Marketers for financial technology, or fintech, companies don’t have it easy these days. The commoditization of technology, competition for top tech talent, and proliferation of data are among the host of factors making it difficult for fintech firms to differentiate themselves among clients and customers.
Not helping matters is a nearly 10-year bull market that has driven a shift toward passive investing—a trend that makes differentiation in the asset management industry more broadly harder to achieve.
On October 24, The Chicago Chapter of the Financial Communications Society held a luncheon panel discussion on the topic of how fintech companies are addressing some of these core challenges when it comes to marketing in an increasingly crowded space. The panel, moderated by Tom Sosnoff, founder and co-CEO of tastytrade, featured:
- Kevin Comer, executive director and head of global marketing at CME Group
- Mark Haraburda, CEO of Barchart
- Joe Gits, CEO and co-founder of Social Market Analytics
Here are three things that stood out from the discussion.
Technology is increasingly seen as a commodity, forcing fintech firms to turn elsewhere for differentiation … like content and proprietary data
Technology isn’t the differentiating factor it used to be. With the market for tech talent scarce and fintech firms increasingly competing with giants like Google and Amazon for developers, firms are forced to turn to other areas to stand out.
Barchart’s Haraburda said now that the technology itself is no longer the game-changer it used to be, his firm is turning to maximizing its search engine optimization (SEO) and proprietary content—particularly its unique data sets—through its market coverage as marketing differentiators.
“It starts with people being able to find us,” Haraburda said. “And I’ll hit on SEO again—that’s really important to our business. You search ‘market data API futures,’ Barchart is one, two, or three.
“Then, it’s content, it’s coverage. So we have pretty broad coverage, covering every major asset class from equities to options to futures to cryptos, and we’re able to deliver that data to people in many different formats.”
-6.png)
Gits, of Social Market Analytics, whose primary customers are hedge funds and other buy-side investment firms, echoed that content is especially strong as a marketing differentiator in today’s environment.
“We’re giving you access to analyze content that’s not readily available through a method that you’re used to getting,” he said.
Robo marketing—at least among the panelists—isn’t working as well as personalized, in-person engagement
Marketing automation and robo programs have caught fire in recent years as a way to streamline marketing distribution and connect with prospective customers more easily and efficiently.
But, perhaps surprisingly, none of the panelist said this was working well for them. In fact, some said they’ve had better engagement by personalizing content and connecting with many current and prospective clients in person or on an individual basis.
Sosnoff, from tastytrade, even went as far as to say that his company’s employees and executives personally send emails and text messages to customers—a process that is labor-intensive but worth the effort in terms of building loyalty.
Other panelists said they see technology has a gateway to increase personalized marketing experiences with clients.
“Technology for us as marketers is about personalizing experiences, and so all the tech that we can be leveraging to personalize experiences for our clients is going to make us resonate better with our potential clients,” said Comer of CME Group.
Return of volatility is great news for financial technology marketers
For many investors, October’s rough-and-tumble ride in equity markets was an unnerving experience.
But for fintech firms and exchanges that thrive on such market movements, the fresh injection of volatility is a welcome sign—and an opportunity to differentiate themselves among competitors.
Exchanges, in particular, flourish on volatility. This is not surprising given that exchanges exist, largely, to help investors and operators manage risk. But the rise of volatility also helps exchanges market themselves by showcasing, not only the value they bring to the financial ecosystem, but also the new ways they are differentiating from their competitors.
“We’ll take all the volatility that exists at the CME so we encourage that at all times,” said CME Group’s Comer.
For firms that are betting on their ability to collect and analyze data sets to predict market movements, an increase in volatility gives them more chances to show what their products and services can do.
“More volatility, up and down, for us is more beneficial to demonstrate the predictive power of our data,” said Social Market Analytics’ Gits.
For more insights on how financial services firms can create and distribute compelling thought-leadership content—whether on their own or by working with a ghostwriter or outsourced writing agency—subscribe to WFC’s YouTube channel.
About the Author
Frank Kalman is the chief operations officer at Wentworth Financial Communications. Frank and the team of writers and editors at WFC help professionals across the financial services industry build their brands by creating investment-grade white papers, bylined articles, newsletters, blogs, social media posts, and other forms of content marketing.