Fintech marketing’s summer spend: splurge or squeeze?

Fintech businesses and organisations are having to become money savvy when it comes to marketing spend and priorities this year. With budgets squeezed and funding slashed for many, how are fintechs adapting to attract and acquire new and existing clients, while also being strategically smart with their spend?

This summer, the list of worldwide events from fintech expos to summits and forums are endless. For example, in Europe, Fintech Week London is a five-day event in June spotlighting an in-person conference that will focus on industry trends in fintech and financial services, while the Paris Fintech Forum Leaders’ Summit in May will bring over 100 speakers together for the latest news in banking, regulation and more. In Asia, Seamless Asia 2023 in June will cover banking, payments and e-commerce trends over two days, while over in the Middle East, the Fintech Summit Middle East will take place as a hub for fintech, digital payments, banking, retail and e-commerce insights in the same month.

With this vast plethora of choice when it comes to destination, size and programme content, fintech marketers are rethinking what’s worth the money, how to stand out to clients, but at the same time, still meet their strategic targets and crunch numbers. Is it the case that (spending) less is more when it comes to turning client heads?

Marketing ramp up
According to Gartner, financial services firms are some of the biggest spenders on marketing. In 2022, they led the way with the highest marketing budget at 10.4% of company revenue, up from 7.4% in 2021, as cited by the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council.

This seems to be a distinct nod to how the current economic environment is currently moving. And it’s upwards, apparently. But are marketing budgets for fintechs really following suit and holding steady?

It’s a yes for the Open Banking Expo – a global community of open banking and open finance executives that drive digital transformation across the financial services sector and organise digital and face-to-face events in the UK, North America and Europe.

“Our marketing budgets have increased a little year-on-year,” explained Kelly Stanley, co-founder and director for Open Banking Expo. “As an event organiser, we need to demonstrate that the number of attendees increase each year, so to reduce our budget would be counter intuitive.

“We are continually looking at new channels to spend our budget; all with the aim of reaching a wider audience of financial services and fintech professionals to encourage them to visit one of our global events.”

In fact, the company is ramping up its marketing campaign to support its UK event, Open Banking Expo, this summer. It’s also hosting the Open Banking Expo in Canada in June, as the only open banking event in the country, and leading two Women in Opening Banking Meetups later this year to highlight the importance of closing he gender gap and boost the careers of females in the sector.

Steady approach to spending
For Bottomline, a market-leading provider of SaaS platforms for business payment and digital banking to customers worldwide, it has taken a considered approach to its marketing spend across its global reach.

“Marketing budgets constantly flex, based on the requirements of the business, especially in B2B organisations,” said Andrew Davidson, head of marketing EMEA and APAC or Bottomline.

“We have seen budgets realign to specific market segments. For instance, in the UK where our business splits into two main markets of corporates and banks, we’ve had to consider where the growth stems from and how we can reach those audiences. While in North America, we have entirely different markets which require alternative programmes with associated budgets,” he added.

With summer only a few months away, Andrew explained that Bottomline’s marketing campaigns are being built to suit each segment’s goals and various strategies.

In North America, it is focusing onn account-based marketing (ABM) approach to its banking sector in the region. ABM moves from thinking about buyers as individuals, to individuals within an organisation who decide together. This helps to identify the highest priority accounts, understand what teams and individuals are involved in the buying processes, and then builds detailed profiles of their roles so they can engage through strategic messaging campaigns. Marketers can then develop and deliver customised content to target accounts as a group, based on their collective informational needs as a decision-making entity.

This way, ABM engages with fewer but more likely prospects.

“We are testing our first real ABM approach in the North American banking sector, while in our Financial Messaging sector, it’s about thought leadership, customer engagement and deepening relationships,” he explained. “In other segments, we aim to extend our reach through associations, industry groups, social activity, webinars, roundtables, and growth programmes in our existing customer base.”

This year, Bottomline’s most significant partnership and key event will be the global financial services event and fintech hotspot, SIBOS, in Canada in September, hosted by SWIFT, which it aims to use an opportunity to actively connect and engage with global SWIFT customers.