Brand
Demand Gen
November 29, 2024

Engage First: Why B2B Fintech Marketing Needs to Captivate Before It Educates

5
min read
Engage First: Why B2B Fintech Marketing Needs to Captivate Before It Educates
Jack Whitehead
Founder
fintech.studio
Engage First: Why B2B Fintech Marketing Needs to Captivate Before It Educates

Contents

  1. ToC Link

Most fintech animations are boring. But yours don't have to be.

When we opened for business in 2018, this was our founding principle.

We’d encountered a lot of run-of-the-mill testimonial and explainer content, and felt like there was a real need for something else.

So we set out to change that.

We asked ourselves - is it better to inform or to engage?

A balance between the two might seem optimal. But so often we see projects deliver less than their potential because they don’t attract eyeballs in the first place.

It doesn’t matter how effectively your product comes across if no one’ sticks around to watch it.

If you aren’t engaging, how will you educate?

In fintech, creativity can often take a backseat to the technical detail.

But in a crowded market, simply listing features and stats isn’t enough to capture the attention of decision-makers.

To stand out, fintech brands need to craft content that’s both engaging and credible.

It’s a tricky balance for sure, but not an impossible one.

Below we’ve outlined some steps to help you think about your video content more creatively. But first, a disclaimer:

Being creative is really, really hard.

Or at least, that’s how it feels most of the time.

What does it actually mean to “be creative”? Where do you even start? And how unique is too unique?

For many of us, these questions aren’t just occasional doubts - they’re daily roadblocks. Fintech marketers sit in different places on the technical-creative continuum. It’s a job that requires both skills, and some find creativity easier than others.

But in marketing, we’re constantly switching between tasks, shifting from strategy to execution, from analysis to ideation. In my experience, this can leave very little mental space for the open, unstructured exploration that creativity demands.

Redefining Creativity

Here’s a trap we often fall into: Creative = original.

It’s easy to think that creativity only happens when you make something completely new, something that no one’s seen before. But that’s not true. 

More often than not, originality can become a barrier, one that gets in the way of authentic creativity.

For me, creativity is more about assimilation.

Since I was little, I’ve loved studying other people’s ideas and adapting them. I’d write in the style of my favourite authors. Try to paint like Picasso. Shoot a short film inspired by Wes Anderson. I’d experiment with merging different styles, often creating something new in the process.

To this day, I still love taking stylistic ideas from one place and applying them in a completely new context. Sometimes, it’s the most effective way to make something that feels genuinely fresh.

The Power of the Unexpected

When I open LinkedIn in the morning, the content that grabs my attention is exactly the kind of stuff I don’t expect to see.

It might be a meme from a payments company or a bold brand animation with a surprising art style. One of my all-time favourite fintech videos is this GoCardless ad from a few years ago:

It’s distinctively weird, like a piece of arthouse cinema. The copy is brilliant, the visuals are unexpected, and it catches you off guard in a way that’s almost unsettling - but it sticks with you.

We’re naturally drawn to the unexpected, to things that feel new or unfamiliar. In fintech, where creative risk is rare, bold content often has a bigger impact.

So why don’t more marketers take this path?

It’s understandable - being the first to try something unusual feels risky. It’s easier to look backward and say, “I want to create something similar to what they did because it’s a proven format.”

But fight this urge as hard as you can! Fintech needs more boldness and creativity. If you’ve got important information to share, no one’s going to pay attention if they feel like they’ve seen it all before.

Finding Inspiration Beyond Fintech

To keep your creative edge, sometimes the best approach is to look beyond fintech and the B2B world entirely. Some of the most engaging B2B campaigns I’ve seen borrow ideas from the consumer world, where storytelling, humour, and high-impact visuals are the norms.

Imagine bringing a fresh, unexpected tone of voice into your fintech content. 

Maybe it’s something casual, funny, or even a bit irreverent. It might surprise you how well-received these approaches can be, especially when the tone feels refreshing compared to the rest of the industry.

Ramp Payments do this especially well with their social media and video content.

4 Steps to Unlock Your Creative Potential

So what can you do to develop more creative ideas for your content?

  • Consider Other Industries: It's all about creating engagement at the end of the day, good or bad. And there are lots of ways to do this.
  • Experiment with Tone of Voice: Play around with new tones, especially if they’re less conventional for fintech. Your audience is more forgiving than you might think and often welcomes a change of pace.
  • Experiment Within Your Brand Identity. Alignment is important, but too often brand shackles us. Unchain yourself, develop the brand in the content you create, and let the identity catch up when you know what resonates.
  • Use Data as Your Guide: Test new ideas in MVP formats and let the data show what resonates. If something works, go all in. If it doesn’t, you can pivot without much risk.

Wrap Up

Everyone has some form of creativity within them; you just have to know where to look. 

By opening yourself up to new ideas, taking inspiration from unexpected places, and embracing creativity that feels a little uncomfortable, you’ll find that “being creative” is actually within reach.

Focus on making content that engages first, and the education will follow.

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Engage First: Why B2B Fintech Marketing Needs to Captivate Before It Educates
Jack Whitehead
Founder
fintech.studio

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