How to create a successful B2B fintech marketing strategy - A step by step guide

[NOTE: The following is an excerpt from my article on ideating and creating a B2B fintech marketing strategy that boosts revenue. Click here to read the full piece.]

Guides like these promise to simplify everything into a nutshell-flavored piece of cake. Unfortunately, not every part of the process is easy to reduce. You must execute a few steps when installing a successful fintech marketing strategy.

Once you understand these steps, they're simple to execute. Remember to take your time with the steps and not rush ahead to the next one.

Step 1 - Set your budget

The first step is to define your inbound marketing budget and define what you would like to see from your campaigns. Inbound marketing revolves around content creation. Content comes in various forms (blogs, videos, etc) and needs resources to create.

Here are a few pointers that can help you estimate how much you must spend:

• Aaron Agius, Co-Founder of the marketing agency Louder.Online estimates that his clients allocate 25-30% of their marketing budget to content marketing. If your overall budget is $200,000, $50,000 is dedicated to content marketing. Stick to the lower end of that range at first.
• The ROI on content marketing is significant. Research shows content marketing generates 3X the leads of outbound/paid marketing and costs 60% less. These numbers refer to perfectly executed campaigns so don't expect such results immediately. However, the potential is immense.
• Content creation costs money. Blog posts are usually the cheapest. Case studies and website copy are expensive. Video production can vary depending on the style you choose. For instance, whiteboard explainer videos are inexpensive.
• You will need the following employees or freelancers at the very least:
• One content manager - This person defines your strategy and creates content, whether written or video. The average salary for a full-time content manager is $80,000 annually. A freelance/fractional content strategist will cost you $60,000 annually at least and include writing and editing services.
• One content writer - Writers are essential since text is the easiest way to get found and build authority. Good writers can cost you anywhere from $50,000 to $120,000 annually.
• You will see ROI in six months. Here's the tricky bit: The ROI is not quantifiable. You'll see an increase in sales and people talking about you on social media. Unlike paid ads, you cannot quantify the monetary impact a single piece of content has

Bottom line: When starting, hire a freelance content strategist who bundles services for a monthly price. This person can install a framework and define strategies that will have your content machine humming for a long time.

Step 2 - Set your goals

Goal-setting is important, as every self-help guru will tell you. Your primary goal must be increasing revenue. Work backward from that goal to define your content marketing goals.

Here's what it looks like in practice. To generate sales, you need strong sales leads. To generate strong leads, you need high converting content. To generate high converting content, you need a framework that guides prospects along a path that measures their interest at each stage. To bring prospects onto your path, you need content that attracts them.

This process gives us the following content marketing goals and metrics that measure your progress towards them:

• Generate high-quality, sales-ready leads - Delivered leads to closed deals ratio (sales conversion ratio,) number of leads delivered per month
• Produce high-quality content - Click to action ratios (conversion ratios,) engagement ratios, overall traffic, unique prospect counts, prospect count per customer segment/geography/demographic
• Install a content path that delights prospects at every step - Content engagement ratios at every step, conversion ratios/pass-through rate from one step to the next, number of prospects per step

Step 3 - Get to know your prospect

Buyer persona creation is one of the most enjoyable parts of the content strategy process. You'll understand what moves your prospects and which issues are the most important. Do not get bogged down trying to figure out what their favorite color is. Focus on the important stuff.

Here are the best ways of gathering information about your prospects:

• Analyze keyword searches related to your product
• Interview existing customers
• Reach out to prospects and request an interview
• Send forms and surveys that your prospects can fill out
• Gather information from industry conferences
• Browse sites like Quora and Reddit to monitor conversations if this applies to your industry and product
• Monitor forums and social media to pick up on conversations and pressing needs

It is best to use all these methods. Once the data is in, it's time to create your personas. Here is the data you must have on your personas, at a minimum:

• Prospect role in the buyer journey - Is this person a product user, an indirect beneficiary, a budget owner, or the final approver. Note that these roles can overlap.
• Company size and revenues
• Job position/role
• Average experience
• Who they report to
• Personality qualities - For example, "risk-taker," "conservative," "analytical" etc.
• Key metrics in their job role
• Challenges
• Goals
• What they do at a broad level
• Common objections
• Price to value impression (assuming they control budgets) - How much is too much for your product? What is their ideal price range? How much is too less or too much of a bargain?
• Their role in the buying decision

Organize this information in a document. In B2B, you'll almost always have more than one persona to target. Define the above data points scrupulously and develop counter-points to their common objections.

Step 4 - Define buyer journeys

B2B purchases are more complex than B2C. Prospects have multiple approval stages. You will have this data from the previous step, so creating a flowchart of the approval process should be simple.

Store this document in an easily accessible place so that everyone on your sales and marketing team has access to it.

Step 5 - Optimize your website

Step 5 is where marketing teams go wrong and start defining content topics and pieces. Before you even think about the content you want to publish, you must take care of your biggest sales resource: Your website.

A prospect who reads your content will head to your website to check you out. Imagine producing great content but a clunky website. You'll lose the sale, and they'll likely never return. Website design is an intricate process, but as long as you stick to a few basics, you'll be fine.

Here are some do's and don'ts for website design:

• DO have a product page listed separately from your home page
• DO insert relevant keywords on your product page
• DON'T have a single page website
• DON'T adopt a white on black color scheme. Stick to black on white.
• DO have a blog or resource centre link displayed prominently on your main menu
• DO showcase testimonials
• DO quantify benefits in ROI terms. For example, "Our product saves 50%..." etc.
• DO keep jargon as minimum a level as appropriate. Save highly technical jargon for specialized resources.
• DO link to your product page from your blog posts and every other page on your website
• DO have a "Contact Us" form prominently displayed in your menu
• DO have a sales-oriented CTA displayed in your main menu. For example, "book a demo," "open a free account," etc.
• DO showcase numbers on your pages to prove effectiveness
• DON'T fake testimonials

That's all there is to a sales-ready B2B fintech website. You don't need fancy graphics or anything else. Keep it simple. If you have the budget to hire a great web designer and copywriter, do so. You'll realize an ROI of at least 200% from those investments.

What if you can afford just one? Hire a great copywriter first. Words matter when selling online.

Step 6 - Define topic lists and create content

This is another step where B2B fintech companies go down the wrong path. They fire up an SEO research tool or hire an SEO agency to figure out what people are searching for on Google. Getting found on Google does not mean increased sales. SEO is a small part of content marketing. Do not confuse the two.

In B2B, you will not find sales-oriented keywords such as "best PSD2 compliance services provider." You'll always find generic, awareness-based searches. For instance, "what is PSD2" and so on. You can't build a content marketing strategy or a revenue stream by solely targeting such phrases.

Instead, you must turn to your sales team and persona data. What are their biggest issues? Combine that with SEO data, and you'll have a winning formula. Here are some do's and don'ts that will help you publish revenue-generating content:

• DO create content that addresses your prospects' biggest issues and objections
• DO create content relevant to upcoming industry events
• DON'T push your product as a solution. Leave a link to your product page instead
• DO create helpful content that addresses all issues related to a topic
• DON'T focus on content length. Let it be as long or short as it needs to be
• DO seek feedback from sales before publishing content
• DO maintain a list of content you've published
• DO link between content pieces and record these links in your content list
• DON'T publish just about anything on your blog. Always focus on addressing primary prospect issues

That's all there is to it. Your content strategist will define content topics to be published and a calendar that fixes publication dates.

Step 7 - Define metrics

This step is easy since you've already laid the groundwork in Step two. Extrapolate those goals to your content, and you'll figure out what you must track. Engagement, traffic, and conversion metrics will help you figure out how much people like your content.

As always, here are some do's and don'ts when it comes to defining fintech metrics:

• DO measure engagement metrics and traffic sources to your content
• DON'T worry about Google search position. Most B2B revenue-oriented fintech content does not rank on Google
• DO seek feedback from sales and prospects
• DON'T measure metrics daily. Record trends and view them monthly or more
• DO track conversion and revenue-oriented metrics. For instance, traffic is great, but how much of that traffic does what you want it to do? Measure the latter

Step 8 - Define content promotion strategy

You have a shiny new piece of content, but no one knows it exists yet. No one will know it exists unless you shout and scream about it. That's how marketing works these days. Don't fall for the "build it and they will come" trap.

Promotion is tough. You'll have a ton of competition, and when you're starting from the bottom, no one knows who you are and will likely not listen to you. However, consistency is the key. Don't expect miracles from individual content pieces. Over time, your results will compound, and that's where miracles happen.

The best way of gaining a prospect's attention and directing them to your content is to use content. What I mean is you must create what's called a lead magnet. You'll learn all about the lead magnet strategy in the next section. In short, a lead magnet is something that compels your prospect to click and explore your content.

Here are some ways of disseminating your lead magnet:

• Social media - Publish your lead magnet to your social media networks. Get your employees to publish it on their feeds. Publish it in industry-relevant groups and forums. You get the idea.
• Reach out - Let industry influencers know you've published something awesome and ask if they would like to link to it or publish it on their feeds.
• Run ads - Paid ads can drive traffic to your content and get you conversions. Just make sure your content prominently links to your product page so you can track sales calls or demo requests.
• Email - Do you have an email list? Great! Send your content to them.
• Write for trade publications - Pick a topic closely related to your content, have a writer create an authoritative piece, and reach out to publication editors. You can then link to your content and drive traffic from the trade journal's website.

Content promotion is using all of these strategies and focusing on what works. For instance, if social media promotion isn't working for you, then drop it. No rule says you MUST use social media.

Step 9 - Measure

Once you've got your promotion rolling, it's time to sit back and measure results. Track all the metrics you defined in Step seven and keep executing your promotion strategy.

Step 10 - Tweak

Here's the thing about your fintech content strategies: The first pass will likely not work or miss the mark in some unexpected way. Instead of throwing your hands up in despair, tweak your campaign.

Here are some questions you can ask yourself to refine your campaign:

• Does my content address core issues credibly?
• Is my lead magnet a magnet or a repellent?
• Am I measuring the right metrics?
• Are my expectations realistic?
• Can I reformat this piece of content and experiment with it?
• Can I create a follow-up piece that addresses issues better?
• Am I promoting it via the wrong channels?
• Is my website geared towards sales?

Content marketing is iterative. You'll run a campaign, see what comes, adjust, and run it again. It is not a one-and-done deal.

[NOTE: The above is an excerpt from my article on ideating and creating a B2B fintech marketing strategy that boosts revenue. Click here to read the full piece]