Finance, Meet Tech: Marketing Strategy At An Industry Intersection

It’s up to us as marketers to cut through which technology solutions are trendy vs. what investments are the most worthwhile given what we know about our customers’ behaviors.

By next year, Gartner analyst Laura McLellan predicts the CMO will spend more money on IT than the CIO. From my perspective, I think that’s a pretty safe bet. Marketing has always been a persuasive art, but in this day and age, technology is really the driver of marketing success—particularly in financial services technology (fintech), where the funnel is more complex than a typical e-commerce funnel.

Technology helps put the customer first by providing answers to such questions as, “What’s their need, how does our solution fit that need, and how is our marketing approach going to help us best share our message and solution?” Businesses are approached all the time with technology solutions, including marketing on the latest app or multichannel attribution solutions—and it’s up to us as marketers to cut through what’s trendy vs. what investments are the most worthwhile given what we know about our customers’ behaviors.

As a fintech company, the technology we invest in has either got to help us better reach our customers or help us better understand how we’re doing in terms of our messaging, relationship-building, and the bottom line. It is important to make substantial investments in technology to help our business make informed decisions, reach more customers, and measure our success, and we’re constantly seeing how our marketing strategy intersects with technology to make us as effective as possible.

Let’s dive into how to use technology to make marketing more effective.

Learning About Customers Never Stops

Putting the customer first means, as marketers, we can’t stop learning. That’s why marketers should be constantly evaluating what they offer and how their customers respond. Predictive analytics tools give marketing professionals real-time insight into how to engage potential customers. Leveraging technology to stay on top of multichannel marketing campaigns helps better apply the intelligence that is gathered to more effectively reach current and potential customers, regardless of whether those marketing efforts are online or offline.

Optimizing Marketing Channels Is A Top Priority

Whether it’s email marketing, digital marketing, offline direct response, or another channel, technology helps maximize the performance of every initiative. Using technology to manage and automate e-newsletters and other email marketing efforts with automation tools that save time can simplify how cross-channel marketing efforts are managed.

A CRM solution is critical today—but companies can’t stop there. Analytics tools help measure and evaluate a campaign’s successes and where it might struggle. Keeping on top of a complex marketing funnel doesn’t allow for guesswork. Marketing teams need insight into what initiatives are working and which aren’t. Analytics and reporting is a critical component to a successful data-driven marketing approach.

Web Presence Also Critical

Because most fintech firms are online, their websites are an indispensable piece of the puzzle and, for many, a hub of customer interaction for those who are ready to apply and those who want to learn more. A number of software tools are available to help learn about how customers interact with the website, and to test new ideas to improve the online experience and make adjustments.

Online chat is an option for customers who might have questions, but aren’t ready to speak with someone on the phone. Chat tools help build better online relationships and make websites more friendly.

First-class educational content that encourages organic visitors to a website is critically important. Measuring the impact of content marketing and SEO efforts can be challenging, which is why it’s important to use several different tools to help measure organic visits, the time visitors spend on site, how they engage with the sales process, and the like. The same is true for social media efforts.

Technology Helps Marketers Become Better

An investment in technology isn’t intended to replace the smart and creative people on a marketing team, but rather to help them become better at what they do. It helps them focus where they are likely to see the most success, maximize the value of every marketing interaction, and ultimately help more potential customers engage with their companies and marketing messages.

What’s more, as marketing departments increasingly rely on technology to become better marketers, it’s more important than ever to have good relationships with the tech teams who have become essential to integrating all this technology they’re using. I’m convinced this increased level of cross-functional cooperation benefits companies in many ways beyond the value of the technology.

Effective marketing in fintech requires strategic thinking, creativity, learning, experimenting, and then executing. We use technology to help us do that, but it all starts with putting the customer first.