Digital Marketing Strategies for Fintech Companies - Strategies That’ll Definitely Work

As per the Mobile Finance report 2020, released by Adjust and Apptopia, global sessions for banking and payment apps combined increased by an average of 26% in 2020 as opposed to 2019. The pandemic has further enhanced mobile app usage, with the finance vertical especially emerging as a clear winner. As per the 2021 India Mobile Payments Market Report published by S&P Global Market Intelligence, payment made via apps rose 67% to $478 billion in 2020.

Whether it is investments, payment, or loans and credit, the growth in installs is a sign of how the finance industry is evolving on mobile. No matter how disruptive or game-changing your product or service, you still need to educate the market. From finding early adopters to powering growth in the scale phase, what you need is a robust digital marketing plan. Let us look at some of the Fintech marketing strategies that are known to work well.

1. Adopt A Mobile First Approach

It is important that your fintech business goes beyond digitization, you also need to make it mobile-capable. In fact, many trailblazing fintech companies have gone beyond that and have adopted a mobile first approach. 

Paytm, for example, does have a web presence, but if you want to login, the prerequisite is that you have the Paytm app. You then need to use the app’s scanner to scan the code that pops up on the website.  

Same is the case with the digital lending company Navi. Although a lot of information is available on their website via their blogs and landing pages, the site requests you to download their app for any transactions you wish to make.

2. Educate, Don’t Sell – An Important Digital Marketing Strategy For Fintech

In a world where everyone is trying to sell something, wouldn’t it be great if an industry leader focused on giving valuable information instead? By working on building reputation and credibility through informative and relevant content via articles, reels, posts, videos, tweets, blogs, webinars, and even ebooks, you can firmly establish your fintech organization as an expert in your field. This will not only gain the trust and confidence of your prospective customers, but will also contribute to your turnover.

By sharing useful content, you’ll be helping people handle their finances in a better way. 

An excellent example of a fintech player who has mastered the art of educating, not selling, is Zerodha. The investing platform’s Zerodha Varsity is a wonderful concept where financial knowledge and stock market lessons can be learnt for free, from some of the best minds in the business.

3. Harness The Power Of Video Marketing

According to a research conducted by Wyzowl, in the year 2021, 96% of people watched explainer videos created by brand pages. It makes sense then that your organization too starts harnessing video marketing’s power. 

An excellent digital marketing strategy for fintech, video content can be created on several platforms, with several audience groups as your targets. Take Groww’s example – positioned to be an investment app for millennials, Groww’s YouTube presence is unapparelled on the Indian fintech scene. The company has several YouTube channels that focus on different demographics – it has the ‘Trading With Groww’ channel for amateur trading enthusiasts, it has the Groww Plus channel for helping youngsters with everything, from finance to skill development to relationship advice, it even has the Groww Tamil channel for the Tamil speaking audience. In fact, Groww has 5 channels dedicated to creating regional language content; talk about taking advertising on YouTube to the next level! 

While harnessing the power of video marketing, you should definitely look beyond having a YouTube channel. Instagram Reels, Facebook Stories and pop-up video ads are some avenues you could explore. 

4. Collaborate With Influencers

The fact remains that while popular brand handles on social media have thousands of followers, several famous influencers have a number of followers that goes into millions. If we take CRED as an example, they have around 84,500 followers on Instagram (in January 2022).  They recently collaborated with Bollywood actress Deepika Padukone for their Christmas offers. Her Instagram followers? 63.9 million! It then goes without saying that collaborating with niche influencers will prove to be fruitful to your fintech organization.

Another great example of digital marketing for fintech companies done right is, again, Groww. The fintech player has collaborated with over 20 YouTubers such as Nitin Bhatia, Labour Law Advisor, Basic Gyaan, B Wealthy, and Praveen Dilliwala, to spread information about its products and services across a whole range of audiences.  

5. Leverage Social Media Aggressively

This one never gets old! After all, most of the people out there spend a lot of time browsing through their social media accounts; you need to have a social media presence to spread the word about your offerings and services. However, for your digital marketing strategy for fintech to work, you must invest time and effort in identifying which social media platform will work best for you. Each platform has its own pros and cons, so first you’ll have to figure out your ideal target audience and accordingly conduct thorough research on which social media platforms they’re using. Once you get this research out of the way, you can start creating personalized content for your target audience.

A good example of how a fintech company can use social media for providing better services is CoinDCX. India’s first crypto unicorn, CoinDCX is extremely active on Instagram. It shells out tips, plays quizzes and conducts opinion polls, and even uses popular memes to educate people about the concept of crypto currency. CoinDCX is also active on Twitter, and by using screenshots, it promotes its tweets on Instagram.  Another great example is Venmo, a mobile payment service that boasts of an interface that interacts like a social media platform.    

6. Send Customized Notifications And Messages

Building a strong relationship with the audience is the key to any organization’s success. One way to do so is to create a strong personalized messaging system that speaks to your customers. The correlation between sending relevant messages or notifications and retaining customers cannot be ignored. 

Putting the end user’s perspective at the center of your messaging strategy will definitely win you brownie points. Take Paytm’s example – the way it reminds its users to pay their bills on time is witty, and extremely useful. Its use of memes, trending topics and regional dialects to get a message across is innovative and on point!  

7. Turn Your Brand Into A Common Terminology

This strategy is tough to crack and very few organizations, fintech and non-fintech, have been able to achieve it. Xerox is the perfect example; In India, ‘Xerox’ has replaced the word ‘photocopy’. 

A fintech player in India which has managed to do this is Paytm. With their tagline, “Paytm Karo”, they have successfully managed to replace the words ‘UPI transaction’. If you want to achieve this epic level of branding, it is always better to ask for help – an established digital marketing agency for fintech can assist you in taking your brand to newer heights.

8. Explore Opportunities With Existing Customers

There is nothing better than exploring more business opportunities with your existing customers. You can easily cross-sell or up-sell your products or services to them.

An excellent example of exploring opportunities with existing customers is CRED. Their newly launched CRED Mint is an investment platform where existing members are allowed to invest their idle money, an amount ranging anywhere between Rs. 1,00,000 and Rs. 10,00,000, and get an interest of up to 9%.  The members can invest confidently knowing that their money will be lent out to creditworthy individuals like themselves. 

You can also use referral marketing schemes online to turn your existing customers into your brand advocates. Of course, this digital marketing strategy for fintech scheme needs to be put together with caution, as you need to weigh the advantages of offering smaller immediate rewards versus credit bonuses.  

Similarly, affiliate programs can play a significant role in expanding your customer base. The fact that you pay them a commission only if they generate a sale, makes it a win-win. Of course, you would want your links to be placed on reputable, authoritative sites to receive relevant traffic.

As a Fintech business, whether you are trying to attract funding, reach new customers or challenging legacy players, the above fintech marketing strategies can go a long way in winning the attention of audiences that matter.