Your demo requests are up, last month’s webinar was full and the newsletter is getting opened. Meanwhile the deal sales was most confident about has gone quiet for three months while the prospect’s risk team works through a second security questionnaire.
B2B fintech marketing borrows a lot from software marketing. Plenty of fintech marketers learned the job at SaaS companies, so it’s natural to start with the same playbook. Selling to banks, payment firms, lenders and asset managers adds layers that a standard SaaS funnel wasn’t built for, which is why a lot of fintech teams find their lead numbers look healthy while deals move slowly.
Here’s what’s different about B2B fintech marketing and how to adjust your strategy for it.
What’s different about B2B fintech marketing
You’re selling to a group
B2B fintech deals rarely rest with one person. A head of payments might champion your product, but IT, security, risk, compliance, procurement and finance all need to agree before anything gets signed. Each of them has different questions and any one of them can slow the deal down.
Buyers are wary of risk
Your buyers are responsible for other people’s money and for keeping regulators happy. Choosing the wrong vendor can cause real damage, so they look for proof that you’re stable, secure and already trusted by firms like theirs.
Sales cycles are long
Between first contact, due diligence, procurement and onboarding, B2B fintech deals often take many months to close. Marketing has to stay useful to prospects for that whole stretch, long after the first download or demo.
Your market may be small
If you sell core infrastructure to banks or tools to asset managers, your total list of realistic customers might run to a few hundred firms. That changes the maths, so put most of your effort into the accounts that matter most.
Regulation sits over everything
Your own claims need checking and your buyers are judging how you’ll affect their regulatory position. Content that shows you understand their obligations does a lot of work in B2B fintech.
Building a B2B fintech marketing strategy
A good B2B fintech marketing strategy is built around these differences. Here are the pieces that tend to help most.
Give every buyer what they need
List the people in a typical buying group and what each of them needs to say yes. Then make sure you have content for each one:
- A clear business case for the budget holder
- Technical documentation and integration detail for IT
- Security, data and resilience information for risk and security teams
- Answers to regulatory questions for compliance
- Proof of outcomes for the person championing you internally
Your champion often has to sell you to everyone else, so anything that helps them do that is worth making.
Put proof everywhere
Proof carries a lot of weight in B2B fintech. Named customers, case studies with real results, security certifications, regulatory permissions and references all reduce the risk a buyer feels. Put them on your website, in your sales deck and in your campaigns. Here’s what a fintech case study must include if you’re planning one.
Focus on the accounts that matter
When your market is small, account based marketing makes sense. Agree a list of target accounts with sales, research who sits in each buying group and plan content and outreach around them. Marketing warms the account and sales follows up with something relevant to say. We cover how to get the two teams working this way in fintech sales and marketing.
Build trust through expertise
Buyers in B2B fintech want to know the people behind the product understand their world. Thought leadership from your founders and subject experts helps here, whether that’s LinkedIn posts, bylined articles, reports, webinars or speaking at the events your buyers attend. A well researched whitepaper can open conversations with senior buyers and give sales a reason to get in touch.
Market through partners
A lot of B2B fintech sales come through partners such as core banking providers, platforms, consultancies and system integrators. Joint content, shared webinars and partner case studies put you in front of buyers who already trust the firm introducing you. Treat your partners as a marketing channel and give them material that makes you easy to recommend.
Measure what moves deals
Leads and downloads are useful early signals. The measures that tell you whether B2B fintech marketing is working are pipeline, deal velocity, win rate and engagement from target accounts. Look at which content buyers read before they signed and do more of it.
Common B2B fintech marketing mistakes
These come up across the industry, usually because teams are small and under pressure to show results quickly:
- Running high volume campaigns into a market of a few hundred firms
- Speaking only to the champion and leaving the rest of the buying group without answers
- Hiding proof in a case studies page nobody visits
- Judging campaigns on leads when deals take many months to close
Need help with your B2B fintech marketing?
Fintech Content writes the thought leadership, case studies, whitepapers and sales content that help B2B fintechs win over every person in the buying group. If you’d like help building a B2B fintech marketing strategy, our content strategy service is a good place to start.