How Community Building is a Winning Fintech Start-up Marketing Strategy

Yomi Sanghvi
4 min readMar 5, 2024

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Community Building: Fintech Start-up Marketing Strategy

Fintech start-up marketing needs cautiousness to avoid exposing the business to become a subject for false claims and risky trades. You might make several rounds of pivoting and adjusting the marketing message and campaigns or activities before the product starts reaching the masses.

One way to reduce the trouble and increase the chances of success is what we can learn from crypto start-ups. Bitcoin community, Ethereum community, decentralized finance (DeFi) community, Coinbase, Ava labs etc. are all thriving with the strong support of their community. If you opt for a community-led approach, it can be a powerful marketing strategy for your fintech start-up to build an inner circle for all market research and consistently engage them. Through a community-led approach, you can reduce your customer acquisition and retention costs, and gain sustained business growth.

Here are some reasons in which it can benefit:

Build Trust and Credibility:

A community-led approach allows your business to build trust and credibility among users. When potential customers see an engaged and supportive community around your fintech products or services, they are more likely to trust your brand.

User Education:

Fintech often involves complex concepts. A community can serve as a platform for educating users about financial products, features, and best practices. User-generated content and discussions within the community can provide valuable insights. You can also decode complex financial laws and tax policies or give hacks to make better financial decisions for your community members.

Feedback and Product Improvement:

A community provides a direct channel for users to provide feedback. It can be invaluable for identifying areas of improvement and understanding user needs. Your community members might inform you of a technical challenge they face while making payments at the end of any of your partners. Engaging with the community’s feedback demonstrates that your company values its users’ opinions.

Word-of-Mouth Marketing:

A strong community will engage in word-of-mouth marketing, sharing positive experiences with others. It is an organic form of promotion that can significantly contribute to the growth of your user base. Revolut grew 150x through referral and word-of-mouth marketing. It takes several initiatives to engage community members both online and offline to continue gaining benefits from its community. You can also offer referral bonuses to reward your community members for this sort of promotion.

Beta Testing and Product Releases:

Engaging the community in beta testing or pre-launch phases can generate excitement and anticipation. It also allows your users to feel involved in the development process, fostering a sense of ownership. From their early days, Stripe let developers try their product and get hands-on with it. As developers saw value in the product, their product became a hit.

Exclusive Offers and Rewards:

Reward community members with exclusive offers, early access to features, or other perks. In the early days, PayPal incentivized customers to drive organic, viral growth. Free money is a time-tested marketing tactic adopted by most successful fintech start-ups. It not only incentivizes participation but also creates a sense of exclusivity for members that can enhance the community’s value.

Content Creation and Sharing:

Encourage your active users to share their success stories, use cases, and tips within the community. User-generated content can serve as authentic testimonials and can be shared across other marketing channels.

Thought Leadership and Industry Insights:

You can position yourself as a thought leader by sharing industry insights, trends, and expert opinions within the community. It can attract users interested in staying informed about the financial industry.

Networking Opportunities:

Communities facilitate networking opportunities within the group and via acquaintance connections. Users can connect, share experiences, and potentially form valuable business relationships.

Responsive Customer Support:

Use the community as a platform for customer support. Having community members help each other can complement your official support channels and provide quick resolutions.

To implement this strategy effectively, invest in community management, create engaging content, and actively participate in discussions. For example, if your start-up is a mobile payments solution, you can offer referral bonuses and cashback to community members. You can create content that informs your vendors and partners about payment fraud. Also, initiate a discussion on the community platform to share knowledge about it and how to prevent it.

Essentially, choose the right platform for your community, whether it is a forum, social media group, or a dedicated community website. Post interesting content for the community members to consume and react or interact. Regularly measure the success of your community-led approach through metrics like engagement rates, user satisfaction, and impact on customer acquisition.

Remember, the key to successful start-up marketing is consistency and adaptability. Stay engaged with your audience, listen to their feedback, and be agile in adjusting your strategies based on the evolving needs of your fintech start-up and your customers.

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Yomi Sanghvi
Yomi Sanghvi

Written by Yomi Sanghvi

Professional Marketer | B2B Marketing Consultant | Ethical tech practitioner | Emerging tech enthusiast | Open for collaborations and connections

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