Never heard of the term FinTech then you are probably in the minority. It’s been in the media spotlight for several years now, an innovative new businesses offering slick financial services to consumers, or enabling technologies to banks and retailers to enable them to operate more effectively.
The tag FinTech came from the media. A combination of the words ‘financial’ and ‘technology’, it describes any digital service or platform that supports or enables banking or financial services.
From the last two decades, Indian financial industry has shifted due to the fast technology growth and development, from traditional financial system (bank driven) to the financial technology (consumer driven). Financial technology (FinTech) enables more players to emerge in Indian financial sector. India is amongst the fastest growing FinTech markets in the world. India ranked the highest globally in the FinTech adoption rate with China. Digital payments value of $65 billion in 2019 is expected to grow at a CAGR of 20% till 2023.
But with all the activity and hype, it can be hard for FinTech companies to stand out from competitors. Early stage FinTech companies’ need all the help they can get to connect with their audience, so many of them choose to engage with PR as soon as possible. Companies such as Paytm gained themselves a great deal of attention through PR and marketing campaigns in their early days.
So how can PR help FinTech companies get an edge?
Positioning
PR agencies specialize in creating distinctive messaging that come across with audiences on behalf of their clients. Unless you can communicate what it is you do and the value and benefits it brings quickly and succinctly, you’ve no chance of getting people to take you seriously, so get some help from the experts.
Who is the audience?
The first step is to define who exactly the audience is. While you might want to sell your service to a certain type of company, you need to think about who precisely it is within that company you should be targeting. By identifying the primary, secondary and even tertiary audiences, you can then work on which messages will work best with each and figure out how best to distribute these messages. Again, PR is the place to look for help with this.
Cutting through
There are many competitors in the market so you need to define what exactly it is that makes you stand out from the others. Again, this needs to be communicated in a different way, but even more importantly, you need to be able to back up what you are saying.
Being interesting and useful to journalists is the end goal, and a good PR agency will help you to cut through the noise.
Understanding how the media work
If you think that a journalist will make time to talk to you just because you are a FinTech company then you have another think coming. As we’ve already mentioned, you are one of many and you need to show that you have a unique proposition and viewpoint.
Journalists need to be treated carefully. One wrong step could ruin your relationship with that individual – and their publication – for a lifetime. So, let your PR agency manage the relationship for you – they’ll tell you exactly how to conduct yourself and what to say when you meet them in person.
What do you want to achieve?
FinTech companies need to work with PR agencies for a number of reasons. It isn’t necessarily just about getting media but it could be about building profiles of your key spokespeople through thought leadership content, driving engagement with your audience through social media channels, or even a direct lead generation exercise.
These approaches will require different tactics, and your agency will be able to best advise you on which ones to use, as well as help you execute them. You’ll also need the help of PR experts to come up with some longer-term plans to ensure your time in the media spotlight isn’t over in the blink of an eye.
