April 2, 2025 • 21 mins
In this episode of Digital Coffee: Marketing Brew, host Brett Deister welcomes Anne Laffin, a seasoned marketing strategist and content creator with a wealth of experience in fintech marketing. Anne shares her insights into the intricacies of marketing in the fintech space, emphasizing the importance of balancing features with benefits to resonate with consumers. She also discusses the challenges of integrating AI into financial services while maintaining privacy, and the critical need for transparency. Anne delves into strategies for building brand awareness, the role of content and webinars in lead generation, and the delicate art of building trust in an industry where finances are at the forefront. Tune in to learn more about how fintech companies can navigate the complexities of marketing, leverage emerging technologies, and develop effective campaigns in a crowded marketplace.
About the Guest:
Anne Laffin is a visionary in the FinTech industry, focusing keenly on the holistic impact of financial technology on people's lives. Recognizing the prevalent industry trend of fixating solely on features, Anne advocates for a broader discussion that also emphasizes the tangible benefits of FinTech solutions. She believes this approach is crucial, especially during times of financial instability, to address FinTech concerns of users, be they consumers or financial advisers. Anne’s insights spotlight the delicate challenge of balancing feature promotion with meaningful discussions on how FinTech can positively influence everyday financial well-being.
3 Fun Facts
- Anne Laffin is a 100% coffee drinker, preferring whatever coffee is at home, but having specific orders when she's out at Starbucks or Dunkin' Donuts.
- Anne refers to herself as a "utility player" in marketing, likening her skills to those of a Swiss army knife, meaning she's capable of handling a variety of marketing tasks.
- Anne enjoys experimenting with her LinkedIn content, often tweaking and reposting content to see if different wording or timing yields better results.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Anne Laffin (00:00):
Look, my 2 cents in this is that don't go to an influencer
(00:04):
for your, like your end all, beall advice on your finances, right?
Talk to a professional, getactual real advice from them.
Brett (00:25):
Mm, that's good.
And welcome to a new episode ofDigital Coffee Marketing Brew.
I'm your host, Brett , pleasesubscribe to this podcast
and leave a five star review.
Really just help with the rankings.
Let me know how I'm doing.
But this week we're gonnatalk about FinTech marketing.
Yes.
The other side of marketing that is.
To some people, a little boring, but it'sstill very important because we all care
(00:47):
about our finances, especially businesses.
Anyways, I have Anne with me, and she's amarketing problem solver, strategist, and
content creator that helps entrepreneursand founders grow and amplify the
inspiring work they bring to the world.
And she's in, she has a.
In trenches mentality comes from 20 yearmarketing career, working with a variety
of companies, large, small, clean startupsin the market, research, tech, financial
(01:12):
services, and animal health industry.
But welcome to the show, Anne.
Anne Laffin (01:16):
Hello.
Thank you for having me.
Brett (01:19):
Yes.
The first question is all my guestis, are you a coffee or tea drinker?
Anne Laffin (01:24):
Coffee?
A hundred percent.
All the way.
Once in the morning and in the afternoon.
Brett (01:31):
Got you.
Is it more of a, just gimme whatevercoffee's there, or are you like specific
on what coffee you actually drink?
Anne Laffin (01:38):
Okay, so if I'm at home, it's whatever coffee happens to be here.
But if I'm out, I definitelyhave a Starbucks order.
I have a Dunking Donut order.
It it's a little dependent I suppose.
I love coffee.
Brett (01:50):
Nice.
Now you have a briefsummary of your expertise.
Can you give our listeners alittle bit more about what you do?
Anne Laffin (01:57):
Yeah.
So right now I run a marketingconsultancy for early stage startups.
So we're talking about earlycompanies that have maybe zero
ish, half, half an employee perhapsto to about 10 to 20 employees
in the series A, series B, prese.
Seed round stage.
I help with marketing strategy,messaging, execution, little bit of
(02:21):
column A, a little bit of column B.
It's a lot of fun.
Brett (02:24):
Nice.
And so what are some of thebiggest challenges in marketing
FinTech products or services?
Anne Laffin (02:32):
I think a lot of times in FinTech companies lean
on features and features only.
And to your point in thiswonderful intro today, people are
concerned about their finances.
There's a lot of, I think financialtumultuousness that is happening
and it's a great time for FinTechcompanies to be talking about benefits.
(02:58):
As well as features, right?
To be talking a little bit more abouthow this ultimately affects your life,
whether it's a consumer using theproduct or even a financial advisor.
I think it can be a challengeto get the balance right.
Brett (03:10):
And is AI concerned since a lot of AI is very public?
And I've seen some financialservices are like, we got ai.
And I'm like, wait a minute here.
So how can you like market thatfeature but also say that it, we've
we're protecting your privacy, yourdata because it's very important.
I.
Anne Laffin (03:30):
I think if you want to loop AI in, or you have looped AI in
you, you just nailed it right there.
You have to be very transparent about whatthe security privacy features are that
you have in place to make sure that theinformation running through AI or whatever
system that they have is not going out tochat GPT or not going out to the masses.
(03:52):
It should be very cleanlykept behind a wall.
And you should be able to veryeasily explain how it's being used.
I think if you can't do thosethings, that is an accident and
a bad accident waiting to happen.
Brett (04:05):
So how do FinTech companies approach building brand awareness?
I know you talked a little bit abouttrust, but is there anything, because
like you said, we could have all thefeatures in the world, but if no one knows
who you are, it doesn't really matter.
Anne Laffin (04:18):
Yeah.
I think just like with any brand, youhave to know where your audience is first.
You have to know who you're cateringto, and once you know who you are
serving, who you're solving problems for.
Where do they live?
Do they live on social right?
Are they gonna be on Reddit all the time?
Are they gonna be at conferences?
And then plan your strategy oroutreach strategy around that audience
(04:43):
and knowing where they're goingto be for early stage companies.
At any early stage company, I definitelylean heavily on content and the
things that you own first, becausethey frequently require a lot less
budget and mobile of the startupsI work with don't have huge budget.
So whether it's FinTech or not,making sure that you are one, paying
attention to where your audience isand two, leaning on the resources you
(05:05):
have access to easily it's is key.
Brett (05:08):
So how do you remain scrappy?
Because, it's funny you mentioned.
Lean budgets.
'cause it feels like almost every businessin the marketing department is lean.
Anne Laffin (05:18):
Yeah, I definitely see myself as a UA utility player, right?
A Swiss army knight, someonethat can come in and do.
Pretty much anything becauseafter 20 plus years, I think I
have done just about everything.
Obviously marketing is changing allthe time, so I'm sure some of you
are like, but you haven't done aton of influencer marketing anyway.
(05:39):
My, the point here is that I'mscrappy because I like to come
in and actually do the work.
I don't just hand off a planand say, have fun executing.
I can actually come in and do thework of, for the plan that I've
developed, and I'm happy to do it.
And if I can't do it myself, I know aton of contacts that I can put my clients
in touch with that can get it done.
So that's why.
Brett (06:00):
Do you feel like influencer marketing isn't as
prevalent in the FinTech because.
It feels like trust is the most importantthing with FinTech because again, you
are dealing with financial recordsand that's very important to people.
Anne Laffin (06:14):
There are definitely, there's definitely influencers
in the financial space, right?
Whether they're on TV talkingheads, you for sure they exist.
And it can, it's, they scare me alittle bit, some of them, right?
But I think that whetheryou are a pet parent.
Doing a video for the latest, pet chew orpet toy, or you are a financial advisor
(06:38):
that is sharing some of the great advicethey have to their potential customers.
I think both can be really valuable, butI think you've already nailed it here.
The key is building trust, right?
I think if you come out of thegate as an influencer trying
to be hokey or I don't like.
(06:59):
Feel famous or whatever.
You're like, you have to have the rightmotivation to come out and do that type
of work because particularly in financialservices, I think it, it falls flat
eventually if people don't trust you.
Brett (07:10):
Plus for influencers, you gotta say a lot of hard things for finances
of getting your finances in order.
Look at David.
David Ramsey's probably the,one of the more bigger ones.
He's the one that's you gottaget your finances order.
You have Rich Dad, poor Dad,who is on the opposite side
saying that you can use debt.
To help build your business.
You really gotta pick and choosewhich one you wanna follow.
'cause they all almostdiffer from each other and.
(07:32):
Don't agree with each other.
Anne Laffin (07:34):
Little scary.
Look, my 2 cents in this is thatdon't go to an influencer for
your, like your end all, be alladvice on your finances, right?
Talk to a professional, getactual real advice from them.
You can maybe see the en entertainmentvalue that comes with influencers.
You could get ideas, right?
Like it's also how I use track GPT.
It's great for sparking ideasin conversation, but that I
(07:56):
might not go off and change myinvestment strategy based upon.
What I hear on TV or even a podcast.
Brett (08:04):
Gotcha.
And what marketing strategieshave you found that actually is
great for acquiring customers?
Because like I said, you, for FinTech,you need to acquire customers and you
need to have their financial records.
So what have you found that works well?
Anne Laffin (08:18):
Again, looking at the, where my consumers were financial
advisors webinars actually were.
Worked insanely well at getting newleads, partially because advisors
need continuing education credits.
And so if you can offer really powerful,fantastic webinar content that they need,
brings in a lot of good leads in the door.
(08:39):
Now look, just because somebody watchesyour webinar doesn't mean they're
gonna convert in the next 15 minutes,but it does give you a new pool of
marketable advisors or marketableaudience that you can now reach to.
Content has also been just extremelypowerful, whether that's through
thought leadership, social media, oreven some, like native advertising.
(09:02):
I found that's all worked really nicely.
It just building awareness and somecredibility more than anything else.
Brett (09:09):
And even to like conveying this to your bosses, it probably
takes time for webinars to build that.
From potential customer to actualcustomer, just like podcasting
takes time for a first listenerto an actual like lover or fan.
Anne Laffin (09:25):
A hundred percent.
And I, one, you have to be able to,if you're gonna do a webinar series,
just like with podcasting, all right?
You have to have kind of a libraryof topics or content that you
think you wanna tackle and beable to produce them regularly so
that people know what's coming.
And then you need a planto nurture those people.
That come in from the webinar, right?
How are you gonna follow up with them?
(09:46):
What are you gonna sendthem after the fact?
How, what are you gonna sendthem two months after the fact?
It's not just even producing the content,it's the whole strategy around what we,
what do we do with these people next?
So key
Brett (09:59):
and how do you balance that educating customers with a con,
with the complex financial products.
Because, finance is always complicatedand not everybody understands.
All of it.
So how do you balance that withkeeping the message simple?
Because people want simple,but they also want compelling.
So how do you balance all that?
Anne Laffin (10:15):
That's a great question.
I think that there is again, dependingon your audience, so if we're talking
about consumers mom and pop investor, itdefinitely needs to be, and also depending
upon the channel, sorry, I know it allthat the, it's so annoying to hear.
It depends.
It does depend though.
If you have savvy consumer investors,you can put a little more technical
(10:38):
information into content that'sproduced, whether it's an article
maybe that you submit to an onlinepublication or blog posts that
you're creating for your business.
And then promoting if that's not thecase and those aren't your consumers,
you need to make it digestible.
And I think, and learning, howmuch content to share at once.
Is key there so that you'renot overwhelming them and
(10:59):
they're not tuning you out.
Now if you're working with financialprofessionals, I think almost the opposite
is true in the sense that they need toknow that you know your stuff and that
you have street cred and credibilityand know how to walk through the pieces,
the technical pieces of your, let'ssay your financial planning, service.
(11:19):
Service.
To know that your platform hasthe chops to help them out.
I think it's, again, it goes back, yougotta know your audience to know how
much to feed them and how much to ornot to feed them in terms of content.
Brett (11:32):
And would you.
Technically, you just put 'em intobuckets like these are your regular
customers that don't really know much anddon't understand lingo in the industry
specifically, and then your financialadvisor, everybody else, you could get
away with more lingo than let's sayyour regular customers that have no
idea what you're talking about, andit's all a different language to them.
Anne Laffin (11:54):
But it's even, it's, you know what?
I think that's definitely oneapproach to it and it's important,
the lingo piece, actual vernacular.
But even think about the approachagain with mom and pop investor.
I might want a story.
I.
I might do better with thisinformation in a story format,
something that's relatable to me.
Whereas an advisor might want the facts,they might just wanna know these features
(12:17):
will help you do this with your business,or something to that effect, right?
A, maybe a story isn'texactly what they need.
Maybe they need a case study.
I don't know.
I shooting a little from the hip here,but, so it's not even the lingo, it's
how you actually present ultimatelythat information to them to matters.
Brett (12:31):
So should you put your content marketing different buckets?
Maybe it's maybe thiscould be for both people.
Maybe this is just for your customers, andthen maybe this is just for the financial
advisors, but you could have some for bothand then others just completely spit off.
Anne Laffin (12:45):
For sure.
I think yes.
Brett (12:47):
Got you.
And then where can you leveragethe analytics of this to
optimize the marketing campaigns?
Because we all can create campaignsand then go, wait a minute, this isn't
working as well as I thought it would.
Anne Laffin (12:59):
Yeah.
Look, part of the joy and the painof marketing is when things don't, is
the experimentation of it and learningfrom the things that don't go well.
And, I've definitely had campaignswhere I sent something out and
was like, why did this do well?
And it was a shock.
And so I think when that happens,depending on what it is that you've
sent to, whether it's an email or evena webinar or whatever, I think it's a
(13:21):
good time to just sit down after andbe like, okay, was it the open rate?
Was it the click rate?
Was there not enough attendance?
You have to like to stop andask some important questions of
what actually didn't do well?
I know.
And then see sometimes too, do youhave anything else to compare it to?
Was there a, did you run any contentwith a similar topic at some point?
Did it do better, worse?
I.
(13:41):
And then see if you can make tweaks.
I do this a lot actually at a side notewith my own LinkedIn content, and I'll
take the same post, which maybe did poorlyone day I'll tweak a couple words and
then run it again on a different day andwe'll see potentially a different result.
So I think sometimes when you look atanalytics, you have to be willing to,
one, ask yourself some hard questions,make some tweaks, and try again.
(14:04):
I think that's, I thinkthat's the best you can do.
Brett (14:06):
And do you have any best prac practices for compliance and regulatory
considerations in FinTech marketing?
Because that's the other side of it,is that the B2C, which doesn't do
any financial regulatory, you can shshoot from the hip a little bit more.
But from like medical and likeFinTech, you have a lot of regulatory
that you have to understand.
Anne Laffin (14:27):
That's true.
So there are.
Like different software.
I'm thinking of social media in particularthat can help track the social media
posts that you're putting out there.
There's different types of it like, orcompliance services or software that can
really help keep you in line and keep you.
Just in accordance withwhere you need to be.
I would say too, make sure dependingon what kind of business you
(14:50):
are, again, if you're a largerFinTech company, you likely have
lawyers already involved, right?
They're already looking over your stuff.
Perhaps you have regular compliancereview of documents that go out.
I remember back in the day, I usedto work for a large tam and any.
Any content that we wrote, how to go getFINRA approval and that would take weeks.
I think one, you got it to yourpoint, you have to know your
(15:10):
audience here again and know, likewhere are the legal lines drawn?
And make sure that you are justutilizing, I think, the appropriate
tools that are out there available.
There might be more than people think.
Brett (15:21):
And how do you approach personalizing and targeting your campaigns
and strategies in FinTech marketing?
Is it just the regulatory or thefinancial advisors and then the mom and
pop, or is it a little bit more splitand or do you get a little bit more
personal with the regular customersand less, more professional with the.
Financial advisors or is it amixed bag because everybody has
(15:43):
different personalities and you'rejust kinda I think most people like
this, so I'm gonna try do that one.
And I think most people likethis, so I'm gonna try that one.
Anne Laffin (15:50):
Yeah, it's a good question.
So generally speaking, the financialservices companies that I've worked with
all cater towards, they're all B2B, sothey all work with financial advisors.
Almost exclusively now, there may be somecontent that you have to make that the
advisor could hand out to their clients.
(16:11):
So there is some B2B, B2C, butfor the most part we're dealing
with a financial advisor audience.
And within that you haveregistered investment advisors.
Like you've got broker dealers, like thereare their own segments that are with,
within that realm of a financial advisor.
And they all work very differentlyand think very differently too.
(16:31):
So I think, how you approach themalso depends upon how much flexibility
they have within their organization.
But I think if you have an independentadvisor that you can maybe be a little
more casual with or send out, have moreflexibility to send things their way,
they're gonna have different needs.
I think that's how youat approach that bucket.
(16:53):
I think if you have a broker dealerthat's definitely more constrained
and refined as to what you can sendthem, you have to keep that in mind
as you're sending them content.
And then obviously if you are creatingcontent for the end user it has to be
unbranded and likely more casual anddefinitely less technical than whatever
you produce for financial advisors.
So hopefully that answers your question.
(17:14):
It
Brett (17:15):
does, but what is the, what emerging technologies or trends do you
think will have the biggest impact?
I know we talked about ai, but isthere any other, like actual, other
emerging trends that you see fortechnologies that are coming in for the
FinTech marketing in the coming years?
Anne Laffin (17:31):
I think there has still been this trend of
larger companies scooping up.
Different smaller FinTech providersand getting them under one roof.
So is it one stop shop versus independentpartners that are working together with
integrations And there still seems tobe this seesaw battle, I don't know what
(17:54):
you wanna call it, of which is better.
And I won't say I necessarily havea favorite, but from what I hear,
these larger businesses that arescooping up smaller FinTech companies.
The issues that they're seeing isthat it's a lot of clunky technology
that wasn't made to be under oneroof is being mishmoshed under
one roof, which isn't fantastic.
(18:15):
And on the other side,when you're independent.
And have kind of partnerships, you stillhave to build the integrations, right?
So that's not necessarily seamless either,but it does give you more flexibility to
choose which providers that you work with.
So that seems to be thetrend that I'm still seeing.
I feel like it's been happening for awhile, but something to keep in mind
as you're navigating FinTech for sure.
Brett (18:37):
And has the crypto effect done anything for the FinTech marketing?
We knew, we know we have blockchain slowlybeing implemented within mainstream.
It's not there yet, but is thatalso the coming, emerging thing?
I know Web3 was big for twoyears and then AI came and
nobody cares about Web3 anymore.
Anne Laffin (18:53):
It has not affected any of the marketing I've done for any FinTech
clients I in the last couple of years.
It's not to say that it doesn't affectsomeone, but I personally have not had.
Any issues or, and or experiencehaving it come through any
of the marketing I've done,
Brett (19:06):
got you.
And how do you measure theRO of your marketing or
FinTech marketing initiatives?
Is it basically awareness oris it again, depending on what
your actual initiatives are?
Anne Laffin (19:20):
Yeah, awareness is tough unless you're doing actual market research
to know where you are even to begin with.
But I think, typically ifyou're running a campaign.
If it's, you need to look at arewe looking for registrations?
Are we looking for sales?
Are we looking for someoneto download a white paper?
Who's downloading white papers?
But are you looking forsomeone to download something?
So how you measure, I suppose it'snot always ROI, but it's just the
(19:46):
effectiveness overall of your marketing.
Did they do the thing we asked them to do?
If the answer is no, then you know, youhave to go back and look at what could we
change the experimentation piece again.
If the answer is yes, then I thinkthat's where you begin to hopefully,
feed the machine of, okay, ourefforts should pay off in sales.
It's a little more complicated thanthat, but I think that's how, all
(20:09):
those different phases of the marketingfunnels should start to generate ROI
when they're playing nicely together.
Brett (20:15):
What advice do you have for a new startup, let's say in FinTech, trying
to build that awareness into sales?
What advice would you have for them?
Because there's probably aton of startups going on.
They're just trying to getthat little piece of the pie.
So what advice do you have for that?
Anne Laffin (20:32):
I think you have to really know what makes you different.
Like, why is it you?
Why is it your business?
And how do you solve for enoughpain that your audience is feeling
that they're gonna want you?
You gotta be able to answer that.
And if you, until you can, to me, ifyou're just more noise in a noisy channel,
Brett (20:53):
and people listening to this episode W Wing, learn more about you.
So where can they find you online?
Anne Laffin (20:59):
You can find me@finmarketingm.com
or on LinkedIn where I live often.
Brett (21:06):
Any final thoughts for listeners?
Anne Laffin (21:08):
Yeah, I'm saying good luck with the upcoming election and the changes
I'm sure that we are about to see here.
FinTech is a fun industry anda crazy industry, but yeah,
best wishes to everyone.
Brett (21:19):
Alright, thank you Anne for joining Digital Coffee Marketing, bringing,
sharing knowledge on FinTech marketing.
Anne Laffin (21:24):
Thank you for having me,
Brett (21:25):
and thank you for listening.
As always, please subscribeto this podcast on all your
favorite podcasting apps.
We have a five star review.
It really does help with the rankingsand let me know how I'm doing,
but join me next week as I talkto another great thought leader
in the PR in marketing industry.
All right, guys.
Stay safe.
Get to understanding your FinTechmarketing if you're in that industry,
or just your marketing strategies ingeneral, and see you next week later.
Look, my 2 cents in this is that don't go to an influencer
(00:04):
for your, like your end all, beall advice on your finances, right?
Talk to a professional, getactual real advice from them.
Brett (00:25):
Mm, that's good.
And welcome to a new episode ofDigital Coffee Marketing Brew.
I'm your host, Brett , pleasesubscribe to this podcast
and leave a five star review.
Really just help with the rankings.
Let me know how I'm doing.
But this week we're gonnatalk about FinTech marketing.
Yes.
The other side of marketing that is.
To some people, a little boring, but it'sstill very important because we all care
(00:47):
about our finances, especially businesses.
Anyways, I have Anne with me, and she's amarketing problem solver, strategist, and
content creator that helps entrepreneursand founders grow and amplify the
inspiring work they bring to the world.
And she's in, she has a.
In trenches mentality comes from 20 yearmarketing career, working with a variety
of companies, large, small, clean startupsin the market, research, tech, financial
(01:12):
services, and animal health industry.
But welcome to the show, Anne.
Anne Laffin (01:16):
Hello.
Thank you for having me.
Brett (01:19):
Yes.
The first question is all my guestis, are you a coffee or tea drinker?
Anne Laffin (01:24):
Coffee?
A hundred percent.
All the way.
Once in the morning and in the afternoon.
Brett (01:31):
Got you.
Is it more of a, just gimme whatevercoffee's there, or are you like specific
on what coffee you actually drink?
Anne Laffin (01:38):
Okay, so if I'm at home, it's whatever coffee happens to be here.
But if I'm out, I definitelyhave a Starbucks order.
I have a Dunking Donut order.
It it's a little dependent I suppose.
I love coffee.
Brett (01:50):
Nice.
Now you have a briefsummary of your expertise.
Can you give our listeners alittle bit more about what you do?
Anne Laffin (01:57):
Yeah.
So right now I run a marketingconsultancy for early stage startups.
So we're talking about earlycompanies that have maybe zero
ish, half, half an employee perhapsto to about 10 to 20 employees
in the series A, series B, prese.
Seed round stage.
I help with marketing strategy,messaging, execution, little bit of
(02:21):
column A, a little bit of column B.
It's a lot of fun.
Brett (02:24):
Nice.
And so what are some of thebiggest challenges in marketing
FinTech products or services?
Anne Laffin (02:32):
I think a lot of times in FinTech companies lean
on features and features only.
And to your point in thiswonderful intro today, people are
concerned about their finances.
There's a lot of, I think financialtumultuousness that is happening
and it's a great time for FinTechcompanies to be talking about benefits.
(02:58):
As well as features, right?
To be talking a little bit more abouthow this ultimately affects your life,
whether it's a consumer using theproduct or even a financial advisor.
I think it can be a challengeto get the balance right.
Brett (03:10):
And is AI concerned since a lot of AI is very public?
And I've seen some financialservices are like, we got ai.
And I'm like, wait a minute here.
So how can you like market thatfeature but also say that it, we've
we're protecting your privacy, yourdata because it's very important.
I.
Anne Laffin (03:30):
I think if you want to loop AI in, or you have looped AI in
you, you just nailed it right there.
You have to be very transparent about whatthe security privacy features are that
you have in place to make sure that theinformation running through AI or whatever
system that they have is not going out tochat GPT or not going out to the masses.
(03:52):
It should be very cleanlykept behind a wall.
And you should be able to veryeasily explain how it's being used.
I think if you can't do thosethings, that is an accident and
a bad accident waiting to happen.
Brett (04:05):
So how do FinTech companies approach building brand awareness?
I know you talked a little bit abouttrust, but is there anything, because
like you said, we could have all thefeatures in the world, but if no one knows
who you are, it doesn't really matter.
Anne Laffin (04:18):
Yeah.
I think just like with any brand, youhave to know where your audience is first.
You have to know who you're cateringto, and once you know who you are
serving, who you're solving problems for.
Where do they live?
Do they live on social right?
Are they gonna be on Reddit all the time?
Are they gonna be at conferences?
And then plan your strategy oroutreach strategy around that audience
(04:43):
and knowing where they're goingto be for early stage companies.
At any early stage company, I definitelylean heavily on content and the
things that you own first, becausethey frequently require a lot less
budget and mobile of the startupsI work with don't have huge budget.
So whether it's FinTech or not,making sure that you are one, paying
attention to where your audience isand two, leaning on the resources you
(05:05):
have access to easily it's is key.
Brett (05:08):
So how do you remain scrappy?
Because, it's funny you mentioned.
Lean budgets.
'cause it feels like almost every businessin the marketing department is lean.
Anne Laffin (05:18):
Yeah, I definitely see myself as a UA utility player, right?
A Swiss army knight, someonethat can come in and do.
Pretty much anything becauseafter 20 plus years, I think I
have done just about everything.
Obviously marketing is changing allthe time, so I'm sure some of you
are like, but you haven't done aton of influencer marketing anyway.
(05:39):
My, the point here is that I'mscrappy because I like to come
in and actually do the work.
I don't just hand off a planand say, have fun executing.
I can actually come in and do thework of, for the plan that I've
developed, and I'm happy to do it.
And if I can't do it myself, I know aton of contacts that I can put my clients
in touch with that can get it done.
So that's why.
Brett (06:00):
Do you feel like influencer marketing isn't as
prevalent in the FinTech because.
It feels like trust is the most importantthing with FinTech because again, you
are dealing with financial recordsand that's very important to people.
Anne Laffin (06:14):
There are definitely, there's definitely influencers
in the financial space, right?
Whether they're on TV talkingheads, you for sure they exist.
And it can, it's, they scare me alittle bit, some of them, right?
But I think that whetheryou are a pet parent.
Doing a video for the latest, pet chew orpet toy, or you are a financial advisor
(06:38):
that is sharing some of the great advicethey have to their potential customers.
I think both can be really valuable, butI think you've already nailed it here.
The key is building trust, right?
I think if you come out of thegate as an influencer trying
to be hokey or I don't like.
(06:59):
Feel famous or whatever.
You're like, you have to have the rightmotivation to come out and do that type
of work because particularly in financialservices, I think it, it falls flat
eventually if people don't trust you.
Brett (07:10):
Plus for influencers, you gotta say a lot of hard things for finances
of getting your finances in order.
Look at David.
David Ramsey's probably the,one of the more bigger ones.
He's the one that's you gottaget your finances order.
You have Rich Dad, poor Dad,who is on the opposite side
saying that you can use debt.
To help build your business.
You really gotta pick and choosewhich one you wanna follow.
'cause they all almostdiffer from each other and.
(07:32):
Don't agree with each other.
Anne Laffin (07:34):
Little scary.
Look, my 2 cents in this is thatdon't go to an influencer for
your, like your end all, be alladvice on your finances, right?
Talk to a professional, getactual real advice from them.
You can maybe see the en entertainmentvalue that comes with influencers.
You could get ideas, right?
Like it's also how I use track GPT.
It's great for sparking ideasin conversation, but that I
(07:56):
might not go off and change myinvestment strategy based upon.
What I hear on TV or even a podcast.
Brett (08:04):
Gotcha.
And what marketing strategieshave you found that actually is
great for acquiring customers?
Because like I said, you, for FinTech,you need to acquire customers and you
need to have their financial records.
So what have you found that works well?
Anne Laffin (08:18):
Again, looking at the, where my consumers were financial
advisors webinars actually were.
Worked insanely well at getting newleads, partially because advisors
need continuing education credits.
And so if you can offer really powerful,fantastic webinar content that they need,
brings in a lot of good leads in the door.
(08:39):
Now look, just because somebody watchesyour webinar doesn't mean they're
gonna convert in the next 15 minutes,but it does give you a new pool of
marketable advisors or marketableaudience that you can now reach to.
Content has also been just extremelypowerful, whether that's through
thought leadership, social media, oreven some, like native advertising.
(09:02):
I found that's all worked really nicely.
It just building awareness and somecredibility more than anything else.
Brett (09:09):
And even to like conveying this to your bosses, it probably
takes time for webinars to build that.
From potential customer to actualcustomer, just like podcasting
takes time for a first listenerto an actual like lover or fan.
Anne Laffin (09:25):
A hundred percent.
And I, one, you have to be able to,if you're gonna do a webinar series,
just like with podcasting, all right?
You have to have kind of a libraryof topics or content that you
think you wanna tackle and beable to produce them regularly so
that people know what's coming.
And then you need a planto nurture those people.
That come in from the webinar, right?
How are you gonna follow up with them?
(09:46):
What are you gonna sendthem after the fact?
How, what are you gonna sendthem two months after the fact?
It's not just even producing the content,it's the whole strategy around what we,
what do we do with these people next?
So key
Brett (09:59):
and how do you balance that educating customers with a con,
with the complex financial products.
Because, finance is always complicatedand not everybody understands.
All of it.
So how do you balance that withkeeping the message simple?
Because people want simple,but they also want compelling.
So how do you balance all that?
Anne Laffin (10:15):
That's a great question.
I think that there is again, dependingon your audience, so if we're talking
about consumers mom and pop investor, itdefinitely needs to be, and also depending
upon the channel, sorry, I know it allthat the, it's so annoying to hear.
It depends.
It does depend though.
If you have savvy consumer investors,you can put a little more technical
(10:38):
information into content that'sproduced, whether it's an article
maybe that you submit to an onlinepublication or blog posts that
you're creating for your business.
And then promoting if that's not thecase and those aren't your consumers,
you need to make it digestible.
And I think, and learning, howmuch content to share at once.
Is key there so that you'renot overwhelming them and
(10:59):
they're not tuning you out.
Now if you're working with financialprofessionals, I think almost the opposite
is true in the sense that they need toknow that you know your stuff and that
you have street cred and credibilityand know how to walk through the pieces,
the technical pieces of your, let'ssay your financial planning, service.
(11:19):
Service.
To know that your platform hasthe chops to help them out.
I think it's, again, it goes back, yougotta know your audience to know how
much to feed them and how much to ornot to feed them in terms of content.
Brett (11:32):
And would you.
Technically, you just put 'em intobuckets like these are your regular
customers that don't really know much anddon't understand lingo in the industry
specifically, and then your financialadvisor, everybody else, you could get
away with more lingo than let's sayyour regular customers that have no
idea what you're talking about, andit's all a different language to them.
Anne Laffin (11:54):
But it's even, it's, you know what?
I think that's definitely oneapproach to it and it's important,
the lingo piece, actual vernacular.
But even think about the approachagain with mom and pop investor.
I might want a story.
I.
I might do better with thisinformation in a story format,
something that's relatable to me.
Whereas an advisor might want the facts,they might just wanna know these features
(12:17):
will help you do this with your business,or something to that effect, right?
A, maybe a story isn'texactly what they need.
Maybe they need a case study.
I don't know.
I shooting a little from the hip here,but, so it's not even the lingo, it's
how you actually present ultimatelythat information to them to matters.
Brett (12:31):
So should you put your content marketing different buckets?
Maybe it's maybe thiscould be for both people.
Maybe this is just for your customers, andthen maybe this is just for the financial
advisors, but you could have some for bothand then others just completely spit off.
Anne Laffin (12:45):
For sure.
I think yes.
Brett (12:47):
Got you.
And then where can you leveragethe analytics of this to
optimize the marketing campaigns?
Because we all can create campaignsand then go, wait a minute, this isn't
working as well as I thought it would.
Anne Laffin (12:59):
Yeah.
Look, part of the joy and the painof marketing is when things don't, is
the experimentation of it and learningfrom the things that don't go well.
And, I've definitely had campaignswhere I sent something out and
was like, why did this do well?
And it was a shock.
And so I think when that happens,depending on what it is that you've
sent to, whether it's an email or evena webinar or whatever, I think it's a
(13:21):
good time to just sit down after andbe like, okay, was it the open rate?
Was it the click rate?
Was there not enough attendance?
You have to like to stop andask some important questions of
what actually didn't do well?
I know.
And then see sometimes too, do youhave anything else to compare it to?
Was there a, did you run any contentwith a similar topic at some point?
Did it do better, worse?
I.
(13:41):
And then see if you can make tweaks.
I do this a lot actually at a side notewith my own LinkedIn content, and I'll
take the same post, which maybe did poorlyone day I'll tweak a couple words and
then run it again on a different day andwe'll see potentially a different result.
So I think sometimes when you look atanalytics, you have to be willing to,
one, ask yourself some hard questions,make some tweaks, and try again.
(14:04):
I think that's, I thinkthat's the best you can do.
Brett (14:06):
And do you have any best prac practices for compliance and regulatory
considerations in FinTech marketing?
Because that's the other side of it,is that the B2C, which doesn't do
any financial regulatory, you can shshoot from the hip a little bit more.
But from like medical and likeFinTech, you have a lot of regulatory
that you have to understand.
Anne Laffin (14:27):
That's true.
So there are.
Like different software.
I'm thinking of social media in particularthat can help track the social media
posts that you're putting out there.
There's different types of it like, orcompliance services or software that can
really help keep you in line and keep you.
Just in accordance withwhere you need to be.
I would say too, make sure dependingon what kind of business you
(14:50):
are, again, if you're a largerFinTech company, you likely have
lawyers already involved, right?
They're already looking over your stuff.
Perhaps you have regular compliancereview of documents that go out.
I remember back in the day, I usedto work for a large tam and any.
Any content that we wrote, how to go getFINRA approval and that would take weeks.
I think one, you got it to yourpoint, you have to know your
(15:10):
audience here again and know, likewhere are the legal lines drawn?
And make sure that you are justutilizing, I think, the appropriate
tools that are out there available.
There might be more than people think.
Brett (15:21):
And how do you approach personalizing and targeting your campaigns
and strategies in FinTech marketing?
Is it just the regulatory or thefinancial advisors and then the mom and
pop, or is it a little bit more splitand or do you get a little bit more
personal with the regular customersand less, more professional with the.
Financial advisors or is it amixed bag because everybody has
(15:43):
different personalities and you'rejust kinda I think most people like
this, so I'm gonna try do that one.
And I think most people likethis, so I'm gonna try that one.
Anne Laffin (15:50):
Yeah, it's a good question.
So generally speaking, the financialservices companies that I've worked with
all cater towards, they're all B2B, sothey all work with financial advisors.
Almost exclusively now, there may be somecontent that you have to make that the
advisor could hand out to their clients.
(16:11):
So there is some B2B, B2C, butfor the most part we're dealing
with a financial advisor audience.
And within that you haveregistered investment advisors.
Like you've got broker dealers, like thereare their own segments that are with,
within that realm of a financial advisor.
And they all work very differentlyand think very differently too.
(16:31):
So I think, how you approach themalso depends upon how much flexibility
they have within their organization.
But I think if you have an independentadvisor that you can maybe be a little
more casual with or send out, have moreflexibility to send things their way,
they're gonna have different needs.
I think that's how youat approach that bucket.
(16:53):
I think if you have a broker dealerthat's definitely more constrained
and refined as to what you can sendthem, you have to keep that in mind
as you're sending them content.
And then obviously if you are creatingcontent for the end user it has to be
unbranded and likely more casual anddefinitely less technical than whatever
you produce for financial advisors.
So hopefully that answers your question.
(17:14):
It
Brett (17:15):
does, but what is the, what emerging technologies or trends do you
think will have the biggest impact?
I know we talked about ai, but isthere any other, like actual, other
emerging trends that you see fortechnologies that are coming in for the
FinTech marketing in the coming years?
Anne Laffin (17:31):
I think there has still been this trend of
larger companies scooping up.
Different smaller FinTech providersand getting them under one roof.
So is it one stop shop versus independentpartners that are working together with
integrations And there still seems tobe this seesaw battle, I don't know what
(17:54):
you wanna call it, of which is better.
And I won't say I necessarily havea favorite, but from what I hear,
these larger businesses that arescooping up smaller FinTech companies.
The issues that they're seeing isthat it's a lot of clunky technology
that wasn't made to be under oneroof is being mishmoshed under
one roof, which isn't fantastic.
(18:15):
And on the other side,when you're independent.
And have kind of partnerships, you stillhave to build the integrations, right?
So that's not necessarily seamless either,but it does give you more flexibility to
choose which providers that you work with.
So that seems to be thetrend that I'm still seeing.
I feel like it's been happening for awhile, but something to keep in mind
as you're navigating FinTech for sure.
Brett (18:37):
And has the crypto effect done anything for the FinTech marketing?
We knew, we know we have blockchain slowlybeing implemented within mainstream.
It's not there yet, but is thatalso the coming, emerging thing?
I know Web3 was big for twoyears and then AI came and
nobody cares about Web3 anymore.
Anne Laffin (18:53):
It has not affected any of the marketing I've done for any FinTech
clients I in the last couple of years.
It's not to say that it doesn't affectsomeone, but I personally have not had.
Any issues or, and or experiencehaving it come through any
of the marketing I've done,
Brett (19:06):
got you.
And how do you measure theRO of your marketing or
FinTech marketing initiatives?
Is it basically awareness oris it again, depending on what
your actual initiatives are?
Anne Laffin (19:20):
Yeah, awareness is tough unless you're doing actual market research
to know where you are even to begin with.
But I think, typically ifyou're running a campaign.
If it's, you need to look at arewe looking for registrations?
Are we looking for sales?
Are we looking for someoneto download a white paper?
Who's downloading white papers?
But are you looking forsomeone to download something?
So how you measure, I suppose it'snot always ROI, but it's just the
(19:46):
effectiveness overall of your marketing.
Did they do the thing we asked them to do?
If the answer is no, then you know, youhave to go back and look at what could we
change the experimentation piece again.
If the answer is yes, then I thinkthat's where you begin to hopefully,
feed the machine of, okay, ourefforts should pay off in sales.
It's a little more complicated thanthat, but I think that's how, all
(20:09):
those different phases of the marketingfunnels should start to generate ROI
when they're playing nicely together.
Brett (20:15):
What advice do you have for a new startup, let's say in FinTech, trying
to build that awareness into sales?
What advice would you have for them?
Because there's probably aton of startups going on.
They're just trying to getthat little piece of the pie.
So what advice do you have for that?
Anne Laffin (20:32):
I think you have to really know what makes you different.
Like, why is it you?
Why is it your business?
And how do you solve for enoughpain that your audience is feeling
that they're gonna want you?
You gotta be able to answer that.
And if you, until you can, to me, ifyou're just more noise in a noisy channel,
Brett (20:53):
and people listening to this episode W Wing, learn more about you.
So where can they find you online?
Anne Laffin (20:59):
You can find me@finmarketingm.com
or on LinkedIn where I live often.
Brett (21:06):
Any final thoughts for listeners?
Anne Laffin (21:08):
Yeah, I'm saying good luck with the upcoming election and the changes
I'm sure that we are about to see here.
FinTech is a fun industry anda crazy industry, but yeah,
best wishes to everyone.
Brett (21:19):
Alright, thank you Anne for joining Digital Coffee Marketing, bringing,
sharing knowledge on FinTech marketing.
Anne Laffin (21:24):
Thank you for having me,
Brett (21:25):
and thank you for listening.
As always, please subscribeto this podcast on all your
favorite podcasting apps.
We have a five star review.
It really does help with the rankingsand let me know how I'm doing,
but join me next week as I talkto another great thought leader
in the PR in marketing industry.
All right, guys.
Stay safe.
Get to understanding your FinTechmarketing if you're in that industry,
or just your marketing strategies ingeneral, and see you next week later.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark
My Favorite Murder is a true crime comedy podcast hosted by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark. Each week, Karen and Georgia share compelling true crimes and hometown stories from friends and listeners. Since MFM launched in January of 2016, Karen and Georgia have shared their lifelong interest in true crime and have covered stories of infamous serial killers like the Night Stalker, mysterious cold cases, captivating cults, incredible survivor stories and important events from history like the Tulsa race massacre of 1921. My Favorite Murder is part of the Exactly Right podcast network that provides a platform for bold, creative voices to bring to life provocative, entertaining and relatable stories for audiences everywhere. The Exactly Right roster of podcasts covers a variety of topics including historic true crime, comedic interviews and news, science, pop culture and more. Podcasts on the network include Buried Bones with Kate Winkler Dawson and Paul Holes, That's Messed Up: An SVU Podcast, This Podcast Will Kill You, Bananas and more.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.