InMarketing This Week: Who influences the influencers?

Innovate > Interact > Influence

Written for CEOs, marketers and other leaders in the financial sector, InMarketing This Week is a showcase for news likely to impact them - delivered with insight on why it matters and ideas on what to do about it.

It’s published here every Sunday to give you a head start on the week.

What’s new?

On Monday, Sifted (the FT's excellent title focussed on the European startup sector) published a look at how influencers are on the rise and social media like Instagram and TikTok are "the new battlegrounds for digital banks". In short:

• "Fintechs are now focusing their fight for market share and customers online, paying social-media influencers to post endorsements across Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat and TikTok - trying to dominate platforms where big banks don’t yet play."
• "Consumer fintechs may soon form part of the 17% of companies that spend over half of their marketing budget on influencers, moving away from TV campaigns and tube ads."
• Many remain sceptical however. The personal finance commentator Ellie Austin-Williams "analysed the engagement stats for a fashion influencer. The blogger only received engagement of around 0.01% on her banking advert, while her average was ~5% (comparing how many ‘likes’ her posts received as a percentage of her total following)."

Why does it matter?

You don't need to be a regular reader of InMarketing This Week to know that social media - or 'shared media' as a think of it as, to distinguish it from owned (your own website), paid (your adverts), and earned (your press coverage) - is a vital component of any marketing strategy. What's interesting about the 'influencer' phenomenon is that it sits somewhere between shared and paid, in that you're using social networks but 'renting' someone else's audience rather than building your own. It's now a $15bn marketing sector. 

It's obvious why this new $15bn sector appeals to fintech marketers

It's obvious why this appeals to fintech marketers who don't have the budget for TV campaigns (and who often want to reach a demographic that has largely abandoned TV anyway). Two questions arise then: does it work and, if so, how do you do it?

The answer to the first question is yes. And no. Influencers certainly enable you to get your brand in front of a new audience. Whether that's actually the right strategy is something Accenture's Tom Merry questions in the article - particularly for a fintech aiming for profitability rather than growth. “In the UK, the challenge is [for fintechs] to make money from the customers they already have…They’ve worked out it’s not good business to say ‘go get me a customer who’s going to make me very little.’"

The question of how to make it work centres, as it does for so many other marketing tactics, on authenticity. Now, more than ever, consumers are savvy. They can smell an advert - whether it's called one or not - a mile off. The key then is to form relationships with influencers who will be credible when promoting your brand, that feel like a natural part of your brand's story. The ideal is to use existing customers. Starling Bank, for example, has been particularly adroit at using their small business customers to speak on their behalf.

What’s next?

1. Take action

No brand should even think of dipping its toes into influencer marketing until it has some basic building blocks in place. Your website (ultimately where you want prospects you find on social to come) should be clear and compelling, you should have a content marking programme in place so you have a story to tell once you have their attention, and our own social media channels should be alive and vibrant.

Once those things are in place, it could be time to consider influencer marketing to increase your reach. Start by defining the audience you want to get in front of. Only then can you start identifying the influencers who have access to that audience. As you do so, keep 'authenticity' foremost in your mind. Does it feel authentic for this influencer to be promoting your brand? Existing customers are an obvious group but by no means the only one. A photographer promoting a credit card with a particular robust purchase protection programme, for example, works. A wine critic promoting a current account that comes bundled with membership of a wine club does too. You get the idea.

> Identify influencers who can help you reach the new audience you're targeting and be authentic as they do so.

2. Get help

In the post-Covid age of depleted marketing budgets and remote teams with skills gaps, many organisations need marketing and communications support that’s agile, flexible, on demand and risk free. That’s why I founded WhatsNext Partners.

> Whether it be as a permanent member of your team or with 'on demand' support, let me know if you need my help.

3. Share with colleagues

Sharing valuable content is integral to building any brand, including your own.

> If you found this post useful or know someone who would, please like, comment on or share it using the buttons below.

What else?

Three other articles worth your time this week.

FINANCE

The Financial Times: Ant setback signals reckoning for fintech

TAKEWAY: Fintech will increasingly be regulated. That doesn't mean it won't prevail.

• "As Ant has morphed from a tech group that processes payments into a giant credit platform, it has become a potential systemic risk. For regulators, curbing that risk is perfectly sensible."
• "Around the world, tech-based credit platforms have sprung up in huge volume over the decade. [...] There was a pragmatic shift away from the purist idealism of the retail P2P model toward a reliance on institutional funding, supplied by asset managers and, ironically, banks."
• "For all the pressures, though, it would be foolish to write of the fintech lenders. In many cases, especially in China and across Europe, their technology is genuinely superior to that of the banks."

TECHNOLOGY

Citywire: Investors rage as market surge crashes trading platforms

TAKEAWAY: Retail trading platforms still not robust enough to handle surges in volume

• "The announcement by pharmaceutical giantPfizer (PFE.N) and German partner BioNTech(BNTX.O) that its experimental vaccine was more than 90% effective in preventing Covid-19 has sent global stock markets soaring.
• "Technical glitches dogged the UK’s major trading platforms as they became overwhelmed with the volume of investors eager to join in the stock market surge."
• "Customers of Hargreaves Lansdown, Fidelity, AJ Bell and iWeb tweeted their complaints, having been left without access to their investment accounts as technical issues dogged the platforms."

MEDIA & MARKETING

Yello: The Biden presidential transition logo is here

TAKEAWAY: Your logo should reflect your brand. Even if that changes dramatically overnight.

• This is a fascinating and timely look at the considerations involved in logo design.
• "When Joe Biden went from being the Democratic presidential nominee to the American president-elect, his brand needs changed."
• "Biden’s visual identity now had to become more subdued and refined, moving away from campaign mode to governing mode."

Quotable

Jon Sopel, on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, discussing Biden's appointment of Ron Klein as his chief of staff:

"It's a return to normality. If you’ve watched The West Wing, he’s Leo McGarry."

About

Written for CEOs, marketers and other leaders in the financial sector, InMarketing This Week is a showcase for news likely to impact them - delivered with insight on why it matters and ideas on what to do about it.

It’s published here every Sunday to give you a head start on the week.

InMarketing is a broader celebration of marketing that innovates, interacts and influences. It's available on Twitter, on LinkedIn, and as a Flipboard magazine.

For more, follow me on Twitter.