The right content in the right hands at the right time, with Nicky Senyard
We all love how easy it is to change bank accounts these days... until it is our customers (and their planned-on deposits) who are moving. After all, we just sent them a pamphlet that very clearly invited them to apply for a loan at an APR of between 5% and 25% variable on term and risk and changes in the base rate, and subject to final credit checks, and late fees and penalties could apply in certain circumstances - that's a good deal, what was there to not understand?
Our lending business have changed dramatically, the way in which we communicate with our customers needs to change, too. In this episode, we chat about deposits and, in particular, about how influencer marketing and affiliate marketing is moving attention and balances to the organisations who know how best to speak to their customer base.
In this episode, I'm speaking to Nicky Senyard from Fintel Connect: the leading partner marketing solution for financial services.
Fintel Connect is at https://www.fintelconnect.com/ but of course, being in the influencer game, they're all over social media, too. Find them at LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/fintelconnect/) and Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/fintelconnect/) for a start.
Nicky is on LinkedIn, too https://www.linkedin.com/in/nickysenyard/ And that's where you'll find me https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanlegrange (send me a connection request there)
My action-adventure novels are on Amazon, some versions even for free, and my work with ConfirmU and our gamified psychometric scores is at https://confirmu.com/ and on episode 24 of this very show https://www.howtolendmoneytostrangers.show/episodes/episode-24
If you have any feedback or questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me via the contact page on this site.
Keep well, Brendan
The full written transcript, with timestamps, is below:
Nicky Senyard 0:00
We got into a bubble, but as soon as we started moving towards a more turbulent economy, that was the precursor to the deposit conversation.
But people now aren't banking where their parents banked. So there's a whole lot of more agile'ness around money movement.
That's why a lot of influencers in this financial space have had such a great rise to fame: what it allows you to do is get very specific content right in the hands of the people who need it at the time that they're looking for it.
For the big enterprise financial institutions, this is anywhere between 35% and 45% of their acquisition funnel - if I'm going to get a new mortgage, or if I'm going to get a new business loan, I'm telling you, I'm going to research it.
Brendan Le Grange 0:53
I don't drink coffee, or any hot drink, actually, so Starbucks news generally passes me by. But when Marcel van Oost writes a story I pay attention, and on the 28th of May 2023, he focused his daily LinkedIn newsletter on the ways in which the Starbucks app resembles a bank. It's a good article, you should read it. Hell, it's a good newsletter, you should subscribe to it. But for my purposes here, I'll focus on the fact that, thanks to the stored value card, Starbucks are currently carrying $1.8 billion in interest free deposits.
And more than that, it's about capital security and brand building. In a time when rising interest rates have made tables dodgy and venture funds are scarce. All of a sudden, lenders are taking deposits seriously again, welcome to How to Lend Money to Strangers with Brendan le Grange.
Nicky Sendyard, CEO and founder at Fintel Connect, welcome to the show.
Nicky Senyard 2:04
Thanks very much for having me.
Brendan Le Grange 2:06
Nicky, Fintel Connect is a Vancouver based business, but your career started on the other side of the world. So before we start talking about driving growth and innovation in financial services, let's talk about your start in Australia and I guess how you got from there to here.
Nicky Senyard 2:23
I began my commercial career before Google. So that meant that what I was doing pre Google, pre the Internet, was very, very different to what what I'm doing now.
My background was in corporate PR and marketing. But if I had to write another press release, I was probably going to shoot somebody so I found this small niche of digital marketing called "affiliate programmes".
So I started my first affiliate business in 2000. And at the time, it was in the regulated online gambling space. So it was very difficult to work a business from Australia that was predominantly at that time North American. So we basically sold our house that financed the business and moved to North America. And very fortunate that my first business sold in 2016. And then I had another business that was basically the genesis of Fintel Connect.
So that's the very quick, long story.
Brendan Le Grange 3:24
Yeah, Fintel Connect works with a wide range of financial institutions and fintech companies to help scale their digital acquisition and connecting with a diverse network of niche influences. And although I run this podcast, I have to admit, I know nothing about that side of the business.
But one thing I've been hearing is more and more about the role of fin- well, I'm goin to struggle to say that... finfluencers, financial influences.
So maybe we could start with the basics: talk to me about what Fintel Connect is, but also we're do influencers and that side of, I guess, modern peer to peer marketing fit into that space as well.
Nicky Senyard 4:03
Brilliant question and one that we get to answer very often.
So the way that I look at it is digital marketing falls into two very big buckets. One is branch marketing, and one is acquisition, marketing. Affiliate programmes and influences can fall into the acquisition bucket influences can also fall into the brand bucket, but I'm going to talk about it in the context of acquisition.
So what happens in acquisition marketing, you've got your normal suspects, Google search, you've got paid search, you've got social media, you've got paid social media, you've got email marketing, you've got media buys. And then you have what I call the digital marketing tactic that sits in the corner, which is this thing called affiliate marketing, where you scale and grow a brand through third parties could be big media, publishing science, clear score, you could look at Credit Karma, NerdWallet or you could talk about influencers.
So basically, it's these third party sites that are expert content sources on financial literacy, how to choose what to consider comparison tables, it's all of this sort of thing. And Fintel Connect is a piece of technology that allows these types of third party relationships to scale, we technically integrate into the FinTech or the bank.
And then these third party marketers can actually grab tracking code, and actually put it on their link to be able to track through and gauge the level of success that their individual campaigns have.
And very different to every other type of digital marketing. These third parties only get paid on a success fee form filled in a credit card approved a loan approved. So it's post transaction almost, whereas everything else is pre transaction in digital acquisition.
Brendan Le Grange 5:57
And, Nicky, I want to take a step back in my ordering of questions here. But this is a you took a gamble and moved around the world, you'd sold your house, you you wanted to start this business, and it worked, you succeeded in building the business, you sold it, you didn't need to go out and start Fintel Connect, I guess is where I'm getting to you were very busy already.
What was it that you saw what gap was there that said, 'okay, I need to evolve this business. I mean, go out and start Fintel Connect'?
Nicky Senyard 6:25
the business that we didn't sell was actually working with two very large financial institutions in Canada, Tangerine and Scotia Bank. And so I had to decide what we were going to do with the business, whether I was just going to shut it down and go off and do other enterprises, or whether I saw an opportunity for financial only focused affiliate network.
And I did, but the interesting thing is, in my now navel gazing, I couldn't have done this business 10 years ago, the business only makes sense now, because there wasn't the same digital appetite in terms of financial institutions, customers or technology.
Brendan Le Grange 7:05
Yeah, talk to me about that. Because it feels like there's been this concurrent change or evolution, I guess, in what it means to be an influencer. Because when I hear that term influencer, I first think of fashion and travel and these glamorous photos on Instagram and Tiktok. Not really financial services. But it feels like today, it's something far more all inclusive.
What is the reality of that space now?
Nicky Senyard 7:30
Well, I think there'd be a lot of people that would argue that financial services isn't less exciting, it's actually more exciting: financial freedom, it's access, it's control, it's a whole range of different things!
The term influencer has really been spun out of retail, the way that an influencer works is that they have a group of people that have deemed them to be of importance, whether that's because of their fashion love, because of their reach because of their personality, because of the knowledge that they have for a whole range of different areas. It's been media personalities, or reality TV personalities that have come out of this influencer space.
And what they realised is that by giving an endorsement in a very similar way that we've had sports, people do sponsorships and endorsements over a very long period of time, they could actually make money and influence potential buying choices of customers. That's at its most personal level.
But what we've also know reading media and all the rest of it is that websites themselves can be an influencer. You can't say that Forbes doesn't have a footprint into commerce and business and finance. You can't say that NerdWallet doesn't I call them publishers, you yourself are a publisher, you are publishing content that people listen to, and that they've you've give, they've given you a sway over their opinion.
So really, financial influencers are people who have a personality have good content information, and are able to present it in a consumable way that people say, I now understand that, or you've given me something that was going to take me too long to put together.
Brendan Le Grange 9:16
Yeah, and I can see why it's valuable for lenders and borrowers alike, because we have seen your more recently, a bigger focus on transparency and customer education. But still, even if you're trying really hard to do that, and even if you employ the sort of people that are good at communicating, because it's coming from you, the lender, and you you're the other side of the table from them, you can create a perception sometimes in the consumers mind that you have an ulterior motive, you know, call into question the messaging you put out.
So having that third party is really helpful to bridge the gap.
Nicky Senyard 9:49
One of the best things that I can say about influences publishers, anybody that has a voice in this financial space, is that their audience, their readers, their consumers of the content are the most important thing to them.
So wherever they have a relationship, they are determined to stay as authentic as possible to that relationship. They're batting for their audience, they're batting for the small guy.
So that's why a lot of them have had such a great rise to fame is because they've been able to do the digging, they've been able to do the explanation, they've been able to simplify regulatory documents or, you know, disclaimers, or you know, contracts in a way that would at least allow the lay person or the person that's not immersed to be able to ask questions, what it allows you to do is get very specific content, right in the hands of the people who need it at the time that they're looking for it, which is the ultimate sales position, financial decisions, a lending product, or a loan, or any financial decision that you make is fraught with consternation, it's so stressful for a lot of people, because they don't do it everyday.
You know, like, you get a mortgage, how many times in your life, you know, you get a car loan, how many times in your life, you don't do this sort of thing every week, every day. So what you want to do is you want to lean into people that you either trust or that you follow or that makes sense to help you in the framework for you to be able to make a decision. We become advocates for the financial products. But we also become advocates for the voices out there, which is these publishers or influencers because we do sit in the middle.
Brendan Le Grange 11:33
And Nicky, I want to talk about that. From a product point of view, I want to get into what that looks like in a minute. But first, Fintel Connect is a female founded female lead business, how's that shaped your approach? Or does it shape your approach to what you're delivering?
Nicky Senyard 11:45
It hasn't been deliberate, I've got to tell you that, to me, it is about the best person for the position. And we just happen to have attracted a really strong female team that we love working together.
What we do is really about communication. And it's really about we didn't create the widget, but we're making it a damn good widget, if that makes sense. And I think the female lead approach is that it's very much about partnership, and not about transaction. Because this is something that we're doing a whole lot of thought leadership with in terms of banks and fintechs, they'd like you to be very honest, they've never heard of this before, they could definitely utilise it. So that has to do with a lot of investment into a relationship. And I think I've got a great team that up to the challenge to do that. So I think that's where it comes from.
Brendan Le Grange 12:37
Yeah, well, I normally do this at the end. But it seems fitting to just pop it in here, when you talk about the clientele that you're working with you, as I said earlier, based in Vancouver, but where do you find your customers?
Nicky Senyard 12:49
We're focusing at the moment on North America, just for geographic reach, as we're sort of like building out.
But I've already had a couple of conversations in the UK and uncomfortable conversations in Australia. So definitely looking at geographic expansion into financial systems that I understand. The UK system is very similar to the Australian system that's sort of kind of similar to the Canadian system. The Canadian system is very similar to the US system if it didn't have the Commonwealth influence. Yeah,
Brendan Le Grange 13:18
Well, after this, I know one or two UK based fintechs may want to be one of those ones have a conversation. But yes, let's get back to the topic at hand, the product itself.
So I see there's Fintel Performance, Fintel Check and Fintel Results
Nicky Senyard 13:31
Well, the way that we built out the products has been really pragmatic, what we wanted to do is we wanted to meet the financial institution where they were at. And as we know, when it comes to digital and digital acquisition, financial institutions are across the spectrum, from what I will call putting your toe in the water just starting to put a digital account opening system or a loan origination system to enterprise financial institutions that consume most of their customers online.
So Fintel Results is about helping financial institutions track to the event that makes the money.
Google is brilliant in terms of they'll tell you where your traffic is coming to. But it can't tell you whether that that person actually opened that loan account or was approved for that mortgage or that loan, or technology does that.
Fintel Check was all about policing content on these third party sites, right? So if you're going to create this relationship where they're going to put content on there, you need to make sure that the hard facts like interest rates and transfer fees and all of those sorts of things are accurate and up to date. And in our changing rate environment. That can be a challenge.
And then we have Fintel Performance, which is where you've got this performance based relationship or success based relationship where the publisher gets paid for the customer that actually signs up or takes the mortgage.
Brendan Le Grange 14:56
Nicky, you mentioned if you lending products, they Obviously, this is a show about lending. So we'll focus there for a bit. But when I started my career in lending 20 years ago, on the other side of the world, deposits were not really part of the lending discussion, somebody in the bank was doing that. And we assumed we had money to lend out and we assumed everybody was on a similar footing.
What we've seen though, in the last year, or thereabout is a growing awareness, I guess it makes me nervous in the FinTech space, but actually how important deposits can be. And we've seen banks and fintechs make or break themselves based on having or not having deposits, you are doing a lot of work helping organisations gain deposits, bringing customers of this sort, so I won't try and put in my own outside of you.
Instead, I'll ask you what you've seen from the coalface are we seeing this new strategic focus on gaining deposits? And if so, how have you been helping? Well, I guess lenders in particular, but businesses more broadly to do that.
Nicky Senyard 15:58
Fintel Connect actually started in January 2020. So three months into the business, we of course, were hit by COVID. So it was really interesting, the conversations that we're having pre COVID Were about deposits and the importance of you know, having a healthy deposit pipeline COVID came and there was a lot of money around in government programmes, there was a lot of money around where lending became the point, the government's were trying to keep doors, open staff employed, all of that sort of stuff. And that then transferred into a very frothy VC market and a very high valuations of things going on, deposits weren't interesting there.
But as soon as we started moving towards a more turbulent economy, as it were, that was the precursor to the deposit conversation. And so what we've had this year is definitely a highlight on deposits, because of the fragility of basic principles that weren't the highlight over the last not 12 months, but like four years, we got into a bubble with COVID. And I think a lot of those principles weren't as adhered to as they were previously. So I think the goal now of good makeup of clients and healthy deposits are going back to that hate to say, because I sound so old, basic business principles.
Brendan Le Grange 17:29
No, you're right.
And I think also, what we're seeing is, you know, 10/ 15/ 20 years worth of FinTech bringing customer expectations. And we're seeing the likes of Apple coming in and really just showing their strength, from a customer point of view of being able to move what would normally be the stickiest of products, where your savings your real money sits as where you want the big, boring bank, and you had Apple sort of overnight, it's been able to move billions and billions away from that space. And I think that also just reminds us if we needed a reminder that people can move things quite easily these days and wilty
Nicky Senyard 18:02
That's the point is that I don't think the same level of stickiness, or assumptive, stickiness is there as it once was before. Consumers are becoming more discerning. There's so many things when you look at transitioning wealth, and families in retirement and legacy and all the rest of it.
People now aren't banking where their parents banked and not keeping money if they've inheriting it with the place that the parents did. So there's a whole lot of more agile myths around money movement, because of technology because of information. And because of education, the interest rate of where I'm getting my deposits becomes more important, again,
Brendan Le Grange 18:43
I'm slightly repeating myself, but this is where I do see a huge value in having these more approachable voices telling us about these different strategies. And the pros and cons were the investment world was quite intimidating and partially also needed to buy shares in certain lights. And via certain brokers and things it was harder to do now we can hear the market we can hear investment strategies explained in a way we understand from voices we trust, yeah, and then we can use tools to make it happen,
Nicky Senyard 19:12
Which means financial institutions, if they don't get online and become part of that information flow, they're going to become disconnected. And in becoming disconnected from that flow. They're not going to have the same leverage to grow in a healthy way.
We work with a lot of community banks in the US, which is a very foreign concept in Australia, the UK and Canada. But it's really interesting the role of community banks play because the boots on the ground right there the guys that are in the community, they very focused on the people that are in their regional area or local area. Them realising that that customer that's very local is actually getting a whole lot of information from those big institutions or those big fish. in tech, so there's little fintechs, or whatever it happens to be.
And it's just as easy for them to take their money and put it with the FinTech as it is for them to sort of like get the relationship with the teller was the mother of the kid that you went to school with. They are part of the information flow because their customers are.
Brendan Le Grange 20:18
So when you're working with a community bank like that, how do you help them increase their deposits cost effectively?
Nicky Senyard 20:24
It's the same strategy for the big guys, as is the little guys.
It just happens to be the little guys have a different appetite. They don't need as many customers or don't want as many customers. But it's the same sort of thing as product attractiveness. It's about being able to pay market rate, it's also being able to have a good digital experience. There is no financial product deposit or lending that will work online unless you're giving the customer a really good onboarding experience.
So there are some really small community banks that nail it, but there's also some fintechs that just their whole business is about making the onboarding process brilliant.
Brendan Le Grange 21:02
You have been working with a number of Canadian and US lenders: Credibly, SMB Compass, Ecapital, fairstone, spring financial, Mogo. So lots of lenders that you're also helping to enhance the way they're doing this sort of digital brand building and acquisition.
So how are you helping lenders do this? What are you seeing lenders maybe do well that some of the lenders listening could think about, you have
Nicky Senyard 21:26
to be very aware of who is your most valuable client type. So as a lender, you need to know and be very specific about what you're looking for from this channel. Because none of us can work well, unless we know what the goal is, the next thing is to be able to understand what that client is worth to you.
Because in any digital acquisition format, you're paying a market rate for the attention of the publisher.
And I'm happy if anybody wants to get in contact with me afterwards, we can tell people the general market rates because they vary from country and product and all the rest of it. And I don't want to bore anybody by going through this is worth this much. This is worth this much.
But basically what it is, is there's a marketplace, let's say to get a loan, it's $200, a customer that fills in an application form, just to say, what will happen is that could go down to $150, if the product is amazing, or if the product geographic area is smaller, it might go up to $500. So there's a sliding scale. So you as a lender have to be aware of where your sweet spot is to pay for that customer acquisition.
And then the next thing is that you have to make sure that the publisher is very clear on all of those sorts of things that you want them to portray out there to the audience. And also with this channel, it creates a lot of brand building. So even if you don't get a customer from it in the first instance, that audience of that influencer, or that side is now aware that you exist.
Brendan Le Grange 23:02
Yeah, the genesis of these brand relationships can be really hard to identify. I've been meaning to write a LinkedIn post about this, but I may as well tell the story here. When I was living in Hong Kong, it would have been six years ago, we took the kids into town to clock and flap, which was the big music festival. Now with the young kids in the daytime, sometimes it's not the music that's most important when you select the stage, but rather, where's there some space for them to run around. So we were at the secondary stage at a young Scottish musician came on by the name of Lewis Capaldi. Nobody had heard of him, but we were standing around as the kids played, again, the name stuck in my head. So as he started to make it bigger, and he came on the radio, you know, I recognise the name, it's Oh, that's the guy we saw all those years ago. And you felt a part of that connection, even though the music was no big part of my life. And then just the other day, I was in the shops looking for some frozen pizza for the kids and I saw a Lewis Capaldi pizza. And I bought it, ostensibly because I happen to be at the right stage at this music festival six years ago and halfway around the world.
Nicky Senyard 24:10
And it's also about emotional connection. So say, for example, if you've got an influencer, that you follow as a consumer, you start to build an emotional connection, you start to understand them as they start to share the history, they start to share a whole lot of things. If they're going to recommend something, even if they're not recommending it to you and saying you need this for this reason, you'll keep it in the back of your head and then guess what?
Next time you see an advert or next time you have a need for it, you'll probably remember that you've actually had exposure to that product or services before the acorn has come from that influencer.
Brendan Le Grange 24:44
So if I'm a lender, I've got a new FinTech with an interesting product that I think that my consumers my future potential consumers out there would benefit by knowing about that if they knew all the benefits I'm bringing, they would come and say For this new product, how would I go about finding a publisher finding an influencer,
Nicky Senyard 25:06
the best starting point is to get your message really clear. And get an understanding of your client value, which is really about your digital marketing. This is where your your internal digital marketing team, or your advertising agency or your consultants to get that sweet spot on client value is the first crucial point that none of us play a role in the influences don't even tell connect don't none of us do.
As soon as you've got that sweet spot, influences Fintel Connect publishes are all about scaling it out.
So really, then you come to someone like us and say, This is my audience. This is the message they resonate. This is how much I'm prepared to pay. Do you have any traffic or publishers that can help me get more of this, it's like we're a marriage broker. When you come to us saying, I want this date, and then we go and looking out 3,000/ 4,000 publisher group and say, Hey, I've got three great picks for you. And then you go from there. And
Brendan Le Grange 26:12
I guess a slightly a double edged sword then for the marketing department in that there's nowhere left to hide that because there are so many definite niches out there. So many ways. The markets are really being segmented this is no longer saying, I want 20 to 40 year olds with a high income and then handing it over to a magazine for a print ad, because they're all available to you if you do that work. And if you identify the right one, you can find someone to speak to them.
Nicky Senyard 26:38
But what we are finding is that some guys are coming to us and wanting to do media buys with the publishers that we've got to test and learn. So that is absolutely a way that we can work with clients to do test in line campaigns before they go into the pure performance. But we don't recommend anybody goes into that pure performance CPA pay for in advance before you've actually done your homework to understand what converts and where it breaks.
This is the thing that nobody talks about is acquisition funnels break. And until you've done the glueing together of where those breakpoints are, nothing can flow through the channel properly.
Brendan Le Grange 27:19
And I Imagine you can run a digital campaign with an influencer and see those results on in real time. But I'm sure it's pretty closely the practical sense. And start doing that learning and experimenting and fine tuning your strategies without the noise that comes from longer delays.
Nicky Senyard 27:34
The other thing is that when you're working with an influencer, they get paid on the performance of your product. Yeah, so the thing is that they're not going to market you or work with you, if you've got a leaky funnel, they're only going to promote you if you've got a good product. But when they promote, you know that it works because they're paid on success of your good product. ,
Brendan Le Grange 27:56
Nicky, you've given us some really great insights into an area of the creative economy that I didn't understand that well. And while I hate to project my own ignorance onto my audience, I think while many of us are familiar with the front end of their creative economy, many of us wouldn't have understood what was happening below the surface. So there'll be listeners who would like to learn more like to do some research, maybe even like to start a conversation. If they wanted to do that.
Where can they go to find Fintel Connect online?
Nicky Senyard 28:25
it's just www.fintelconnect.com
So definitely go there. And, and you can email us directly from the website, we also have a pretty good LinkedIn presence. And we're very happy to hear from anyone, Instagram as well. I mean, we're across all of the platforms, and we love to be able to help.
So if there's anything that we can do to help spread the message of actually getting advocates out there to promote your product and create financial literacy, we're there. And as loan origination products become more sophisticated and more agile, it's definitely moving into the small business space. I'm going to put money on it that within the next five years, we'll be doing commercial transactions online in the same way that consumers do a credit card.
Brendan Le Grange 29:12
I'm a business to business type podcast. So good news for me, I suppose in the future. But Nicky, thank you so much for joining me. It's been enlightening and also exciting to hear what's happening. I think that everybody benefits when the message is clearer and easier to understand to the end audience. Thank you so much for having me.
And thank you all for listening.
Please do look for and follow the show on your favourite podcast platform and share the updates widely on LinkedIn where lending nerds are found in our largest concentration. Plus, send me a connection request while you're there.
This show is written and recorded by myself Brendan le Grange in Brighton, England and edited by Fina Charleson of FC Productions.
Show music is by Iam_wake, and you can find show notes and written transcripts at www.HowtoLendMoneytoStrangers.show and I'll see you again next Thursday.