How data driven digital PR can supercharge your B2B fintech business

Standing out from the crowd can be a challenge for any business, but in the competitive world of fintech, it can be even more difficult.

While digital marketing, such as SEO, paid media, and content marketing has been the go-to for businesses looking to gain visibility and earn trust amongst consumers, digital public relations (digital PR) has rightfully earned its place as core to an effective digital marketing strategy.

Fintech PR is all about building trust through information and education. And well-executed fintech digital PR campaigns do just that.

Helping to build trust amongst consumers by utilising expertise to give solid, actionable advice, as well as leveraging data to tell stories, digital PR for fintechs should build on traditional PR tactics to earn media coverage while driving value in the search engines – something that is incredibly important for B2B fintech businesses.

Supplementing your wider digital marketing strategy with data driven PR for fintech businesses is one of the best ways to show your Expertise, Experience, Authority and Trust (EEAT).

What is data driven digital PR?

Data-driven digital PR is a strategic approach to PR that uses owned (proprietary) data, industry insights, and analytics to create interesting, relevant, and insightful stories. These are designed to enhance a brand’s visibility, credibility, and influence – both online and offline.

By leveraging data from numerous sources, alongside market insights, fintech companies create powerful narratives that secure high-authority backlinks and citations, thus building trust within the industry.

How can data driven PR help my fintech company?

The financial services industry is held to a higher account by the search engines than many other sectors. As a Your Money Your Life topic, which refers to topics and pages that could have real-world effects on users, fintech websites must create helpful, reliable, people-first content. And data is a great way to do that.

By utilising data driven digital PR, your fintech company can not only raise its profile but also boost credibility, secure valuable media coverage, and drive long-term growth.

Positions your company as an industry leader

Using your internal data, such as customer insights, transaction trends, or market performance, you can create industry reports, whitepapers, and thought leadership content that demonstrate your deep understanding of the fintech space and your customers’ concerns. These can be done as a one-off to respond to industry changes and other external factors, or at regular intervals to highlight changing behaviour, regulations, and attitudes that affect the industry.

Using any unique data and insight will position your company as a credible voice and expert, making it a go-to resource for both journalists and customers.

Attracts media attention and securing high-authority coverage

Journalists and media outlets love data-backed stories – especially if this data is new, unique, or challenges or reaffirms the status quo. By providing exclusive insights, proprietary data, or third-party and commissioned research, your company is more likely to be featured in high-authority, relevant, and respected media outlets.

Media coverage not only amplifies your brand’s reach to a wide audience, but when done correctly it also gets your brand in front of your target audience and builds trust with both existing and potential customers.

Enhances brand credibility and trust

In fintech, trust is crucial for both consumers and the search engines – particularly when dealing with sensitive financial information. Essentially you need to earn the trust of consumers by telling them why they should trust you, while search engines look for trust signals – one of which is offsite citations and links. Data driven digital PR ticks all the boxes for both consumers and search engines.

Drives engagement through timely, relevant stories

While data can be – and is – used at any point, it does need to be used in a timely way to make sure it has the maximum effect. For instance, data can be used to tie your fintech brand to current trends, industry news, or calendar moment, to give it the best chance of succeeding.

An example of this for a B2B fintech business would be in the run-up to an energy bill increase, looking at the impact of rising energy bills on businesses and exploring how many businesses will struggle to survive throughout the winter months. From there, you can explore the data, analyse the issues, giving solutions and even calling on external help from governments to support businesses.

It is also important to monitor the news cycle to make sure there are no factors as to why your research wouldn’t land or conflict with any big indsutry news.

Builds experts’ profiles that support your company’s mission

Providing valuable, data-rich content that is accompanied by insightful, actionable, and tangible advice from your company’s experts helps to place them as industry thought leaders and build their profile. This helps to raise the profile of the company as a whole, cementing it as a trusted source for journalists, thus increasing the exposure of the thought leader and the company.

Why is data so appealing to fintech journalists?

Data is king in fintech; fintech media thrives on data-driven content by adding depth and credibility to their reporting. As such, journalists and industry publications are constantly on the lookout for fresh insights and hard numbers that tell a strong story.

For journalists, data offers:

• Exclusive insights: Media outlets love stories backed by exclusive data, especially if the information is new and hasn’t been published elsewhere. Offering unique data gives journalists a reason to cover your story, as it provides readers with something fresh and valuable.
• Credibility: In an industry where trust is imperative, data adds that extra layer of credibility. Journalists trust companies that back up their claims with reliable numbers.
• Storytelling: Finance isn’t always an easy subject to navigate, and data allows journalists to simplify complex topics. Statistics, graphs, and trend analyses make it easier to explain often complex fintech subjects, making the story more engaging for their audience.

How do I find data to use in digital PR?

The kind of data you will need to use depends on how you intend to use it. For simple comments and quotes that react to a news story or trend, you may prefer to use quick to access data. However, for big data PR campaigns, you will need more in-depth data that you can analyse and pull multiple story angles from.

Leverage your own internal data

If your company collects data, this is one of the most powerful sources of data. While also being free to access, it is unique to you.

This data can look like:

User feedback or surveys: Collecting and analysing customer feedback offers insights into customer satisfaction and product and market demand.

Customer behaviour: Analysing how customers use your product or service. Look for trends such as peak usage times, geographical differences, or demographic insights.

Sales data: Examining purchasing patterns or trends in how customers engage with your offerings can provide insights into market demands, pricing trends, or product preferences.

Transactional data: PRs can use transaction volumes, payment types, or geographic trends to create interesting stories.

Conduct and commission research or surveys

Commissioning third-party research is a great way to create data for PR purposes if you don’t have your own – or you are looking for something specific that you do not have access to. You can conduct surveys, polls, or studies with your target audience to gather insights on industry trends or consumer preferences.

You can do this in two main ways; create them yourself using tools such as SurveyMonkey or Google Forms, or commission third-party data from a trusted research platform. Once you have the results, this can be built into a myriad of different formats, including PR, content marketing, email marketing, and social media.

Use third-party data sources

There are plenty of external databases and public sources where you can find useful industry data. Some of this will require a fee, but can be less costly than commissioning third-party data.

Some examples include:

• Government databases: Websites like the UK’s Office for National Statistics (ONS) or HM Treasury publish economic data, financial reports, and market trends that can be turned into PR content.
• Industry reports: Research firms such as Gartner and Statista publish market research and reports with valuable data insights relevant to fintech.
• Academic studies: Universities and academic institutions often publish research papers or studies on relevant topics like digital transformation or financial technology, which can serve as a credible source for data.
• Trade associations: Organisations like Innovate Finance or UK Finance frequently release industry reports, statistics, and market analyses.

Monitor social media and online reviews

Social media platforms, discussion forums, and review sites can provide a wealth of real-time data. By analysing conversations, reviews, or mentions about your brand or industry, you can identify trends or gather customer insights to inform your PR strategy.

Tools like Brandwatch, Hootsuite, and BuzzSumo can help you monitor social conversations and pull data from mentions of fintech-related topics, keywords, or your competitors. You can also use data scrapers to quickly gather data from websites.

Analyse Google Trends and search data

Tools like Google Trends, Google Analytics, and SEMrush offer valuable insights into consumer search behaviour and trending topics. You can use these insights to back up your PR efforts with data on what people are searching for and what topics are of interest to searchers.

How can fintech companies use data to earn PR coverage?

Tailor pitches to media interests

When pitching a story, lead with the data and headline statistics of the connection (why you are pitching). Highlight the most interesting and impactful insights first, and position them within the broader context of the fintech industry. Personalised pitches, backed by strong data, and a clear understanding of that journalist’s interests and expertise are more likely to grab a their attention.

Make data easy to digest

Journalists appreciate well-presented and easy-to-understand data. Alongside a well-written pitch and press release, it’s a good idea to display key data in different formats, such as infographics, standalone graphs and charts, and reports, to make the information more accessible and shareable.

Use data to fuel thought leadership

Data-driven insights can form the basis of newsjacking and opinion pieces, blog posts, and guest articles. By publishing content that showcases the data and industry expertise, B2B fintech brands can further strengthen their thought leadership and become trusted sources within the media landscape.

For more information about how we can help your fintech business build trust in the search engines and amongst consumers through digital PR, get in touch with us.