do for them.

Stage 4 - Delight

The funnel doesn't stop when the sale is secured. This is where you convince your customers to become your promoters and regular customers, by encouraging repeat business through relevant conversations and content.

Inbound marketing tools

HubSpot

Growth software offering lead generation, marketing automation, and more. HubSpot has over 40,000 customers across 90 countries, and one of the best tools available. Take a look at what they did for fintech businesses Paytrail and Intelliflo.

Google Adwords

Online advertising across the Google network, and you only pay when a site visitor clicks your ad or makes an enquiry through your ad. Advertise globally or locally and appear in targeted, relevant searches.

Analytics

Measure your site visitors, discover when and where they’re leaving you, and how they find you in the first place. These insights are crucial for measuring the success of your inbound methodology, PPC results, and email marketing campaigns, and developing your strategy.

INBOUND FINTECH

We're a specialist PPC, content, and inbound marketing agency, working exclusively with technology and fintech brands and startups. We’re a HubSpot Diamond Certified Partner, and won a Google Partner Award for our PPC services in 2016.

Start generating quality inbound leads for your fintech startup. For a free, 45-minute KPI/website/AdWords audit, fill in the form below.

Inbound Fintech delivered fantastic outreach during one of our major global campaigns, one that was multi country and ran across various product lines . Their dedication to results that are relevant to our objectives partnered with their in-depth knowledge of inbound marketing is exceptional.

Nihal Abughattas, Head of Global Campaigns, Temenos

Inbound Fintech has been instrumental in setting up our inbound marketing strategy and increasing our lead generation from ad campaigns and organic search. We are continuously impressed with their level of service and consider them a key marketing partner in helping drive the business. They are not only proactive and responsive but also at the forefront of thought leadership in the inbound marketing space.

Nahil Hanna, Partnerships Manager, FinTech Galaxy

Inbound FinTech are creative, focused, intelligent, professional and driven on results. They are a pleasure to work with, and I cannot recommend them enough for any type of inbound or PPC digital marketing campaigns business' may need.

Becky Stables, Marketing Director at Vohkus

The Realization Group engaged IFT in September 2017 and within 3 months they had transformed our Inbound delivery capability. 
We continue to work with IFT as long-term partners.

Colin Slight, Founder, The Realization Group

Sheila and the team have been instrumental in identifying KPI''s and a roadmap from MVP to growth. They have been a long term partner of ours in all aspects of our marketing and continues to drive growth and strategy.

Steve Mandery, Founder ThinkU

We opted for the three months’ complete overhaul with Sheila and her highly efficient team removing the old parts from the broken watch (also known as our previous AdWords campaign) and putting it together piece by piece. Half way through the brief and our conversions have increased by 46% and our CPA (cost) ave decreased by 52% with more delights promised before we reach the end of the journey.

Peter Johnson, Senior Partner, London-Law