In times of crisis when the whole world is worried about its future, launching a new product and pushing a big marketing campaign might seem irrational and even horrifying. So, it’s no surprise that many fintech companies had opted to postpone any new product launches and marketing campaigns as a result of the ongoing Coronavirus crisis. But not Truevo.
Despite the COVID-19 outbreak, the Malta-based fintech scaleup Truevo decided to move ahead with the launch of its brand-new point-of-sale (POS) solution at the beginning of the year. To learn more about how Truevo has handled the crisis and adapted its product launch strategy to the changing consumer behaviour, we interviewed Elisabeth Beemer, Head of Marketing at Truevo.
A glimpse into Truevo’s POS launch campaign and positioning strategy
Founded in 2013, Truevo Payments was originally launched as Swish Payments. In 2017, the company rebranded to Truevo Payments in aim to differentiate from the competition and align its brand to the business’s broader vision and values. 3 years on, Truevo has managed to effectively position its brand as an authority in the payments industry and is now looking to further accelerate its growth by broadening its product range and introducing a new POS solution.
According to Elisabeth, the new POS product offering is a big milestone for the company as it opens up the door to a whole new market segment for Truevo.
“The new offering was a big milestone for the business as Truevo had primarily specialised in e-commerce acquiring in the past. The point-of-sale product marked an important step further for us into the card present industry.”
But, as the COVID-19 pandemic evolved, so did Truevo’s POS launch strategy…
The first step of Truevo’s new product release campaign was the creation of all supporting materials and content required for the effective communication and promotion of the product’s key purpose, functionality and user benefits.
“Since the product was brand new, we started by creating all of its source materials. We looked at each little piece as a way to build a bond with our customers and to give them all the information they need and nothing they don’t. The materials are very visual with a lot of graphics and images. They’re easy to digest for business owners who would rather spend time running their businesses than figuring out the finer points of their payment devices.”
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An interesting fact, here, is that before Truevo started creating any promotional assets, it first focused on producing a series of short user onboarding kick start guides.
“Pre-launch, the first thing we made was a “Quick Start Guide” to greet customers as they open up the box which holds their brand-new card machine. This business card-sized booklet shows business owners how to get started in 5 minutes or less. We followed this with digital User Guides with more in-depth information teaching customers everything they would want to know about their device. Then, we supplemented that with a Terminal Security Guide which offers tips on how to keep payment information safe and secure from those who might attempt to tamper with it.”
After settling the customer onboarding process and initial product experience, Truevo’s marketing team moved on to supporting the sales process and aligning their marketing communication efforts with the demands of the Sale department.
“The next step was to create sales collateral to support our Commercial team as they went out to meet potential customers and partners face-to-face. This included everything from print and digital brochures to training presentations and videos for other payment companies to sell Truevo’s system. We updated our website to reflect the new product and added in some nice new calls to action to capture leads.”
With all the collateral in place, Truevo was then well positioned to officially launch the new product campaign to the public.
“Once all the foundational material was in place, we set out to create a splash in the media for the launch. We were excited to be successful in gaining articles announcing the product in places like Yahoo Finance, Business Insider, and Finanzen.net, among many other media heavyweights. We had a few hundred articles in total that were published in media all around Europe and which had a combined audience of approximately 85 million people.”
Following on from the success of its initial launch strategy, Truevo is now planning to gradually shift its major focus from inbound to outbound, and start experimenting with direct consumer marketing tactics like PPC and retargeting ads, or social media and video advertising.
“We’re focused on supporting our Commercial team in giving them everything they need to sell effectively to new customers and to create materials which promote brand loyalty amongst our existing customers.”
How Truevo’s POS launch strategy adapted to the COVID-19 pandemic crisis?
For better or worse, Truevo’s new product launch happened to occur right at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, which meant that the company had to quickly adjust its campaign activation strategy.
“Within a month of launch, our target customers were shuttering their doors as per local public health regulations. It was not the best time to be handing out brochures.”
“Our strength is that we didn’t look at this as a setback. Our end users are typically busy people, and COVID-19 forced so many of them to slow down for a minute. In a weird way, COVID-19 gave business owners an opportunity to take stock of their current suppliers to ask themselves if they’re receiving the best pricing and the best service. That’s where we came in to give them a new, different way of doing things.”
In addition to changing the course of media communications for its launch campaign, Truevo also made sure that its offering stayed relevant and COVID-proof by highlighting that their card machines are easy-to-clean, flexible POS terminals that support contactless payments.
What does the future hold for Truevo?
Further product and market expansion. Truevo’s team is currently working hard on developing a new product tailored specifically for small and medium-sized European businesses. The product will consist of a package that offers both an option for a card machine along with an option for online payments. But the biggest draw of this new offering is that businesses will also receive a business debit card that will allow them to receive free card processing refunds for all expenses settled with the card. This essentially means that businesses will be able to cut down their processing costs to close to nothing by using Truevo’s business debit card.
In addition to reduced costs, Elisabeth also believes that the new offering will be particularly beneficial to businesses as they will no longer have to deal with multiple suppliers.
“They’ll save time and effort by working with a single provider for all their payment needs. Further in the future, businesses can expect additional tools to help them grow such as expense management and invoicing program integrations.”
The new product is already in beta and has been initially released to the Irish market. Truevo is also currently running a free 3-month trial offering a free card machine, debit card and access to an online portal.
What will B2B fintech marketing look like post-COVID?
According to Elisabeth, the COVID-19 pandemic presents a unique opportunity for B2B fintechs to get creative and look for alternative ways to spend their budgets.
As people continue to work remotely, she expects to see more virtual events and generally higher push into inbound marketing and content production from B2B companies (incl. videos, webinars, podcasts, etc.).
Another key opportunity for B2B fintechs during the pandemic is to use this time to focus on aligning and strengthening the relationship between their Sales and Marketing teams.
“Commercial teams can use Marketing as a partner now more than ever.” says Elisabeth.
“Great fintech marketers who have a good relationship with their Commercial teams will assist them with sales hacks using marketing techniques. For example, social selling. Supporting sales teams with tools to prospect more effectively via LinkedIn when they usually sell face-to-face is a great use of time right now.”
About Elisabeth Beemer: Elisabeth has spent the last 12 years assisting CEOs and Founders to grow their businesses and optimise their operations in the U.S., Southeast Asia, and Europe. As Head of Marketing at Truevo, she combines a potent mix of brand strategy, audience-centric communications, and analytics-driven media to catapult Truevo to its next stage of growth and beyond.
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