April 2022

Bright injects agility into cutting-edge FinTech’s digital transformation journey  

In 2020, Bright’s client, a leading financial industry operating system, set out on a digital transformation journey to pivot their focus from brand marketing to demand gen. Requiring an agile approach, we helped transform their marketing strategy and achieve their business objectives. Vice President and Global Head of Marketing of the FinTech client, Mitra Roknabadi, joins our Client Delivery Director, Lydia Kirby, to be interviewed by John Cass and share their experience of putting agile marketing into action… 

1. Move fast, break nothing 

In a digital world time is of the essence – Mitra highlights the importance to “move fast but don’t rush”. The qualities of an agile marketing approach align perfectly with the FinTech client’s company motto: ‘move fast, break nothing’. By beginning to work in a series of iterations, we developed a safe foundation to learn more about their digital audience through listening, testing, and optimising. Bright empowered the FinTech client team to “work at pace and learn, iterate, shift and deliver quickly.”  

2. Experts, assemble! 

There’s more to agile marketing than the methodology. Mitra recalls how her experience with Bright helped her to see “the full extent of what agile means”. As the campaign developed, both Mitra and Lydia as agile aficionados adapted the team’s approach and toolkit to suit the FinTech client’s needs. Demonstrating the ability to onboard and offboard expertise where needed was paramount to the FinTech client, enabling them to identify how and where they wanted to grow as a business.  

3. Planning, doing, and reviewing 

Keen to shirk the assumption an agile marketing approach is an impulsive one, Lydia emphasises the “planning, doing, and reviewing” that goes into a project.  Bright often work in three-week Sprints to allow ample “time for learning, understanding the subject and iteration”. Project management and instant messaging platforms are key tools to unite siloed teams and enable them to collaborate and respond at pace. It’s the way in which we respond that sets agile marketers apart; having an open mind that something may work better than predicted.  The review process of continuous self-reflection allows for iteration, optimisation and ultimately, the best of results.   

Lydia described her experience with the FinTech client as a “dream, not because they’re simply new to agile marketing”… but because “their scale-up mentality embraced the agile methodology”. Mitra is also confident the campaign experience “will influence what we do as a company” going forward.     

As Bright continues to work with innovative FinTech companies, we look forward to delivering fresh, iterative, and data-driven agile marketing approaches, leading the charge to better results, faster time to market, sustainable growth, and the ability to adapt and change at pace. 

Net-Zero targets are rightfully ambitious, but they’re doomed to fail if strategies aren’t agile. Our agile guide to help #InvestInOurPlanet

Last year, the UK Government released plans on how it will deliver its Net Zero emissions targets by 2050 including a 78% reduction from 1990 to 2035. Whilst their strategy is ‘ambitious and comprehensive’ if their plans aren’t agile, measured and take an iterative approach, they’re doomed to fail.

This year’s Earth Day, falling on 22 April annually, is themed around nature in the race to net zero with the hashtag #InvestInOurPlanet. At Bright, we believe the best way for governments to plan for climate change is to use an agile approach.

13 going on 35

2035 seems miles away from where we are now, 13 years is a long time in project planning terms, however targets and goals as ambitious as climate action ones, demand special attention. Cities across the globe are setting targets and measuring for the years ahead, however, without monitoring, how are they going to track progress?

Agile methodology manages projects by breaking it up into several phases or sprints. Involving continuous collaboration with stakeholders and constant learning and improvement at every stage. Once the project begins, teams’ cycle through a process of planning, executing, and evaluating thus teams have a natural mechanism for responding to change quickly. Do you see where we’re going with this yet?

Seize the data

Climate targets need to be data driven; however, the data needs to be monitored and used correctly. Agile emphasises the freedom to be daring in concept and tactics whilst also highlighting the importance of data driven insights. The most important aspect of an agile approach is to turn your data into actionable insights.

Try, Fail, Try something different, Succeed

Collecting climate data is all well and good, but if that data suggests or even shows that transition targets have been missed by a large margin then more measures will need to be implemented behind this goal. Equally, if target measures seem to be particularly effective, more ambitious targets could be set to reach goals faster.

This kind of flexibility is important as climate strategies need to be adaptable based on actual results and external shifts that are not yet known. Agile ways of working promote this type of flexibility and retrospective outlook which allows for prioritisation on demand – providing teams with the knowledge of what is most important to work on next.

Some cities around the world are already adapting their climate strategies to make them more agile. Mannheim in Germany, for example will digitise its new ‘Climate Action Plan 2030’ to track measurable data close to real-time via a digital twin. Meaning the city can be more flexible in adjusting milestones to reach targets faster and more efficiently.

Limit risks without risking your limits

Agile methodology is based on the concepts of flexibility, transparency, quality, and continuous improvement. Visibility in project management plays a key role in ensuring targets are achievable and that teams have the resources necessary to attain them. It’s easy for governments to set ambitious targets that make headlines and line manifestos, but if the delivery is deficient due to lack of transparency, the strategies will fail.

The Committee on Climate Change – a group of experts that advise the UK government – called the governments net zero strategy “ambitious and comprehensive” but says the UK government needs to “strengthen delivery” and agree tougher policies. With increased visibility, predicting risks, and coming up with effective mitigation plans become simpler. When working within an agile framework, there are countless ways to identify and predict risks faster meaning it’s easier to plan to ensure that the project runs smoothly, targets are met, and goals are achieved.

So, there you have it, our challenge to #InvestInOurPlanet. While there may be plenty of obstacles in climate change planning, the benefits of agile ways of working, both to governments as well as the planet, are abundant. As the planet continues to evolve and change, strategies on climate change planning need to be agile enough to evolve with it.

If you would like to introduce agile marketing into your project planning, please contact us about our Agile Marketing training or marketing support.

The buzz surrounding FinTech companies keeps growing louder as these cutting-edge businesses introduce innovative ideas to disrupt the financial services industry.

From P2P lending and digital currency to online payments, internet insurance, and self-serve brokerages, FinTech solutions can offer customers more efficiency, convenience, and security than traditional solutions.

Business Insider expects the FinTech industry to grow with a CAGR of 20 percent over the next few years.

Despite growth, FinTech companies face steep challenges

Financial institutions and customers appear eager to embrace new tools. Still, even the best new financial technology must gain visibility in a crowded, shifting marketplace.

Very often, FinTech enterprises need to introduce their brands and ideas to a marketplace that barely understands the problem that needs solving. At the same time as innovators offer new solutions, they also face rapid shifts in their business environments because of changing regulations, competitors, and customer expectations.

FinTech companies don’t just need to produce innovative solutions to help customers. They must also employ their own creative, responsive, and adept marketing processes to remain ahead of a rapidly changing business environment. This demands an approach to marketing strategy and project management that uses agile methodologies.

Why agile marketing perfectly suits FinTech companies

Successful FinTech companies use rapid, data-driven methodologies to develop and test their ideas to offer the best products and services in this dynamic business environment. Startups and established tech companies must remain agile to cope with rapid and often unexpected changes. Many technical companies rely on Agile development tools to swiftly gather information, test ideas, validate theories, and optimise processes.

Thus, Agile marketing tactics fit the culture and business model of FinTech companies precisely the same way that Agile development tactics do. Developers working within an Agile framework will recognise the core principles of Agile marketing, such as rapid sprints, using an iterative process to develop and test, relying on data-driven ideas and techniques, and a holistic, interdisciplinary approach.

Highlights of why Agile marketing flawlessly suits FinTech companies include:

• Responsive to the economic and market context: In the complex and rapidly evolving FinTech market, agile marketing can pivot quickly and relies on data, not assumptions. The interdisciplinary nature of this marketing framework also offers better insights into the broader economic and competitive context.
• Complementary to FinTech company culture: Typical FinTech businesses tend to be agile, and very often, use Agile development tools. Employees readily understand and adapt to this adaptable, sprint-based, diversity-inclusive, and engaging style. An agile marketing team already speaks the language of every other team member, including marketing leaders and business decision makers.
• Able to scale: Agile marketing’s focus on automation and efficiency helps clients scale as businesses evolve and grow. Agile marketing tactics don’t just scale quickly. They also encourage business growth, making scaling more possible, finding new ways to reach potential customers.
• Suitable for the unique demands of FinTech: FinTech businesses constantly upgrade and improve products with new or improved features. Agile marketing can keep up with this level of dynamism. Besides offering insights about the best way to communicate changes to customers, these marketing approaches can help developers learn what to change or leave alone.

As B2B FinTech grows to catch up and keep pace B2C FinTech, B2B FinTech companies will need to reach B2B Companies. This needs an approach to B2B marketing that continuously improves their digital marketing and that guides modern B2B buyers towards a purchase decision

Agile Marketing: FinTech can’t wait

Santander provides a great case study of how even established financial services firms can implement agile marketing approaches. Santander shortened campaign cycles into ‘sprints’ and used daily ‘huddles’ to dynamically adjust priorities based on performance. This allowed Santander to create more adaptable campaigns that make better use of budget. Besides taking inspiration from best practice in Silicon Valley, Santander’s agile marketing approach has aligned the marketing part of their business with IT development methodologies.

Fintech companies cannot afford to wait for weeks to adjust or broadcast their marketing messages. They need tangible results fast, together with the capacity to learn from experience. Zaptino – working with Bright – used data-driven audience insight and a rapid, iterative approach to optimise key messages. In just six weeks, they were able nurture investors towards conversion that delivered over £125,000 in investment, as well as building a pipeline of longer-term opportunities.

Agile marketing relies on continuous streams of data analytics, automated processes, rapid tests, frequent evaluations, and a series of iterations. Here at Bright, we’re excited about the future of FinTech and understand the challenges our clients face. Our unique marketing methodology and technical capabilities help FinTech companies enjoy rapid growth and profits because they employ the same agile tactics that our clients use to produce new solutions.

Discover more about the intersection between agile marketing and FinTech as Bright’s client delivery director, Lydia Kirby, will be appearing as a guest panellist at this years Fintech B2B Marketing Conference on the 27th of April. Lydia will be sharing her FinTech industry insights and agile marketing expertise on the topic of ‘Winning B2B data-driven marketing strategy is the next new normal’.