The global COVID-19 pandemic radically changed the business landscape. With billions confined to their homes for work, leisure, and everyday life, the pandemic accelerated e-commerce and forced businesses to adopt advanced digital solutions to enhance the customer and employee experience. The demand for digital financial services increased significantly as contactless payments and mobile banking became the new norm to help people remain socially distant. And while global markets have now reopened and embraced the new normal, financial technology (fintech) has remained a vital business backbone.
As more companies look to reinvent their business model by adopting new technologies and developing a larger online presence, they’re showing increased interest in fintech solutions to stay competitive.
Take, for instance, hospitality. Perhaps there’s no industry more severely impacted by the pandemic’s travel restrictions and quarantine measures than the global hospitality sector. The World Tourism Organization recognized 2020 as the worst year in tourism history with a 73% decline in international tourist travel and one billion fewer travelers compared to 2019. According to the American Hotel and Lodging Association’s State of the Hotel Industry 2021 report, more than 670,000 hotel industry operation jobs and nearly four million hospitality jobs in the U.S. alone were lost in 2020 due to COVID-19.
Ripe for a comeback, the hospitality industry is now adopting more tech-forward solutions—especially digital financial services—to help it return to its pre-pandemic state. With an increased focus on attracting and retaining guests and associates, these digital solutions help hotels and restaurants reimagine the post-COVID customer and employee experience while continuing to effectively manage costs.
ML Insights data validates this trend, revealing a 6% YoY increase in hospitality industry interest in fintech-related content. As post-COVID travel itineraries become more complex and costly and traveler demographics shift, the industry must embrace more modern payment methods to provide better customer and employee experiences.
So, how can marketers of fintech solutions use data to ensure they’re identifying and engaging with in-market accounts? Read on to find out.
Identify and Prioritize In-Market Accounts and Buying Committee Members
There’s no denying that fintech is a driving force in the future of business. As organizations across all industries look to make their financial processes more digital and customer-focused, fintech solutions and innovations are the answer to helping them stay ahead of the curve.
While our data reveals that the Finance vertical continues to demonstrate high research and engagement with fintech-related content, we see additional industries showing increased interest in the technology. In addition to the Hospitality industry, Manufacturing, Media & Entertainment, and Retail are researching and engaging with fintech-related content but have relatively low targeting for it. This presents an opportunity for fintech brands to engage accounts in these industries and strike while the iron is hot.
Another industry to target? Our data indicates a 6% increase in research for fintech-related content among those in the Insurance industry. Fintech helps insurance companies create better customer experiences by streamlining claims processing, providing quicker and more accurate customer service. With the help of fintech, insurance companies can take advantage of innovative data analytics tools to gain insight into customer behavior and use this data to improve other processes.
When it comes to account size, Large (1,000-4,900 employees) and XXLarge (10,000+ employees) companies show the highest research and engagement with fintech-related content. Between 2022 and 2023, XXLarge companies increased fintech solution research by 40%, despite being targeted 51% less with content.
At the same time, you shouldn’t lose sight of Medium (200-499 employees) and Medium-Small (50-199 employees) companies. Despite being under-targeted by fintech-related content and messaging, these companies continue to show steady interest in fintech solutions. For most smaller businesses, facing the effects of the global pandemic was no easy task. Whether they were adapting their business models to meet new rules and regulations, implementing methods to weather the economic environment changes, or making changes to their inventory to help sustain supply chain shortages, the businesses that survived have learned important lessons that they are now applying to future growth through new processes and technologies that create better efficiencies.
Geographically, our data indicates that companies in North America and the Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) regions are highly engaged with fintech-related content and messaging. However, you should still keep an eye on companies in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region, which show an 85% YoY increase in fintech research despite a 52% decrease in targeting for fintech-related content and messaging. A study by Kaspersky APAC states that fintech adoption is on the rise in APAC in the post-COVID world, with the Philippines having the highest percentage (37%) of new e-wallet users.
Another intriguing trend revealed by our data is the active role played by different members of the buying committee in the purchase decision process. Despite fintech-related content being primarily targeted toward C-suite executives and vice presidents, we’ve seen a 24% YoY increase in director role engagement with fintech solutions. Examine your persona-based targeting strategy to ensure you’re reaching the buying committee members with the most influence during active solution research.
Power Personalized Experiences at Every Stage of the Sales Cycle
To increase engagement, marketers of fintech solutions must create persona-relevant and easily consumable content focused on how fintech enhances the customer and employee experience. This content must then be mapped to each stage of the buyer’s journey to surround buying committee members with the information they need during the decision-making process.
While the finance department continues to understandably own the research process for fintech purchases, ML Insights data reveals a 29% YoY increase in IT role engagement with fintech-related content. As those responsible for maintaining the hardware and software systems within an organization, marketers must choose content that speaks to the challenges this group faces with integrating new technology and how a solution streamlines the process. Financial data is spread across every internal system, including enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, customer relationship management (CRM) systems, human resource information systems (HRISs), and billing systems. Depending on the size of the account and its datasets, cleaning the data before integrating a new fintech solution can take months, if not years. Organizations must also find fintech solutions that align with their current systems, which can further complicate the decision-making process.
Engage these buyers and show that you understand their fintech integration concerns with content and messaging that includes the topics they most research and engage with, including RegTech (Regulatory Technology), Robotic Process Automation, Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data, and Open Banking.
Another significant concern with fintech buyers is security. Fintech solutions are increasingly vulnerable to cyberattacks such as data breaches, ransomware attacks, and phishing attempts. Demonstrate how your solutions overcome security concerns by incorporating Cyber Security, Blockchain, Quantum Computing, and Smart Contracts content and messaging into your promotional strategy.
Ensure your content builds trust and credibility by communicating how your fintech services are transparent, compliant, and user-friendly. Emphasize your industry leadership with testimonials and referrals that showcase your customer satisfaction and loyalty. Ensure your content educates buyers about the benefits and risks of fintech solutions and how to use them safely and effectively.
Continuously Measure and Optimize Campaign Strategy for Maximum Impact
Maximize conversions and accelerate deal velocity by actively measuring campaign performance and implementing optimizations across companies, content, and personas. By continuously analyzing metrics such as pipeline volume, customer lifetime value, and sales velocity, you gain insights into how an account progresses through the buying journey and identify optimization opportunities for your ABM campaigns faster.
If an account is not advancing through the pipeline, you should review your targeting strategy based on data analysis. For instance, ML Insights data indicates that small companies—those with less than 50 employees—are being increasingly targeted with fintech content and messaging, but are registering low research and engagement. Consider shifting targeting efforts away from these micro-organizations and instead delivering personalized content that emphasizes how fintech improves the customer and employee experience to Medium (200-499 employees) or Medium-Small (50-199 employees) businesses. Our data indicates that these accounts show steady interest in fintech solutions and are more likely to progress more swiftly through the buying journey by receiving the content they require.
The ML Platform assists in identifying content and targeting gaps, enabling you to optimize campaigns more effectively. This level of detail provides a more accurate understanding of the buyer’s journey, engagement, and pipeline impact, empowering you to realize the optimization opportunities that increase the efficiency of your media investment.
A More Successful ABM Strategy with Data
Regardless of the industry, marketers need data to identify key accounts and personas, develop personalized campaigns, and measure and optimize campaign performance.
At Madison Logic, we use the world’s leading purchase intent data signals to help marketers accelerate the buyer’s journey and drive pipeline.
ML Insights offers B2B marketers the most advanced dataset available, simplifying the identification of in-market accounts, the prioritization of individuals to engage within the organizations, and the content that can accelerate the sales cycle for each audience. We achieve this through the MLI Score, a holistic signal that unifies three key data sources to reveal who’s being targeted, who’s engaging with content, and who is researching solutions so you can go after the accounts with the highest propensity to purchase. And when combined with CRM and MAP first-party customer data, marketers using ML Insights gain deeper insights to maximize their marketing spend and accelerate accounts through the buying journey. We gathered these insights into our Fintech ABM Buyer Intent Guide so you can quickly get a lead into what is driving fintech buyers’ interests.
Request a demo to learn how Madison Logic can help you activate a more successful data-driven ABM strategy today.
