Lead Generation for Fintech Companies During the Coronavirus Lockdown

The coronavirus disease continues to spread across the globe. It affects hundreds of nations and is currently disrupting several sectors. In the fintech industry, many businesses were impacted by the virus outbreak. Some had to close their door permanently. Others are doing their best to keep things afloat. Besides the virus outbreak, some companies, especially in Hong Kong are shaken up by the political instability. 

There’s a lot of things going on during these times. As such, it’s all the more important for companies to prioritize long-term solutions. For example, businesses should address issues in generating quality leads. 

Find out if there is a way around this problem. What are the best tactics in lead generation for fintech companies during the coronavirus lockdown? What fintech industries are expected to take a major hit, and who will come out as winners? What long-term changes in market behaviour will arise from the situation? 

Pivoting Lead Gen Strategy

The outbreak has significantly altered the behaviour of many consumers. For starters, a large fraction of the world is staying at home. Some workers have started to transition into the remote working setup. Customers today are now taking full advantage of digital transactions. This is why fintech businesses such as e-payments are slowly expanding their operations. 

And because the disease continues to rise by the day, live events such as trade shows and conferences across the globe have been cancelled. To adapt fintech organizations have been maximising the use of webinars and video conferences. Speakers and participants make use of apps such as GoToMeeting and Zoom to facilitate their digital events. 

In a huge way, marketers in the financial tech business are continuously assessing and restructuring their plans to adapt to the changes and deliver relevant solutions. 

Below are the best ways fintech marketers and businesses pivot their lead generation game.

Restructuring the Marketing Budget 

During a crisis, companies reduce their non-essential costs to keep things afloat. To do this, they often resort to doubling up goals, freezing hiring, and reducing headcount. Instead of hiring a third party for lead generation, some companies task their internal team to handle the workload. Oftentimes, this results in overworked staff and poorly converting leads. 

During these times, it’s more crucial to ramp up one’s efforts in securing deals and building one’s marketing strategy. And this is where a fintech lead generation specialist’s knowledge and background comes extra helpful. They have access to data and analytics that can help you streamline the lead generation process. 

Instead of totally cutting off-budget for marketing or delegating workload to your staff, it’s more advisable to restructure the plan. 

When restructuring your plan and budget, take note of the following:

• The lockdown period also serves as a good time to strengthen one’s brand and online presence. 
• Outsourcing your sales and lead generation to expert companies who make use of a data-driven approach is a long-term and more cost-effective solution. 
• Continued use of relationship-based strategies like email marketing, online communities, and search marketing will be helpful in reaching out to the audience today.
• It’s handy to find new platforms to reach out and engage your audience and target market such as webinars and live video events.
• Basing decisions on data and facts from tech solutions such as Google Analytics and not just one’s personal assumptions is always the right way to do things.  

Investing in Quality Lead Generation and Research 

Limited working budget will most definitely push fintech marketers to fine-tune their lead generation and research processes. It’s crucial to target leads according to the area, domain area or specialities that could yield more business. It’s also good practice to look into company titles and roles when reaching out. 

As much as possible, consider shifting one’s attention to decision-makers of the company to produce more fruitful results. If the company buys lists, the team should go through them and remove irrelevant and duplicated entries. If possible, the team needs to add relevant information such as demographics to boost lead conversion efforts. 

Additionally, it’s a must to re-organise the list and prioritise leads that can be turned into opportunities. Find out which part of the buyer journey they are in. This will allow your fintech company to send the right content that will lead the customers through the pipeline. 

It’s also high-time to start accelerating the company’s networking efforts, especially on LinkedIn. Reach out to fellow professionals in the fintech industry and connect with them. See how you can help them during this dire situation. 

Lastly, you should open your  minds and not think in terms “saving the company” from this pandemic but also grabbing opportunities during this economic crisis. Oftentimes, when one door closes, a new window of opportunity opens. 

For example, The Fintech News SG reports the following winners in the fintech industry: 

• Companies providing trading infrastructure
• Trading apps
• Vendors providing contactless payment options
• Digital wallets 
• Fintech enablers such as IoTs, SaaS, machine learning, and AI

In order to tap into these areas of growth and expansion, one must be accessible, resourceful, critical and creative. 

Maximising the use of Digital Marketing

Digital marketing is among key lead generation strategies used by a lot of fintech vendors even before the coronavirus lockdown. It’s measurable and trendy, and it’s relevant to today’s market.

A report from Venture Harbour highlights the value of online marketing for B2B, B2C, and B2B2C companies. The main points in their discussion are as follows: 

• The majority of leads generated for B2C and B2B2C organisations comes from social media, SEO, and email marketing.  
• B2B models find success in generating leads through SEO, email marketing, trade shows, and telemarketing. 
• Email marketing delivers the highest ROI and volume of leads. 
• 70 percent of internet audiences learn about a product or service via content marketing. 

During these unprecedented times, digital marketing offers a safer and more flexible way for organisations to engage with their audience. It’s also an effective platform to use because of the increased screen time of professionals and the surge in social media and internet use.

However, it’s important to note that now isn’t the best time to be salesy. Instead of utilising digital marketing channels for promotional ads, think of how the organisation can help. Find ways to deliver value to the audience. 

Creating Relatable Bespoke Content

Content is a powerful lead generation tool that not only benefits businesses but also the target users. Provided that content contains useful information, it can deliver valuable insights that the audience can use when using or availing a product or service. 

Content marketing is also essential to creating an impressive branding. Outbrain, a website advertising platform explains that branded content marketing allows businesses to establish their credibility. It’s also proven useful in engaging with both existing and potential customers. 

When creating content during this global pandemic, it’s important to create them for the buyer personas. Be sure to make use of a compelling narrative to hook the target market. Share how your company’s journey and transformation during this lockdown period. Provide them some mental sense of security, especially to those who make use of your products or services. Aim to produce content that customers can benefit from. 

Marketers and content producers can also create topical content that talks about the COVID situation and how it relates to the business. For example, here in Datasearch Consulting, we have published a few blog posts that can help our clients navigate their way through the crisis.

It’s also worth it to consider using other content formats such as infographics, video clips, Facebook live videos, IGTV, and webinars depending on the niche. 

Making use of Employee Advocacy Programmes for Content Dissemination

Employee advocacy has been around for years. And it’s widely utilised by various businesses and industries. It comes in many forms. So, there’s a number of ways you can integrate it into the company’s lead generation strategy. 

During this crisis, you can use it to spread the good word about the brand. What better way to amplify the lead generation efforts than asking the staff to help out? This approach allows you to tap into your staff’s network. It also allows you to expand your reach without allocating a large chunk of your budget into paid ads. 

Also, when you make use of an employee-centric approach, naturally, your company becomes customer-centric. This is because your company values such empathy and integrity irradiate towards the customers you serve.

Create blurbs for the posts that the company wants to share on social media and send them over to your team. They can rehash the blurbs or just post them directly on their social media channels.   

Using a Personal Approach when Engaging with Audiences

Personalisation and digital marketing go hand in hand. And in these crucial moments, it’s all the more important for businesses to personalise the messages they sent out. 

When personalising content during a crisis, you need to see beyond the demographics. To gain a more solid insight, pay close attention to the consumer’s behaviour. How are they using your products or services? What are their pain points? 

The lockdown and preventive measures of different countries, the growing concerns for the economic fallout, and the risks of being prone to the disease getting infected all play a part in reshaping how consumers think and behave. 

Re-assess your current marketing and lead generation and look for possible ways to improve them. Think long-term when implementing adjustments. For example, you may need to re-think about using email automation. Also, you may need to update your buyer personas, landing pages, and ad copies to better accommodate the needs of your dream clients.    

Conclusion

Lead generation during the coronavirus lockdown comes with a lot of challenges, especially for businesses that are barely hanging by a thread. It’s good practice to assess your situation and the current market you have and determine the best ways you can pivot your strategy. 

It’s also highly recommended to outsource lead generation to companies who specialise in this field. Here at Dataseach Consulting, we help fintech vendors grow with our data-driven lead generation service. This way, businesses like yours you get to find quality leads and focus on other essential components of your businesses. 

Want to get more insights on lead generation for your business? Check out our fintech lead generation blog! We have plenty of content from lead generation specialists in the fintech niche. 

Need help generating leads? Reach out to our team of financial tech lead generation experts today!