Top FinTech trends that you were a part of in 2021 and never even knew it!
While 2020 was an unprecedented disruption, 2021 was said to be a year of a remarkable adaptation...
Tell us about your role at BCB Group?
I’m the Head of Marketing and Communications at BCB Group, Europe’s leading provider of business accounts and trading services for the digital asset economy, regulated in the UK and Switzerland. We work with many of the industry’s largest clients including Bitstamp, Circle, Galaxy, Gemini, Huobi and Kraken, and our mission is to connect and bank the global crypto industry. It’s my role to deliver marketing as a function across the whole business, with the overarching aim to raise BCB’s profile, credibility and authority in the wider industry, increase BCB’s visibility and discoverability, and continuously attract high quality leads.
I’d previously worked at NKB Group, a blockchain investment bank and advisory, starting my journey in crypto back in 2017. NKB Group had a small VC fund, which was involved in BCB’s seed round, which is how I started to work with the BCB team
How did your business adapt its digital marketing strategy in light of the pandemic?
As a digital business, this was relatively straightforward for us to achieve, and we moved to digital channels as our primary customer-engagement model. We still focused on building a programme of comms around our product launches, partnership announcements and so on, working closely with trusted partners and channels to ensure that our visibility, reputation and brand grew as well as our incoming traffic, and ultimately leads increased.
We introduced marketing platforms to help increase the efficacy of our digital marketing activities and to enable us to closely monitor and evaluate the performance of the channels we were selecting.
We actually launched a new product in the depths of the pandemic and the traction we had was excellent. By collaborating on long form content such as whitepapers, as well as webinars with other industry leaders, we were able to attract prospects and engage and delight both potential and current clients.
What top tips would you give to fellow B2B marketers?
Ensure you align closely with the sales teams’ priorities and objectives. Here at BCB Group, we sit our marketing and sales teams together with trading and account management within the BCB Growth team, so we work closely to understand requirements and ensure we are delivering what is needed and prioritise accordingly.
When it comes to content marketing it can be a stretch to aim to produce everything in-house. But if you throw everything out to agencies and writers, you may lose the authenticity that makes for great content. The trick is to find great resources (writing being the absolutely critical one) and to use them intelligently, playing to their strengths and yours.
Finally, let data be your guide. Analytics is an essential part of any content marketing strategy and wider digital marketing strategy. Measure the things that matter most and test the things you need to learn about. The data will tell you where to put your content development resources and channels to select. Without it, you’re in ‘spray & pray’ mode.
What future digital opportunities do you think marketers can leverage over the next year to drive business growth?
I think it’s important to keep an eye on the opportunities we are seeing presented via the metaverse and immersive storytelling. I’ve had some interesting ideas proposed by partners around this, and although I’m keen to test these, it may be a little too early to do so, so I’m definitely keeping an eye on developments and the activity we are starting to see.
What are the top 5 Fintech Marketing trends to watch out for in 2022?
AI and machine learning, hyper-personalisation, voice search, prioritizing social responsibility and more branded audio content, as although audio platforms such as Clubhouse and Twitter spaces might not have great monetizing features or conversion paths, this data hints that they still provide the engagement and brand awareness.
Sam Shrager, Head of Marketing & Communications
90 Seconds with Christopher Fox, Founder of Syncresis, A Firm Specialising in Fintech Thought Leadership
What is “Syncresis,” and how did you come up with it?
90 Seconds with Sam Shrager, Head Of Marketing and Communications
Tell us about your role at BCB Group?