If you build it, will they come?
It is important to note that, while you may have built something that solves a crucial problem – such as a product that helps small businesses (SMBs) to get paid – this alone does not guarantee that those SMB customers, existing or new, will onboard. Why? Because they don’t know about it.
A problem-solving product without the right marketing or customer engagement could remain your best kept secret.
In Celent’s latest report on how to become a challenger in small business banking, they outline the ways in which harnessing the power of data is the key to banks and FIs winning within the SMB banking landscape.
In this blog, we'll share how this data can translate into powerful marketing insights; as well as showcasing insights from BankiFi Chariman, Tom Shen, on why marketing and engagement needs to be a central focus to the strategies employed by banks and financial institutions (FIs) to generate a successful product launch.
‘Hey, bank, it’s time to reach out!’
It is a truth universally acknowledged that banks and FIs fall at the first hurdle after creating and launching a product or service. That first hurdle is marketing and engagement.
It may come as a surprise, but if you build it, there is no guarantee that users will come – especially if they have no awareness of the product/service you’re providing. So, the question is, how much are you as a bank/FI missing out?
Fintech veteran and BankiFi Chairman, Tom Shen, shared his thoughts on why he believes SMBs in the United States are underserved. “We’ve been talking about this problem of helping SMBs for over a decade, the problem is not hidden. We know they are underserved. However, the challenge is that banks and financial institutions are not good at marketing and reaching out to these small businesses to help them. That’s the first problem.”
Tom continued, “The great news for banks? The small business market is there for the taking. However, if SMBs remain unaware of products that can actually help them to overcome challenges associated with late payments – ultimately solving their issues – they will likely move to a challenger bank or neo bank who they know can offer a product that solves their pain points. Those challengers adopt clever marketing tactics and strategies to penetrate the SMB space and promote said product; bringing a whole new meaning to the phrase: ‘knowledge is power.’”
Awareness of the product curated through marketing activities empowers the SMB, because they now have the ability to tackle their challenges themselves through the product. Marketing said product also empowers the bank through various means: increased customer acquisition, adoption of the product, data and the ability as a result to grow their loan book.
The solution is BankiFi
A partnership with BankiFi means more than integrating our embedded finance solutions to help your SMB customers to pay and get paid. The keyword here is ‘partnership’.
BankiFi works with banks, not just from the product implementation perspective, but also from a marketing and engagement perspective by working in partnership with the bank/FI to deliver a powerful solution and the messaging to go with it. This is either orchestrated purely from our side, or we provide training and marketing materials to the bank/FI employees so they can market the product from their own digital channels.
From this activity, we are then able to help the bank/FI drive customer acquisition, nurture existing customers, resulting in an uptake in usage of the app. This increase in usage then gives us access to a rich lake of data, which can then be shared with the bank/FI to inform advantageous decisions.
Celent: Become a challenger in small business banking
Through our embedded banking offering, we allow banks to harness the power of data, as shown in Celents’ report on Page 12. Through an increased view of customer data, as expressed by Celent, these data insights can help you to improve your customer, marketing and underwriting analytics (Page 8), allowing the bank/FI to better understand your SMB customer, thus pacing the way towards an improved marketing and engagement strategy which in conjunction with your BankiFi partnership puts you in the best position to become a challenger in the small business banking space.
Download the report
If you're serious about taking your small business banking offering to the next level and taking on challengers, download your free copy of Celent's latest report below.
