1075. Insights: What are the new rules of fintech marketing?

25:18They make it so hard or they charge you a fee or something in my head. I just thought, oh, maybe it's just really hard. It turns out it's quite straightforward. And so, you know, we started to see our customers were going to use their points together. They'd get all their mates together that had Yonder and they'd go to a restaurant to use all their points at that nice restaurant. And so I think the, you know, like building that community experience into the product actually drives a lot of virality there because it's, you know, if you've got five friends going for dinner and one of them doesn't have Yonder and the rest of them are using their points to pay, then, you know, there's a very good chance that fifth person's going to sign up at dinner.

25:50And we would see that a lot. And people would sign up during these experiences together with their friends. So I think that's probably where I see the sort of the community, sort of what's driving virality now. We're probably getting to the limit of what the financial incentives can do. You know, I think as brands grow, you'll see Revolut and Monzo, I think they're offering upwards of 50 pounds per referred customer now. I mean, when they first launched, it was probably five. You know, that's how much they didn't really need to offer that much to get people to try it out. And so while I think the financial incentive is more around getting past the friction of sharing, I don't ever think that that's going to be sort of the main reason why.

26:29And my guess is customers that refer because of some deeper connection to the product through the community, through, you know, like I talked about before, probably leads to customers coming on and being stickier and using the product more and being higher value than ones that sign up for the 50 quid.

26:46Laura Watkins:Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And I think we want to come back to that kind of point around like brand and community. But we have to take a quick pause here back very shortly.

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27:58Laura Watkins:Welcome back to Fintech Insider, where we're discussing the new rules of fintech marketing. So let's talk about where marketing is heading. We're increasingly seeing financial brands experiment with storytelling, identity, and emotional engagement. Recent examples include Monzo's Year in Monzo and Revolut's Welcome to My Bank campaign. Neither focuses heavily on product features, but instead they're trying to create a stronger emotional connection with customers. So, Nicole, maybe kind of coming to you first on your thoughts around the sort of brand side of everything. Are financial brands becoming more emotional in how they communicate?

28:32Laura Watkins:Are they trying to kind of create a sense of belonging with customers, a sense of community? What's your take from a sort of infused perspective? Yeah, I would say it's less about emotion in the traditional sense. It's not necessarily like watching one of those, you know, veterinary insurance ads that kind of make you cry because the puppy has a broken leg. not saying they make me cry, but just a little. It's about human centricity, right? And actually looking at customers at eye level, which is what do they want? You know, what will spark joy? Is it about, you know, making them laugh? What is the feeling, you know?

29:11And sometimes it goes a bit wrong. Sometimes you get the wrong, you know, spokesperson, you get the wrong message. But I think financial services brands are trying a lot harder to go beyond just the nice logo. They are trying to figure out what people want. And even in B2B, you have to remember, like, you know, for example, the cardholder isn't Enfuse's end user, but those are the end users of our customers. So you still need to think a step ahead to them and building these experiences that matter overall. So it is all about people. I think it is about creating identity. I think community is still a tricky one in B2B because in some cases it's just such a smaller swimming pool if you have a niche product.

30:02But I think in the world we're in, community is becoming more and more important on every level. You want to feel part of something. Yeah, definitely.

30:10Laura Watkins:And FinTech has been praised in the initial stages for breaking down jargon, talking to people in human-to-human ways. Obviously, that's now become quite standard, but I think it is that human connection, even within B2B, that you're talking to the customers of your customers, you're talking to the end user, not just, you know, businesses are made of people. So even business to business is not like a building talking to a building. It's still people at the end of the day. And so, yeah, making people feel part of something, even if it is a B2B transaction, I think is super important. um lucy what would be your take on that in terms of we've sort of talked about you know trying to balance creativity with being highly regulated but um you know are there are there limits to how kind of consumer financial services can compete with b2b in terms of how they speak to their customers how they conduct themselves um what do you think yeah this is and i don't disagree with what you said about the you know the the whole kind of b2b b2c sort of conversation at the end of the day it's always a p2p kind of self right it's a person-to-person at the end of the day but um i think like i was saying at the start though i think the the biggest kind of this shift now um in b2b in particular of um when you were looking at kind of buying a platform for your business and for your team you were looking about how it's how it's working and what the features are and you know whether you're um it's going to be able to do the uh the job that you want it to do but now there's this whole ROI kind of story and this defense in having to defend kind of the purchase you know within three months and show ROI I think it really puts a different kind of spin on that that conversation and how you build that trust with the buyers I think you do still have to they do still want to feel like they're kind of part of a community that's definitely something that I think is can be done more in the world of b2b we generally think because it's a business business sale that you just have to um you know show them the tool and the you know the demo will kind of you know will sell everything and it's not the case you know they need to be kind of on board with you know the brands and everything as well but um but yeah I think um again going back to what I was saying about the regulated um uh companies kind of thinking that they can't kind of be creative.

32:39They absolutely can, but I think maybe not quite in the same way that you would with a kind of a B2C brand.

32:48Laura Watkins:Yeah, definitely. And Tom, we're seeing an increasing kind of trend, I guess, in turning customer data into stories, kind of creating those experiences that people engage with, they share. I'm meaning sort of Spotify rap, Strava's year in sport, Duolingo's recap. I mean, Monzo obviously famously do year in Monzo to bring it back to fintech. It's a trend that people are jumping on with less or more success. I know people are not really loving train lines year in rap, showing them exactly how many trains and how much money they spend on travel. Like that one didn't land so well. But what's your take on this kind of trend?

33:30And is this sort of, do customers enjoy this?

33:33Laura Watkins:Are they sort of waiting on this now? Has it become an expectation? What do you think? I think it's definitely overdone. And I think what a lot of marketers don't ask themselves is just because something can be done, should it be done? And we had a ton of interesting data at Yonder and we never did this. And it was mostly because we didn't think we could do it well enough for it to feel like something our customers would like. And so I even think like Spotify has sort of gone in waves of it being really good and feeling great and then also just feeling sort of thrown together. And so it's probably like a broader thing I think marketers need to think about is, right, just because everyone else is doing this and we have the data, should we do this?

34:22Is it what our customers really want? If you know your customers really, really well, then you should be able to answer that question pretty easily. I actually think at Yonder, our customers probably would have loved it. And we had the kind of brand and the kind of tone that I think we could have got away with being quite cheeky in a way which maybe Monzo couldn't. But we just didn't have the resource or the sort of time or frankly the energy to do it really well. And so maybe it comes back to like a principle of mine around like, I only really ever want to do things if I can do them really, really well.

34:56And I'd much rather do fewer things as a marketing function really well than to do a lot poorly. So there are so many opportunities that will come across your desk as a marketer. And it may be it's like sponsoring an event or it's, I don't know, like doing a year in summary and actually saying no to these things. I think it's probably the difference between like, uh, you know, good and great marketing and, and picking the few things that you think you can execute like really, really well. And then just letting the rest pass you by. And, and look, I mean, I was getting, I was getting emails about the, I can't even think of them now, but I was like, oh, give it a rest.

35:33Will you like, I just don't care. And, and, um, I imagine a lot of people felt that way and look at Monzo do a great job. Don't get me wrong. And so does Spotify. And there are other brands that do this really, really well. but do you have to do it just because you've got the data? I don't think so.

35:48Laura Watkins:Yeah, there's a lot of people that want to jump on the trend without working out whether the trend is actually useful to their brand or adds value to their customers. I mean, I was laughing at sort of the train line example but do I really need to be told that my most popular station is obviously the one that I go to and from to get to the office? Like I know that you're not telling me anything I don't already know from the data. It's not interesting. Laura, you just said something interesting though. It's like it's jumping on the trends without actually sort of taking a step back and thinking, well, what is that trend trying to do?

36:15Like, what are we actually trying to achieve here? So if you take the kind of Spotify wraps, you know, from a compliance perspective, I'm sure, maybe they do, maybe I'm wrong, but I'm sure they don't want to know, well, what regulations did I look into the most at the end of the year? You know, it's not really uber sexy, is it? But actually all they're doing is, if you look into what they're actually trying to do, they're just trying to create that kind of, you know, that viral sort of like sharing moment of comparison of, you know, and then it sort of turns into the referral. so how can you kind of just take that concept and actually then apply it to your world that's probably the better thing to do rather than sort of trying to jump on a trend that isn't necessarily going to land well like we in b2b for example like i really like the way consumer brands so like monzo and others um i really get into the the referrals right you know leave us a review not referral sorry reviews like leave us a review on this site or you know um yeah rate us rate the app on the on apple or whatever um and that there is an equivalent of that in the world of b2b right with kind of like g2 reviews or something like that so yeah um not so much jumping on the trends but just sort of taking a bit of a step back i think would be my advice i think that's the thing is if you're gonna hop on a trend or even consider a trend you have to make it relevant to your brand if not it does look like you're just knocking off what somebody else has already done and i think even deciding, you know, as Tom said, like, do we have to do everything?

37:39That's a brand choice in itself to say, no, that's not us. Otherwise, we'd all be sponsoring hockey teams in Arizona. I got that email two weeks ago. It's just like, yeah, you have to really curate your brand and your marketing to make it connect properly.

37:57Laura Watkins:Yeah, completely. And as you say, like kind of knowing who you are as a brand gives you a kind of cheat sheet to sort of yes and no things against because you know who you are and what matches your brand and then equally what doesn't. Nicole, what's your kind of take on some of these campaigns like a year in Mondo or Welcome to My Bank, which was Revolut's kind of campaign. They put Graham Norton on their campaign. um they've equally done um one with a manchester city striker erlin harland um to kind of showcase parts of the platform but also kind of bringing out his personality and trying to make him a bit of a brand advocate like what's your take on these kind of more flashier campaigns um it's great fun uh you know as you know i i see things in two ways right i see it in terms of being the brand marketer who looks at that and is just like, I want a field of horses.

38:58I want to put a celebrity on a horse. I have no idea why Graham Norton is on a horse. Maybe there's a cultural thing I'm missing somewhere.

39:04Laura Watkins:But I'm like, is it like a Mickey take of the Lloyds, like black horses running everywhere? And there's the one that's different. Like, okay, that's what I thought it was. Okay, this is when we realized I'm not from the UK. Because I like I watched this, this ad a million times. I'm like, still don't get why he's on a horse. But I know who Graham Norton is, and he's good fun. And what's cool is he's also one of the spokespeople that resonates across generations. You know, like even my mom knew who that was and thought it was good fun. So, you know, there were some really cool choices made there.

39:37But also, when you even look at simple elements like my bank, it feels personal and it feels relatable. And those little basics, celebrity or not, are amazing little things you're planting in the messaging. so you know on one hand I look at this stuff and as you know the audience I think it's good fun as a marketer I'm like I want to do cool stuff like that with horses you know I'm pretty sure my management team will say no and bonus points to anybody who can tell me who the ideal celebrity spokesperson for Enfuse would be

40:11Laura Watkins:I have to come back to that one yeah so that's worth thinking about Tom was your take kind of bringing back to the kind of the AI piece. I know you don't love it, but we'll come back to it in terms of like, how does AI impact the ability to create content and personalized experiences, but also, you know, does it help or hinder a brand's ability to be authentic? Do you think? I think at the moment hindering. I think we saw something similar with Canva over the sort of the last 10 years where out of nowhere, anyone could produce sort of nicely designed brand assets. And I think that there is, this is sort of my one frustration with sort of the tech industry or in general is there is this constant confusion between branding and your brand and where branding is seen as being your brand.

41:10And, you know, the best way I describe it to people, it's like the physical appearance of someone versus who they are inside as a person. And Canva has, you know, tricked people into thinking that they can have a nice brand in, you know, like a click of their fingers. And I think with AI, we're seeing the same thing. You can have a blog post in an instant. You can have a website. You can have a product now in an instant. And if anything, it's actually just showing how hard it is to create things that actually are valuable and useful. and that's maybe on the sort of product side, it exists on the brand side too.

41:46To create something that people really love that is distinctive and memorable and actually does the things that marketing science supports that says that strong brands have is really hard. There is no replacement for things like mental availability. And it's quite funny now seeing brands like Monzo and Revolut, Monzo sponsoring a Premier League club as of next season, and Revolut getting Erling Haaland everywhere, they're going back to the fundamentals that these brands dismissed 10 years ago around how brands really grow. And so it comes back to my point that growing a brand, and this is what I'm trying to work on with Brandingo at the moment, the fundamentals have not changed.

42:29And so what AI has allowed people to do is to produce a lot more work, but the bar is still so high to actually create value from that work that I don't think it's... Certainly on the creative side, I don't think it's working just yet. From the process side, absolutely making things quicker and documentation, as I noted before, these kinds of things absolutely make a big difference. But I'm yet to see sort of a brand generated with AI that is truly memorable and distinctive. And the best marketers will know that. They will know how to use it to make them more effective in their role. But I was talking to the CMO the other day that was closing down a street in London to shoot a TV ad and his philosophy was, look, we could have done this with AI, but that's not going to create the quality of creative that we need to stand out.

43:18And I really sort of backed him in his philosophy there. And so, look, I can talk about this all day long. It's so important that marketers understand the difference between doing work and doing really good work and how AI fits in there because it's not the answer for everything.

43:37Laura Watkins:Definitely. And it comes back to that piece about authenticity because, you know, you know your brand inside out does the AI in order to replicate it so that it actually comes across as authentic if you're going to put AI generated content out there. And also customers as, you know, everyone is starting to be more exposed to AI, meaning that people can more easily discern when something is AI and they will draw their own conclusions about their brand, about, sorry, about your brand if they suspect that you've used AI in your content as well. Lucy what's your take on that in terms of the sort of regulated space you know how much can AI play a role without losing that authentic piece or indeed that regulated piece I think I mean one thing I suppose I'll start off by saying actually I think we we're just seeing the start of this I hate to say it but I feel like we're just seeing the start of this I do think we're going to go through a bit of a longer period like Tom you've really made me think actually back about kind of Canva and kind of what we saw there I think you're right like we're going to see a longer period now of this volume just constant kind of like speed and quantity of content that's produced by AI yeah I think there's more to come on that unfortunately I'm not saying it's right but I just yeah I think there's going to be more on that but I think what's not going to change in our world of financial services or in the in this kind of regulated environment is that it's ultimately at the end of the day it's all about kind of human judgment and emotion like we're dealing with people's money um and i think you know the that's the way that the the choice is always going to be made um is is like you know this is it's an emotional choice and you know does this organization organization kind of have my back you know are they going to kind to be there for me when you know things things go um things go wrong and um that's the bit that ai can't touch like ai can't generate that sort of content that really kind of like tugs at the heartstrings and makes people stand up and kind of really believe that about a brand um so that's i think what companies really start to or need to lean into interesting and then nicole coming to you in terms of infuses obviously uh on a growth trajectory at the moment um tom's talked about obviously like Monzo from the early days and now they're doing sort of the kind of campaigns that incumbents would have done.

46:01Laura Watkins:How do you kind of keep the personality of your brand from, you know, startup, challenger, scale up to the size of an incumbent? What's the trick there? Yeah, so this is a great question. Three years ago, we had our brand evolution. We went from, you know, that perceived very small little Finnish startup and, you know, catering mostly to fintechs. And these days we work with amazing enterprises, you know, Porsche, Circle K, Octopus Electroverse. So that's a very different kind of customer. And it's not about losing your personality. And I've had some interesting internal debates over like, can we still talk about happiness?

46:43Can we still be so much fun? Because like, what if the B2B folks get offended? And, you know, know, we've also talked about like the regulator and compliance and all of this. And then it goes back to the humanity again, which is there's still people. But here's the thing. What we have changed over the last couple of years is the tone, the wording, the storytelling. You nuance it to work with your audience. You know, I see brands as living, breathing things. You know, The thing we launched three years ago shouldn't and definitely isn't what it is right now today. And that's what's important. I think as brand builders, we can't just say, oh, cool, this looks nice.

47:25We're just going to roll with this in perpetuity. And that's really the thing. You have to really understand that if you are the incumbent and you are talking to, you know, enterprise or to, you know, thinking about some of the things Lucy said, regulators, you do have to alter your tone and really look at what is your message. And that's a little bit more nuanced than just trying to glaze over it with one paintbrush. I love that. I think that was good.

47:54Laura Watkins:We are almost up on time here. I know between the four of us, we could probably go on for hours, but we won't do that to the listeners. I just want to go around the houses a bit and ask you one final question each. What's one marketing lesson that financial services still hasn't learned. Tom, what's your take? Yeah, I actually think I maybe gave the same one when I spoke last time on the podcast, but I think it's the... If it's still true, then it's still true. It's still true. It's probably the one thing that I believe more than anything else in marketing and something that I just, I really wish other marketers would, you know, think more about.

48:33Not to say that I think I'm right, but it's something that I genuinely believe myself is around just the importance of creative quality and making time for excellent creative. I think there is still a, you know, if like, if anything, probably more important now to be able to come up with distinctive creative and whether that's advertising campaigns or just social media concepts or website messaging, whatever it might be. I think that it's just so easy to go with, well, now that whatever the AI sort of like writes for you or what the first thing that comes to mind. But I can't think of a single campaign that I've ever done or I've seen other marketers do that was great.

49:13And it was the first idea they came up with. And so, you know, the biggest lesson for me is that you have to fight for good creativity. And I really wish I would see more of that in and being a regulated, you know, industry, I think certainly can make that trickier. but I actually think it makes for better marketers because you have to be more creative, even more interesting, even more entertaining to be able to promote your products in a way that is fair and compliant. So yeah, it's my lesson. And if I come on again in six months' time, I'll probably tell you the same thing.

49:47Laura Watkins:That's fine. Keep banging that drum. Lucy, what's your take? One marketing lesson financial services still hasn't learned. Yeah, I think for me, it's got to be the industry kind of is still mixing up, sounding like technical and then sound incredible. And in B2B RegTech, I think we are one of the worst offenders for this. I can't tell you the amount of times that I've sat through, you know, sales decks where you've got that kind of, you know, frictionless best-in-class end-to-end platform, you know, word soup going on and everyone's just kind of sitting there going, yeah, sounds great, like sounds credible.

50:21And nobody actually really knows what that means. It's just kind of, you know, it's word soup. But I think what kind of needs to change and what is I'm starting to see change is that AI can generate all of that, you know, all of those words in literally like four or five seconds. And so everybody, all of these new companies that are spinning up and even old companies as well that are looking at kind of doing the, you know, rebranding or looking at their messaging, they're coming up with the same like words again. but I think the difference will be like if you can actually explain what you do in in plain English so I'm not talking about you know like for dummies or like dumbing it down for a toddler but you know just plain yeah plain English like exactly what you do without all of those like fancy words I think clarity for me is is kind of the moat now um you know out with the out with the jargon that's um you know everyone was kind of hiding behind that I think I love that and Nicole I think there are still too many fintechs and financial services brands, especially in B2B, who really think brand is just a logo, maybe some nice colors.

51:33Like in B2B, be brave, experiment, be creative. You know, B2B shouldn't be where creativity goes to die. So, yeah, I see way too much boring stuff. And I think, yeah, those marketing teams need to have a bit more fun and look at how to bring things to life authentically.

51:55Laura Watkins:Yeah, I completely agree. And I think, yeah, to your point, so many people think brand is just a logo you slap on the top of something and that's it. And it should be so much more. So much more than that. But I love just the idea of, yeah, just have fun with marketing. if you're having fun and it's resonating with people, then that is usually what makes all the difference in the world. There's a guy, just very, very quickly, if that's all right, there's Seth Godin, which I'm sure everybody kind of knows from a marketing point of view, a marketing guru. And he said, you know, what you've got to look for is everyone needs to be remarkable.

52:31So, you know, you're not looking at being unique. In a way, there's no such thing as USP anymore because AI can spin it up tomorrow, like, you know, in four or five seconds. but look for remarkable. And remarkable means two things. One, it means great, remarkable, it's fantastic, you know, really good. But it's the word remark on remarkable. Remark means conversation, like to remark. So anything that you do, like Nicole said, you know, if you're being brave and you're, you know, doing things a little bit differently in the B2B sense where it's never been done before, if you're creating conversation out of it and people are remarking on it, then yeah, you've won.

53:05Laura Watkins:Absolutely. And I think that's a perfect place to wrap up today's discussion. So thank you so much for joining me. Thank you so much for sharing all your insights. Please tell our listeners where they can find more about you and your companies. Let's start with you, Nicole. Sure. Find me on LinkedIn. Always happy to chat about all things brand and creative. And of course, if you're curious about Enfuse's content, check out Enfuse's LinkedIn page or website. Wonderful. And Lucy? The same on LinkedIn. Find me or CMO Therapy Podcast. Go and have a look. It's on all the top podcast channels and YouTube as well.

53:40And yeah, any questions about compliance and regulation, reg tech, it's a really sexy topic, I promise you, then come and give me a shout.

53:49Laura Watkins:Brilliant. Thank you. And Tom? Yeah, if you're a marketer and you're interested in sort of seeing how your brand is growing, then you can check out Brandingo. You can just find it on my LinkedIn. And likewise, you can check out my Substack, Marketing is Hard, where I sort of write about my marketing learnings and stuff over the years. Brilliant. Thank you. And you can find me, Laura Watkins, on LinkedIn, otherwise 11FS.com or on this podcast. So thank you for listening. If you like what you've heard, don't forget to follow the podcast. And as always, if you want to join this conversation, find us on social media.

54:23Laura Watkins:Just search for 11FS or Fintech Insider and we'll be there. Or email podcasts at 11FS.com. Thanks very much. Goodbye.

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