Have you ever wondered what makes a successful fintech marketing strategy? In our "How they did it" series, we look at how some of the most successful and exciting fintechs in the world have approached marketing in their early days. Today's story is about one of the top 3 digital wealth managers in the UK based on Assets Under Management (AUM), PensionBee.
Probably the biggest problem start-ups usually face is the limit or lack of any spare budget for marketing and promotional activities. Especially, in those early days when they have just launched their product and are entering the market. Although there is no such thing as free or zero-budget marketing and advertising, there are certainly some very cost-effective tactics and tools that start-up marketers can adopt to get traction.
But before looking at any particular tools and strategies, businesses need to have a clear understanding of where their potential customers are and identify the exact channels that would lead those customers to their product or service. That’s exactly what Jasper Martens, PensionBee’s first marketing executive and current CMO, focused on when he joined the company. By analysing consumer buying behaviour first, Jasper managed to notice early on that nobody was actually interested and actively looking for their products. You can only imagine how many people are searching for pension consolidation solutions on Google…
So, he then had to quickly find alternative channels that could lead customers to their solution. That’s when Jasper realised that Instagram and Facebook were the main places where they could find their targeted consumer demographic, and that 30-second videos were key touchpoints in the consumer conversion path. He, therefore, focused most of their marketing efforts on creating genuine, high-value organic content and promoting it via paid media ads on Instagram and Facebook, which eventually delivered about 65% of the company’s total customer conversions.
PensionBee identified Instagram as a key channel for their targeted customer audience.
As part of his content strategy, Jasper also hired a freelance copywriter to create content around the company’s two focal points, namely to gain awareness and provoke consideration. The first objective of the strategy was to educate and inform people about their pensions and any other financial issues related to their lifestyles – to create brand awareness. Whereas, the second goal was to create a sense of action and urgency and encourage clients to take control of their pension plans – to provoke purchase consideration.
In addition to written content and blogs, Jasper also focused on producing a lot of videos which delivered some really good traction on both PensionBee’s website and YouTube channel. He realised that most people wouldn’t necessarily want to download a huge, deep guide about pensions, but they might want to watch a two-minute explainer video.
Another interesting trend Jasper noticed was that basic and amateurish videos performed much better than the more professional-looking and polished ones. For example, they created a video to showcase how customers can easily make contributions to their pension, with no music and sound, and zero production costs, which outperformed most of their animated, high-budget productions.
If you think about it, it makes perfect sense. Psychologically humans want to connect with other humans. So, one of the best ways to connect with your customers and gain their trust is to humanise your brand by providing genuine, real-life human content that people can relate to.
Once he had established an effective social media marketing strategy through Instagram and Facebook, Jasper started exploring other distribution channels and some traditional advertising methods such as billboards, television and radio. Although outdoor and tv advertisements and promotions are usually ignored by start-ups as they tend to be very costly, he decided to run a pilot geo-targeted campaign through those specific channels in Brighton and Hove. Jasper’s plan was to use the results of the campaign (if it was successful) to pitch the strategy to their investors at the company’s next funding round and attract further investment. And his plan worked – the campaign not only boosted the company’s SEO and brand awareness, but also dramatically improved the click-through rate on its Facebook and Instagram campaigns.
PensionBee implemented a pilot geo-targeted outdoor campaign in Brighton and Hove aiming to increase brand awareness, which additionally boosted the performance of their social media campaigns.
Thus, you should never be afraid of experimenting with different methods and channels, even if you are on a tight budget. You just need to be very well-targeted and set and follow some clear SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-based) goals.
PensionBee is one of the top 3 digital wealth managers in the UK based on Assets Under Management (AUM). The London-based fintech start-up was launched in 2014 by the ex Goldman Sachs analyst Romina Savova. It provides an online pension management platform that consolidates old pensions into a single plan in a simple and efficient way, just like managing a bank account.
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