5 Epic Fintech Marketing Campaigns

They say imitation is the best form of flattery. We say: if you can learn something vital from a campaign that succeeded before you, then you’ve used the previous example as a learning tool. It’s an easy way to jumpstart your creativity particularly when your job as a mobile marketer requires you to constantly be thinking outside of the box.

Fintech as an industry is relatively new however, so tracking and looking for examples of epic Fintech marketing campaigns is not as easy as looking for examples in the ecommerce or automotive industries.

Below, however, are clear standouts in this category.

Klarna: Buy Now Pay Later… with Tiny Cowboys

Klarna, a Swedish company founded in 2005 and which entered the US in 2015 is a buy now pay later (BNPL) service that allows shoppers to divide payments for large purchases into four smaller payments… or within 30 days after purchase. The company, which is both B2B and B2C, partners with retailers like H&M and Sephora to give consumers alternative payment methods.

In their TV ad for Super Bowl LV, they drove the point home by getting comedian Maya Rudolph to pay for some cowboy boots in 4 smaller payments.* The result is an unforgettable combination of surreal visuals and effective messaging.

Takeaways:

• Use celebrity influencers. Yes, they’re expensive. But often that’s because they have the expertise to effectively communicate your value proposition onscreen. Plus, you can’t ignore celebrity appeal when aiming at a very wide audience.
• Be weird… if it fits. We’re not saying you need to be David Lynch* with your storytelling just for the sake of surreal imagery. But having something weird or unforgettable in your campaign can definitely catapult it from a mere marketing campaign into a possible viral marketing campaign. It certainly served well in Klarna’s case as it got them attention for their creative spot, making sure it was much talked about in the aftermath of the sporting event.

Coinbase: Showing Your App’s Benefits on Social

Coinbase is a secure platform that makes it easy to buy, sell, and store cryptocurrency — everything from Bitcoin to Ethereum and yes, Dogecoin. The company has always been up front about the simplicity and ease of use of their services. Although a large part of its challenge is educating its potential audience about crypto, then making the case for their technology.

So what better way to teach potential users than by illustrating its unique selling points via social media? Below is a simple example of an explainer video created for Instagram, where it shows off the benefits of the Coinbase service, enticing the user to explore it for themselves.

Takeaways:

• Educate them. Is your Fintech service complex? Is it something that would scare away people who don’t “do math” for a living? Then talk about your service and how your app can help them wrap their heads around it. And use the campaigns to teach them the ropes.
• Use social media fearlessly. Don’t be afraid to wade into the social media channels that your potential customers use! What better way to find new leads than to go where they already congregate?

Wealthsimple Tax: Making Taxes Easy… Even for Gorgons

Death and taxes are the only sure things in life supposedly. For a great majority of people however, there’s a third: confusion surrounding the preparation of taxes. This is precisely the problem that Wealthsimple Tax seeks to solve.

Wealthsimple is a Canada-based company that has been using slick content marketing tactics via their Wealthsimple Magazine* to turn potential customers toward their Fintech apps for cryptocurrency investing, stock trading, and even payments to friends: Wealthsimple Trade and Wealthsimple Invest.

Wealthsimple Tax* is promoted as a way for anyone to file their taxes using secure online software that guarantees you get the biggest possible refund available. And it’s on a pay-what-you-want fee structure. According to the company, the average single-day tax filer takes about 80 minutes to prepare and submit their tax forms.

The ads they prepared for Super Bowl LV highlight this simplicity. In this series of 3 spots, various cinematic characters — Medusa, Frankenstein’s monster, and Noah building his ark — are each struggling with their tax forms until they gain clarity into their situation with some help from the Fintech service.

Takeaways:

• Don’t be afraid to use humor! Sure, there’s nothing more serious than taxes and paying the government what it’s due. But that doesn’t mean your users aren’t struggling with some funny situations as this series of ads so aptly illustrates.
• Communicate the unique selling proposition. While they certainly aren’t saying that all their customers are demigods or supervillains, what the brand did here was use a medium to tell a story about how the service is for everyone. Even snake-haired gorgons (assuming they pay taxes, of course).

goHenry: More Signups With a Long Landing Page?

goHenry is a prepaid credit card for children and teenagers that allows parents to teach their kids about money and spending. The Fintech service allows parents to load their children’s cards with money and even pay their allowance via the app. But when they started in 2012, the company initially faced a problem with getting people to sign up for the service.

In this engaging case study,* Conversion Rate Experts outline the steps they took to increase goHenry’s market share by 470%. And one of the most interesting decisions the agency made was to increase the length of the mobile landing page in order to tell a more complete story and address all possible objections regarding their service.

Image from Conversion Rate Experts

The result of this lengthy page: it beat the original landing page by 78%. Why?

1. They had a long story to tell so they lengthened the page.
2. They used visuals to explain parts of the story.
3. They addressed credibility quickly by highlighting goHenry’s relationship with Visa.
4. The call-to-action was placed at every major section, allowing a reader to skip to the sign up immediately… or keep reading as needed.

Takeaways:

• Length is fine, boring is not. Yes, people don’t have much time or attention, but when your service is complex and must be explained thoroughly for customers to understand the value of your offering, don’t be afraid of length. What you need to be wary of is: are you boring your audience with all the information? Boring content will never give you results. Cut out the dry lecture and apply the rules of effective mobile copywriting!
• Tackle the objections head on. A large part of the long landing page had to do with addressing every possible objection the audience might have to the goHenry service, starting with credibility. By systematically providing answers to possible objections, they built a way to get users to conversion faster.

Varo: Money Education By Giving Away Money

Varo is an all-mobile bank, and the first all-digital nationally chartered bank in the US. It proudly offers a checking account with no monthly fees, overdraft fees, or foreign transaction fees. The company recently launched a campaign called the Emergency Fund Sweepstakes,* which seeks to educate young audiences about saving money for a rainy day.

The giveaway runs for four weeks starting January 25, 2021. Fifty winners will be selected each week over the four week period and each winner receives a $500 emergency savings fund deposited into their Varo savings account. To promote the giveaway, they’ve published a series of videos starring unknown 20-somethings with lifestyles guaranteed to appeal to their target market, and have these people talk about how they learned to save money for emergencies.

These videos are part of a larger campaign to generate awareness about fiscal responsibility, but also to build a stronger following on social media channels.

Takeaways:

• Use gamification. To enter the giveaway, Varo is asking consumers to share their money goals for 2021 on Instagram under 2 specific hashtags. Already there are around 5,000 posts as this blog post is being published.
• Tell relatable stories. Each of the pre-recorded videos that Varo released tells a relatable story starring relatable people to drive the point home. Because these on-camera talents could very well be their audience, Varo knows they can get their message across more easily.

If Fintech Marketing is Boring, It’s Your Fault

After all these examples, the one thing you should take away is that you have no excuse to produce boring campaigns. No matter how complex your Fintech app is, or how unknown your brand, you can think outside the box and craft an engaging marketing campaign that people will want to see or follow or interact with. All you need to do is remember that your audience should be able to relate to your service in an honest, human way. Even when you’re comparing them to Medusa.

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