It’s no news that the fintech industry is bringing in huge innovations at an accelerated rate. For instance, blockchain technology has revolutionized financial transactions, making them faster, more secure, and more cost-effective.
Hence, to keep up with the competition, financial services providers are upping their communication and email marketing game to promote their products and services and remain relevant regardless of the fast-paced transformation.
Imagine this. You’re scrolling through your inbox and see an email from a fintech company you haven’t heard from in a while. The subject line reads, “5 ways to save money on your monthly bills.” Intrigued, you open the email and find a personalized list of money-saving tips based on your previous spending habits. As you read the tips, you start to feel grateful for the helpful advice and consider using the company’s services again.
This scenario illustrates the power of email marketing for fintech companies. By taking full advantage of email marketing, fintech companies can build customer trust and loyalty, leading to increased customer engagement and retention.
However, as with any marketing strategy, there are dos and don’ts that fintech companies need to remember to ensure that their email campaigns are effective. This article will explore the best practices for creating effective email campaigns that resonate with your audience. We’ll also discuss common mistakes to avoid when crafting email campaigns.
By the end of this article, you’ll have a solid understanding of how to use email marketing to connect with your audience and grow your fintech business.
Let’s get into it.
The Dos of Email Marketing for Fintech Companies.
Regarding email marketing for fintech companies, certain best practices can help ensure your campaigns are effective and compliant with regulations. In this section, we’ll explore the “Dos” of email marketing for fintech companies and provide actionable tips that you can use to improve your email campaigns.
- Clear call-to-action
- Personalization
- Segmentation
- Testing and optimization
- Valuable content and information
1. Clear Call-to-Action
The call-to-action (CTA) is an essential part of your email. It’s the part that tells your readers what action you want them to take, whether it’s signing up for a new service, making a purchase, or simply visiting your website. Having a clear and compelling call to action is crucial to the success of your email marketing campaign.
How so? For one, it directs your readers toward the next step in the customer journey. It also helps to create a sense of urgency and motivates your readers to take action. Additionally, a clear call-to-action can help improve your emails’ click-through rate (CTR), which can lead to increased engagement and conversions.
When crafting your call-to-action, it’s vital to ensure it’s clear, concise, and visually appealing. Use action-oriented language that tells the reader precisely what you want them to do. For example, “Sign up now,” “Get started,” or “Learn more.” Make sure the CTA stands out by using contrasting colors and placing it in a prominent location in your email.
Implementing a clear call-to-action in your emails can make a significant difference in the success of your email campaigns. By providing direction and motivation to your readers, you can improve engagement and conversions and ultimately drive growth for your fintech business.
2. Personalization
In today’s digital age, customers expect a personalized experience from the brands they interact with. This is particularly true for fintech companies, which deal with sensitive financial information and need to establish trust with their audience. Personalization can help you create a more meaningful connection with your customers, therefore increasing engagement and loyalty.
There are many ways to personalize your email campaigns, from using the recipient’s name in the subject line to tailoring the content of the email based on their interests or previous interactions with your company. You can create targeted and relevant emails that resonate with your audience by leveraging customer data and analytics.
See an example of personalization from Airbnb below:
Source: SendGrid
The benefits of personalization are clear. Once you start talking to the individual instead of the crowd, you can begin crafting and nurturing relationships. Customers will likely engage with and respond to emails relevant to their interests and needs. Personalization can also build trust and credibility with your audience, showing that you understand their unique needs and are invested in their success.
Here are some examples of personalization in fintech email campaigns:
- Mint: Mint is a popular budgeting app that sends personalized emails to its users with tips and advice tailored to their spending habits. For example, if a user spends a lot of money eating out, they may receive an email with suggestions for saving money on food.
- Carbon: Carbon, a Nigerian digital lender, uses personalization to send personalized loan offers to its users based on their creditworthiness and financial history. Users receive emails with customized loan offers tailored to their unique financial situation, making it easier for them to access credit when needed.
- Flutterwave: Flutterwave, a Nigerian fintech company that provides payment solutions for businesses, uses personalization to send targeted emails to its users. For example, they may email users who have not used their platform in a while with special offers and incentives to encourage them to return and transact.
Studies have shown that personalization can significantly impact the success of email campaigns. The statistics by Salesforce below show how personalized emails increase email open and click rates.
Ultimately, personalization can help fintech companies stand out in a crowded marketplace and provide their customers with a more tailored and relevant experience.
3. Segmentation
Segmentation means dividing your email list into smaller groups based on specific characteristics, interests, or behaviors. By segmenting your list, you can deliver more targeted and relevant content to your subscribers, increasing the likelihood that they will engage with your emails and take action.
For fintech companies, segmentation is crucial because it allows you to deliver personalized content that speaks directly to your customers’ needs and interests. You can build stronger relationships and drive more conversions by sending emails tailored to your customers’ unique financial goals, behaviors, and preferences.
For example, PayPal uses segmentation to send personalized emails to users based on their transaction history. If a user frequently sends money to family and friends, they may receive emails with promotions for discounted transfer fees. Similarly, users who often use PayPal for online shopping may receive emails with offers from online merchants.
In these emails, the chances of conversion increase since these users will want to take advantage of the offers.
Therefore, by implementing segmentation in your email marketing strategy, you can improve the effectiveness of your campaigns and create more meaningful connections with your audience.
4. Testing and Optimization
Testing and optimization are critical components of any successful email marketing campaign, and fintech companies are no exception. By regularly testing and optimizing your emails, you can identify what works best for your audience and improve your email performance over time.
Testing involves experimenting with different elements of your emails, such as subject lines, images, calls-to-action, and content, and seeing what resonates best with your audience. By testing different variations of your emails and analyzing the results, you can identify which elements drive the most opens, clicks, and conversions and use this information to optimize your future campaigns.
Optimization involves using the insights gained from testing to refine and improve your emails. By implementing changes based on your test results, you can create more effective emails that drive better results for your business.
Here’s an example of testing and optimization in email campaigns:
The Hustle, a daily email newsletter that curates some of the day’s most important headlines in business, tech, and culture, uses A/B testing to optimize its email campaigns.
Subject Test A:
Subject Test B:
Source: SendGrid
They test different variations of their email subjects with different audience subsets to see which performs better. By analyzing the results of these tests, The Hustle can identify what resonates best with its users and make data-driven decisions about its email strategy.
By incorporating testing and optimization into your email marketing strategy, you can continually improve your campaigns and drive better results for your fintech business. Finally, analyzing your data and making data-driven decisions, you can create more effective emails that resonate with your audience and drive conversions.
5. Valuable Content and Information
While promoting your products and services through email marketing campaigns, you should strive to provide your audience with valuable content and information.
Valuable content can take many forms, such as educational resources, thought leadership articles, industry news, and customer success stories. The key is to provide relevant, helpful, and informative content to your audience that aligns with their interests and needs.
Here are some examples of fintech brands that provide valuable content in their email campaigns:
- Carbon: Carbon provides its audience with regular updates on industry news and trends and educational resources on personal finance and investing. With this, Carbon establishes itself as a thought leader in the industry and builds stronger relationships with its audience.
- M-Pesa, a mobile payment service in Kenya, provides its customers with helpful tips and tutorials on how to use it more effectively. By providing this valuable information, M-Pesa can improve the user experience for its customers and drive greater engagement with its platform.
- Acorn, a South African investment app, provides its users with regular updates on their portfolio performance, market trends, and educational resources on investing and personal finance. As a result, Acorn is perceived to be a trusted source of financial information and builds stronger relationships with its users.
By providing valuable content and information in your email campaigns, you can establish trust and credibility with your audience, improve the user experience for your customers, and ultimately drive more conversions for your fintech business.
The Don’ts of Email Marketing for Fintech Companies.
While many best practices for email marketing can help fintech companies drive engagement and conversions, there are also some common pitfalls to avoid. In this section, we’ll explore some of the key “Don’ts” of email marketing for fintech companies and provide practical tips and advice for avoiding these pitfalls.
- Misleading subject lines and spamming
- Purchasing email lists or sending unsolicited emails
- Irrelevant content
- Lack of privacy and non-compliance
- Too many images or attachments
1. Misleading Subject Lines and Spamming
Misleading subject lines and spamming are the most common mistakes fintech companies make in email marketing campaigns. Using tactics like clickbait subject lines or sending too many emails can irritate your subscribers and lead to being marked as spam, which can hurt your email deliverability and credibility.
Misleading subject lines are those that do not accurately reflect the content of the email or that promise something that the email doesn’t deliver. Some examples include:
- “Your account has been hacked!” when there has been no security breach.
- “Open now for a limited time offer!” when the offer isn’t limited.
Not only do misleading subject lines irritate subscribers, but they can also violate industry regulations and guidelines, such as the CAN-SPAM Act.
As for spamming, bombarding your subscribers with too many emails can make them feel overwhelmed and annoyed. This can lead to increased unsubscribes and decreased engagement rates, negatively impacting your email marketing efforts.
An excellent example of a company that avoided misleading subject lines and spamming is Jumia. They’ve worked hard to build trust with their subscribers by providing valuable content and relevant offers and ensuring their emails are targeted and well-timed.
To avoid misleading subject lines and spamming:
- Ensure that your subject lines accurately reflect the content of your emails and that you’re not sending too many emails to your subscribers.
- Strive to provide valuable, relevant content that your subscribers find helpful and engaging.
- Use segmentation and personalization to ensure you send the right content to the right people.
2. Purchasing Email Lists or Sending Unsolicited Emails
As a fintech company, you might be tempted to purchase an email list to expand your reach and acquire new customers quickly. However, this is a dangerous strategy that can harm your reputation and ultimately lead to poor ROI.
Firstly, purchasing email lists means you’ll send unsolicited emails to people who have yet to express interest in your products or services. This can lead to a high rate of unsubscribes and spam complaints, damaging your sender’s reputation and making it difficult for your future emails to reach your audience’s inbox.
Moreover, sending unsolicited emails can also violate anti-spam laws designed to protect consumers’ privacy and prevent them from receiving unwanted emails. Violating these laws can lead to severe penalties and legal consequences.
Instead of purchasing email lists or sending unsolicited emails, focus on building your email list through opt-in forms and other ethical means. This way, you can ensure that your emails reach an audience that has already expressed interest in your products or services.
Remember, the key to a successful email marketing campaign is to focus on quality over quantity. Building a loyal and engaged email list takes time and effort, but it’s worth it in the long run.
3. Irrelevant Content
Relevance is key when it comes to email marketing. It’s not enough to send emails; you need to send the right emails to the right people at the right time.
As a fintech company, your email marketing strategy should provide value and relevance to your subscribers. Your audience expects valuable information relevant to their interests and needs, and when you fail to deliver on that expectation, they’ll quickly lose interest in your emails.
You must deeply understand your audience and their needs to avoid irrelevant content. Use data analytics to track their behavior and interests, and use this information to create targeted content that speaks to them directly.
For example, suppose you’re a fintech company that offers investment services. In that case, you could segment your email list based on their customers’ investment goals and send targeted emails with relevant information and insights on achieving those goals. This can include market updates, investment strategies, and portfolio management tips.
If you notice that a segment of your audience is interested in socially responsible investing, you can create targeted content that speaks to that interest. These could be educational content about socially responsible investing, news about companies making a positive impact, or information about your own socially responsible investment products.
Here are some examples of irrelevant content to avoid in your email marketing campaigns:
- Generic content that doesn’t resonate with your audience’s interests or needs.
- Spammy promotional emails with no context or relevance to the recipient.
- Old or outdated content that is no longer relevant or useful to your audience.
- Emails that contain too much irrelevant information; which would make the recipient lose interest or become overwhelmed.
- Sales-driven content that doesn’t provide any educational or informative value to your audience.
- Email newsletters with irrelevant topics or content that doesn’t match the recipient’s preferences or interests.
By avoiding these types of irrelevant content, you can ensure that your email campaigns are engaging, informative, and valuable to your audience. You would also increase their trust in your expertise and offerings.
4. Lack of Privacy and Non-compliance
Respecting your audience’s privacy is paramount in email marketing. Failing to do so can lead to severe legal and reputational consequences. Fintech companies must be vigilant about collecting, storing, and using personal data and comply with relevant privacy and data protection laws.
Apart from legal consequences, a lack of privacy can lead to a loss of customer trust and loyalty. Your audience expects you to treat their personal information with respect and care. Having their privacy compromised will make them less likely to engage with your brand in the future.
To avoid these pitfalls, fintech companies should prioritize the following:
- Clear Privacy Policy: A clear and concise privacy policy is crucial for building trust with your audience. It should outline how you collect, store, and use personal information and your commitment to protecting your audience’s privacy.
- Opt-in Consent: Always ask for your audience’s explicit consent before adding them to your email list. Ensure they understand what they’re signing up for and allow them to opt out anytime.
- Data Protection Measures: Ensure that your data storage and management practices comply with relevant data protection laws. Keep your audience’s personal information secure and confidential.
- Compliance with Laws and Regulations: Stay up-to-date with your jurisdiction’s latest privacy and data protection laws and regulations, and ensure that your email marketing practices comply with them.
Failing to comply with these privacy best practices and relevant laws can lead to severe financial penalties and damage your brand’s reputation. Therefore, fintech companies must prioritize privacy and data protection in their email marketing strategy.
5. Too Many Images or Attachments
While images and attachments can help enhance your emails’ visual appeal and deliver additional information, using too many of them can negatively affect your email deliverability.
One of the main reasons for this is that many email providers and spam filters are programmed to flag messages that contain too many images or attachments. This is because such messages are often associated with spam or phishing attempts, which are harmful to recipients.
To avoid triggering spam filters and ensure that your messages reach your intended audience, keep the ratio of text to images in your emails in check. Rather than relying on images to do the heavy lifting, create compelling copy and provide valuable information that resonates with your audience.
For example, consider breaking up your content into bite-sized, easily digestible sections instead of sending a long, image-heavy newsletter. You can also include links to relevant blog posts or articles that provide additional information on your products or services.
By prioritizing the quality of your content over flashy visuals or unnecessary attachments, you can increase the chances that your audience will read and engage with your emails.
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Summary of The Dos and Don’ts of Email Marketing for Fintech Companies
Email marketing is a powerful tool for fintech companies looking to connect with their audience and drive engagement. By following the best practices outlined in this article, your email campaigns will be more effective and engaging, and you will be able to build trust and long-term relationships with your customers, ultimately driving growth for your fintech company.
At WSI Axon, we specialize in creating effective email campaigns for fintech companies that drive results. By partnering with us, you can leverage our expertise and experience to create engaging, targeted content that delivers results. Our team of experts will work with you to develop customized email marketing strategies that meet your business’s specific needs and goals. Contact us today to learn more about our email marketing services and how we can help you grow your fintech business.
