FinTech Case Study: 75 Interested Replies In 6 Weeks

How we brought a B2B payment gateway provider unprecedented growth through targeted email marketing campaigns.

A well known payment gateway client provides solutions that allows entrepreneurs, e-commerce companies, and businesses to accept payments in over 100 currencies. The company’s clients include startups as well as some of the biggest names in e-Commerce.

The Challenge

Our client wanted us to boost their customer portfolio and sign up more partners. The challenge was engaging entrepreneurs, merchants, eCommerce companies, and marketplaces who probably already used a payment solution. Or, in other words, businesses unlikely to switch.

Reaching directors, heads of departments, vice presidents and C-suites had proven difficult. These people are notoriously difficult to reach. The CEO’s email may be found, but chances are they will never see the message.

The biggest challenge was that the client did not want their email address used for outreach. Luckily in these situations, we have other solutions.

Our Strategy

Our team created a content strategy to boost our client’s portfolio and sign up new partners. We crafted a compelling value proposition and wrote content optimized for email outreach and social media campaigns.

First we reached out to software development companies. But because this solution was in a highly competitive market, we went back to the drawing board to develop a win-win strategy built to help channel partners sell the product. We used a direct cold emailing approach and targeted 2-3 specific customer profiles in each organization.

Technical Preparations

Our targeting team compiled a list of software companies in the US, UK, and ICS countries. Having a clean email database, the right companies, and the right titles makes outreach more effective. The delivery of emails is greatly affected by invalid or inactive email addresses, so our team carefully verified each email address.  

Companies have different methods for building lists and sending emails, such as purchasing unverified lists and sending thousands of emails per week. This might work temporarily, but it’s not the way we do it. Sending too many emails to an unverified list eventually results in high bounce rates and emails being flagged as spam. 

To ensure maximum delivery, we checked each prospect’s information using internal processes and tools – our secret for successful campaign rollout.

The Messaging Strategy

Having crafted and approved the first list, it was time for creative writing. With so many emails landing in prospect’ inboxes daily, the message had to stand out. 

We opted for a well personalized 4 step campaign strategy that included:

1. Demonstrating Business Acumen – Analyzing the prospect’s challenges and current situation, and showing the prospect what other companies are doing to tackle those challenges. 
2. A follow-up message that sounded natural and non pushy.
3. The third message offered additional value: explaining how the service could help them. 
4. Our fourth message highlighted the many benefits of collaborating with our clients’ solution.

Finally, a follow up campaign was launched for prospects who hadn’t replied, asking them for a contact introduction to the right person.

The Results

Results: 4% bounced rate, 21% reply rate, and 75 interested replies in 6 weeks. 

This highly successful campaign went out to 1800 people. 

96% of the emails were delivered successfully with just 4% bouncing. Open rates were 47.6% and response rates were 21.2%. Within the first 6 weeks of this campaign, we received 382 replies, 75 interested, 46 booked demos, and 86 “maybe laters”. 

This campaign produced great results for our client:

Conclusion

This example shows the importance of getting the technical aspects right when launching a successful email campaign. 

But effective outreach also requires great content. Getting the technical and content parts right can help you generate more leads and start valuable conversations with potential clients.

This campaign resulted in hundreds of booked appointments with ideal prospects for our Fintech client. Given that the target audience was senior-level IT professionals who receive hundreds of emails every day, it was an incredibly successful campaign!