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Welcome back to our four-part series on everything fintech marketing. This week, we’re focusing on fintech PR and influencer marketing. Get ready to toss aside bias and tradition – we’re mixing things up!
If you missed the first two parts of our series, you can catch them here and here.
Fintech PR and Media Relations
Fintech public relations (PR) is about much more than sending a press release out on the wire for big announcements. When used strategically, it’s a way to keep the public and media abreast of the growth of your organization.
Don’t overlook unique opportunities to provide digital touchstones for your company. These are critical for gaining credibility, reaching your target audience, and securing valuable partnerships. Check out this video that highlights the many opportunities fintech PR can unlock:
In this section, we’ll explore the strategies and tactics that will help you master the art of fintech PR and media relations, tailored specifically for a B2B audience.
The Power of Fintech PR
PR is all about shaping and maintaining a positive image for your fintech brand in the eyes of your target audience and the broader industry. It’s not just about press releases; it’s about strategic storytelling and relationship-building.
On the flip side, it can also be used in times of crisis (read: when sh*t hits the fan). But you have to know what you’re doing.
We’ll start with the basics.
Building Media Relationships
Identify key fintech industry journalists and publications that align with your target audience. Think about publications like:
Reach out and establish genuine relationships. Don’t blindly pitch. Study the publication, its editorial calendar, and specific journalists, if possible. Send tailored messages that show each publication the unique way in which coverage would be beneficial to their readers.
If you do this well, you can build a strong relationship that allows you to offer ongoing insights.
So what are the meat and potatoes of fintech PR? Here are a few:
Content Creation: Craft compelling, data-driven content that positions your fintech as a thought leader in the industry. Thought leadership articles, research reports, and opinion pieces can help you gain media attention.
Press Releases: Use press releases strategically for major announcements, product launches, partnerships, or funding rounds. Make sure your releases are well-crafted and newsworthy.
Contributed Articles: Pitch contributed articles to industry publications that provide insights into fintech trends, challenges, and solutions. Make sure your articles provide value to the readers.
Securing Media Coverage
Securing media coverage is a win. It’s earned media that gives your B2B fintech organization more visibility and reach. It’s also really, really tough.
Content is everywhere. It’s noisy. It’s distracting. And publications (which, themselves, face a tough market) are constantly looking for ways to stand out and garner attention. Help yourself by helping them. Here are a few best practices:
Offer data-backed stories: Frame data and statistics to create compelling stories that highlight industry trends, customer success stories, or market insights. Data-driven stories are often more appealing to journalists.
Pitch effectively: Craft personalized and concise pitches when reaching out to journalists. Highlight the unique angle or value your fintech brings to the industry. Remember: put their audience first.
Offer expert Spokespeople: Nominate knowledgeable spokespeople within your organization who can provide insightful commentary on industry news or trends. Make them available for interviews and quotes.
This video provides a great overview of PR strategies and some solid tips on how to land your pitch:
Monitoring Your Brand’s Online Presence
What you’re putting out into the digital world about your brand isn’t the only thing that matters. You have to keep tabs on what others are saying about you, too.
Your online presence plays a crucial role in shaping public perception. Use monitoring tools to keep tabs on what’s being said about your fintech organization:
Google Alerts: Set up Google Alerts for your brand name and relevant industry keywords to receive notifications of new online mentions.
Social Media Listening: Use social media monitoring tools like Mention or Brandwatch to track brand mentions and industry conversations on platforms like Twitter, LinkedIn, and industry forums.
Fintech PR Crisis Management and Response
We’ve covered some of the basics. Now, let’s talk about what to do when the stakes are a little higher and you feel like you’re walking a tightrope.
Crisis management and response are incredibly important. You hope to never have to do it, but you always prepare for the worst.
This is especially important in the fintech industry where reputation and credibility are everything. Prepare for crises by developing a crisis management plan:
Plan Ahead: Anticipate potential crises and outline how your fintech will respond. Assign roles and responsibilities within your team.
Transparency: In the event of a crisis, transparency and open communication are crucial. Address the issue promptly, take responsibility, and outline the steps you’re taking to resolve it.
Messaging: This is where a tone & voice guide can come in really handy. When responding ot a crisis, you don’t want to sound like a robot. You want to sound authentic. Having a document that you can reference can streamline your communication plan and improve response time.
Measuring Fintech PR and Media Relations Success
Whether you have a seasoned fintech PR approach or you’re just getting started, you need to measure your success. Like everything else in fintech marketing, you have to remain agile and adapt to changing circumstances. Understanding the outcomes of your fintech PR efforts can help you improve over time and make changes where needed.
Here are some key metrics to track:
Media Mentions: Keep a tally of media mentions and track the sentiment associated with each mention.
Website Traffic: Monitor website traffic from media referrals to gauge the impact of media coverage on your online presence.
Lead Generation: Measure the number of leads or inquiries generated as a result of media coverage.
Share of Voice: Compare your fintech’s media presence to that of competitors in terms of mentions and visibility.
Tools to Streamline Fintech PR and Media Relations
There are a lot of fintech PR strategies and many of them are painstaking. This is where automation, software, and tools come in handy.
To streamline your fintech PR and media relations efforts, consider these tools:
PR Software: Tools like Cision, Muck Rack, or PR Newswire can help you find and reach out to journalists, distribute press releases, and track media coverage.
Media Monitoring: Invest in media monitoring and analysis tools to stay updated on industry news and track brand mentions. Tools like Critical Mention are valuable for this purpose.
Email Tracking: Use email tracking tools like Yesware or Mixmax to monitor when your emails are opened and read by journalists.
Fintech PR and media relations are invaluable components of your B2B fintech marketing strategy. They help you build credibility, engage with your target audience, and secure media coverage that elevates your brand.
Influencer Marketing for Fintech
Everyone knows what B2C influencer marketing looks like. Just hop on TikTok or another social channel and you’ll see popular folks with big followings touting the latest gadget they were sent and how it’s changed their life.
B2B fintech influencer marketing is a bit different. Smart brands have been leveraging influencer marketing for a while, but there’s still time to get in. The key is to develop authentic relationships with industry thought leaders and find compelling ways to partner.
Most times, you’re not trading a product for a review with B2B. However, there are still great ways to partner with influencers to build trust, expand your reach, and drive meaningful engagement. Listen to Kaylee Edmondson chat about influencer marketing strategies for B2B brands:
Let’s tackle a few ways you can master influencer marketing tailored specifically for a B2B audience.
Identifying the Right Influencers
First, you need to find the right influencers with which to partner. This step is critical. Here are a few things to evaluate in your search:
Relevance: Look for influencers whose expertise aligns with your B2B fintech’s offerings and target audience.
Engagement: Assess an influencer’s engagement rates on their content, including likes, comments, and shares. High engagement suggests an active and dedicated following.
Audience Demographics: Ensure that the influencer’s audience closely matches your B2B target demographic in terms of job roles, industries, and interests.
Content Alignment: Review the influencer’s content to ensure it aligns with your fintech’s values and messaging.
Collaborating with Influencers
Once you’ve identified potential influencers, it’s time to initiate collaboration:
Outreach: Reach out to influencers with a personalized message explaining why you want to collaborate and how it will benefit both parties. This is a lot like pitching media in that you want it to be personal, relevant, and geared towards how you can help their audience.
Content Creation: Collaborate with influencers to create content that resonates with your B2B audience. This could include blog posts, webinars, social media posts, or videos.
Guidelines: Provide clear guidelines to influencers to ensure that the content aligns with your fintech’s messaging and objectives.
Measuring the Impact
As with everything else, measurement matters in B2B fintech influencer marketing. To evaluate the success of your influencer marketing efforts, you’ll need to measure key performance indicators (KPIs):
Engagement: Monitor likes, comments, shares, and other forms of engagement on influencer-generated content.
Website Traffic: Analyze the traffic generated to your website from influencer-driven campaigns.
Lead Generation: Track the number of leads or inquiries generated as a result of influencer collaborations.
Conversion Rates: Measure the conversion rates of influencer-driven traffic into customers or clients.
ROI: Calculate the return on investment by comparing the cost of the campaign to the revenue generated.
Tools to Enhance Influencer Marketing
B2B fintech influencer marketing is highly unique to your brand. The ways in which you engage with influencers will depend on your strategy, your goals, and your resources. Since some steps (like finding influencers in your industry) can be manual-labor-heavy, we’ve put together some tools to make the process seamless:
Influencer Marketing Platforms: Tools like Aspire or Influencity can help you identify, connect with, and manage influencers.
Analytics Tools: Use social media analytics tools and website analytics to track the impact of influencer campaigns.
Authenticity is key in influencer marketing. Make sure your influencer collaborations are built on genuine relationships, shared values, and a mutual understanding of goals. Don’t create a script and ask a fintech influencer to abide by it. Build relationships and see where opportunities organically evolve.
Stay tuned! There’s more in this series. Next time, we’ll cover arguably one of the most important components of fintech marketing: measurement.
Got Fintech PR Covered But Want More Tools?
Looking for more in-depth fintech email marketing, content marketing, and social media marketing tools and content? Check out one of our helpful guides:
