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The Fintech Marketing Lab is a podcast where Araminta Robertson, Managing Director at Mint Studios, explores, experiments, and breaks down how fintech marketing actually works in practice.
Araminta: I am curious about how the top
FinTech companies in the world do content.
Yeah.
So was I, two years ago, I was
searching for case studies, tips,
benchmarks on how content works
specifically for FinTech and financial
services, and I couldn't find much.
A lot of content and just marketing
advice in general focuses on SaaS.
Is quite different to FinTech.
I, I always say this, so we set
out to do our own interviews and.
Over the past couple of years, I've
been able to talk to amazing marketing
leaders at companies like Adyen Pleio
Comply Advantage, and many more.
And we've turned all these case
studies into an ebook where
you can read them all in one.
We launched it along with a virtual
event a few weeks ago, and you
can download the ebook for free.
Replay the event at tinyurl.com/mint
report.
That's Mint report.
Or you can just head to our homepage at.
Mint copywriting studios.com
and you'll find it there.
Anyway, let's get into today's
episode, which is kind of on
a similar, in a similar vein.
As I just said, a lot of marketing advice.
Sounds good, sounds helpful until
you apply it to FinTech, where
sales cycles are often years long.
Attribution is tricky because
you're meeting them in person.
Yeah.
The product is also complicated.
The buyer journey is messy.
Growth takes a different kind of thinking.
In this episode, I'm joined by Paul State,
head of Demand Generation, and James
Hayward, content Marketing Deed at Primer.
Primer is the unified infrastructure
for global payments and commerce,
and they help merchants gain
more control and visibilities to
optimize their performance of.
Payments, full disclosure, they're
also a client of ours, and we've
loved working with them over the
past couple of years now, I think.
But between them, they've led marketing
across companies like checkout.com,
Tradeshift, and more, bringing
real experience inside.
FinTech, not just SaaS.
and that's what we cover in this
episode, what it actually takes to make
marketing work in this kind of industry.
Specifically, we go through, traditional
marketing playbooks and why they don't
really work as well in payments, the
go-to market engineer and what does that
really involve and how do they operate as
a lean, high performing marketing team and
a lot more, this was a really fun episode.
Let's dive in.
Generic intro: You are listening to
the FinTech Marketing Lab podcast.
I'm Arminta from Mint Studios, a
content marketing agency specialized
in the FinTech space, and this
podcast is where we experiment,
explore, and break down how FinTech
marketing actually works in practice.
Each episode I talk with top FinTech
marketers about what they're testing,
what they're learning, and how
they're pushing the boundaries of
brand strategy and team building.
With that, let's get into today's episode.
Araminta: first thing that I
wanted to ask
is,
you know, you've both got quite
a bit of experience working in
marketing and FinTech and payments.
What, what would you say is different
about doing marketing in this industry
That not everyone talks about, like yeah.
Compliance regulation and all of that,
but like, what do you think when it comes
to actually doing the work in marketing?
Do people maybe don't take into
consideration when they do marketing
for like a FinTech or a payment company?
James: Yeah, there's quite a lot.
I can go from like a sort
of content side of things.
I think one of the hardest things
about working, in payments is the
product's really hard to show,
particularly if you're on like the
PSP side where, you know, essentially
it's just rails in the background.
You know, you, there's not really
a massive amount to physically.
Show, which I think makes life as a
marketer a little bit hard 'cause you're
always relying on sort of descriptions
of things like proof points and how
trustworthy are those in the market.
Like, you know, data points
you can give or take, right?
Sometimes.
So I do think that's like a nuance
about the payments industry.
Obviously at primer we have a
Araminta: Yeah.
James: which is nice.
Like ours is more of a technology
platform, so it like sits as a
technology layer that you can use.
But yeah, I do think payments is,
is complicated because of so much
happens in the background and then
tied to that, like the nuance of it
all, payments is like one of the most
nuanced areas I've ever worked in.
There are, there are rules.
But they are not
universal in the same way.
So like if you are what you
may, let's say you were doing
like a educational post, right?
You would typically say, right, do these
five things and things will improve.
not really true in payments because you
do those five things in Europe and they
might improve, but they're not necessarily
gonna improve in the US or apac.
And it's true as well.
Like when you think about it from
a vertical level, like if you're
a travel business, you may be
doing one thing, but then a gaming
company might be doing the other.
And it's like trying to speak to
all those different personas and
cover those nuances getting in a
quagmire of complexity yourself.
It's like super hard.
And I think one of the biggest
challenges as a, a content marketer
Araminta: Yeah, that's
a really good point.
And actually you're right, like you
guys have like a platform that you
can share screenshots and stuff, but
there's some companies, it's just
an API, like there's not much you
can, you can't really show an API.
Right.
And that's even harder.
And, and really what you're
saying is that it's so.
I don't wanna say personalized, but
it's so, uh, it can be so different
for each company that it can be really
hard to make generalizations right.
And that's what makes it
James: Very
Araminta: difficult.
Paul, any any thoughts?
Paul: Yeah, I think just touching on
that, I think the, the broad from a
marketing perspective and targeting
your like ideal customer profile
Araminta: I,
Paul: be quite difficult as well, usually.
You are global
first, so you're trying to
target lots of different regions,
specific countries all at once.
Which is even particularly hard when you
are maybe a smaller business with limited
funding is you need to really check.
Who you're targeting and really
be specific and almost do an a
BM approach to your targeting.
It's really hard to compete with
like the big players on Google ads.
It's something that we actually backed
away from is because it was just way
too expensive, and so we're doubling
down on more of the organic piece to try
and get into that channel specifically.
And then also like just the not just the
global, but also our product can touch
a lot of different personas as well.
And they all have different use cases
of how they would use our product.
So whether that is product if
they're more, uh, product central,
uh, business, it could be.
Finance for reducing costs.
It could be an eCommerce manager
who is more interested in the
of the checkout experience.
It's just so many different touch points.
So to get all of that
right be quite difficult.
And sometimes you need to go back to
the drawing board quite frequently
on, okay, which one works for us best?
Who is the main stakeholder?
Who are the influencers?
And, yeah.
Really use data to, to really go
after what is working for you.
'cause you can't go after
Araminta: Yeah, I think what, yeah.
James: sometimes.
Paul: We do
Araminta: Yeah.
Paul: Yeah.
Araminta: I think what, what I find
so interesting about, about payments
specifically is that it's the, it's
the like veins of the company, right?
Without payments, you cannot
process, uh, revenue really.
Right?
It's, it is such an integral
part of a company and yet.
Mm.
It's more complicated
than people think it is.
And I would argue, especially
smaller companies don't know
much about payments, right?
We all think it's very simple, right?
You talk to a lay person about payments
and they're like, yeah, whatever.
It goes from one bank to another,
and you're like, actually
there are acquirers, issuers.
It's so much more complicated, and I
think that's why that's what makes it
so fascinating to me is that like, on
the surface it's simple, but actually
there's so much going on behind it
and it's what enables so many things.
That we take for granted very often.
So it keeps things interesting.
Paul: There, there's actually, like, what
I find really frustrating is a lot of
the stuff out there when, uh, like you're
looking at marketing guides and what other
businesses are doing, it's, it's usually.
Against marketers, like as their
audience and marketers tend to
be a lot more excited about the
Araminta: Yeah.
Paul: things in their day to day.
And you usually find these businesses
that target marketing have such a
bigger community than
something like a payments.
Uh, it's hard to get sometimes
excited about payments.
And yeah, that can sometimes be a
a struggle as well in, in
James: and, and just to add to that
as well, sorry, is like, I think
with the, that persona piece as
well, I mean, you'd be very surprised
at how many, even big businesses.
Don't have, uh, someone
who solely looks after
Araminta: Yep.
James: who maybe is the first person
who is looking after payments.
And I think that's also
really interesting itself.
Like you are marketing to people
quite a lot of the time who payments
isn't their focus.
Like I, I actually interviewed
one of our customers this week and
they look after five parts of their
Araminta: Wow.
James: are just 20% of their time.
again, in terms of like capturing their
attention, capturing their mind share.
You're not only competing against
everyone else who's saying you know,
similar stuff and you know the bigger
players that we talked about in the
market, you're also just competing
against their own mental load and,
and, and sort of where cognitively
they are at that moment in time.
Like if, if that person
happens to be thinking about.
One of the four other things they think
about a day, they're just gonna scroll
past and add around payments 'cause it
Araminta: Yeah.
James: resonate to them
at that particular time.
And, and that's just not uncommon
as well in, in our industry
as it stands at the moment.
Araminta: Yeah,
James: that's
Araminta: that's a good point.
James: interesting challenge when
I compare that to like procurement,
Araminta: Yeah.
James: in before.
company has
Araminta: Yeah.
James: solely looked
after procurement on the
Araminta: I.
James: part.
So you know that that's all
they think about day and
Araminta: Yes.
But on the other side of that one, one
thing I do like about payments is that
it's, it can be easier to demonstrate ROI
in the sense that because you're literally
touching the money, if you do anything, it
could be saving fees, it could be enabling
faster payments or more payment methods.
It can be so much more easy to say, oh,
we helped them save X amount of money.
Whereas think of a SaaS,
like an Asana or whatever.
You saved X amount of time by and
that equaled, it's so hard to be
able to really put that into numbers.
I mean, they will try, but I feel like
one thing that's cool about payments,
you can be a bit more like Yeah,
show the ROIA little bit more easily.
Do you, would you agree with that?
Do you think that that helps or not?
James: Uh, I would say I, no, I, I, I a
Araminta: Yeah.
Yeah.
James: you, and I think
when you do get those
Araminta: Yeah.
James: and they're so meaningful and,
and, you know, they really do stand out.
But you'd be surprised at just,
again, going back to sort of what
I was saying about how businesses
think about payments, how many just
Araminta: Yeah, that's true.
Yeah.
James: hand where you
know, where you know where.
It's either sort of lost in
some different systems or just
something they don't look at.
So I, I've had situations before
where I've done gay studies and
I've been like, okay, what was your,
like uplift for what your results?
And they're like, we actually
dunno what our baseline was.
Like we, we are happy and now
things are working and then, and
then obviously that becomes a
little bit more, more challenging.
So I agree, like I do think there
is meaningful ROI that you can
prove, but sometimes it's not
Araminta: Yeah.
James: easy to uncover that as, as
Araminta: True.
Yeah.
James: And I always feel bad, like
when people come to me and say, have
we got any data points around this?
And I'm like, I don't.
And then it's like,
yeah, it's, it's not an
uncommon thing that I have to do
internally, which makes me feel
a bit uncomfortable sometimes.
But it's the nature of, uh, of that.
And, and the other side of it as
well, just on data, like in terms
of like ROI is sometimes like
people don't want to share it
because it is
Araminta: True.
Yeah.
James: as well.
So they might say to me.
like this, you could kind of
reverse engineer this and see
Araminta: I see.
James: like how much we're
growing and things like that.
And if they're private businesses,
I, I've come across it before where
they're just, they just like say,
Araminta: yep.
James: provide you with that information.
So, so it's like a
Araminta: Yes.
James: I think
Araminta: enough.
Yeah, that's a good point.
So let, let's talk about how you do
marketing at Primer, because I think
what's really cool about what you
guys do is that you're a lean team.
And yet you've been able to do a lot
and marketing is , your main or one of
your key growth drivers and like yeah.
So for what you're, why don't you tell me
a little bit, like what is your team made
up of and what do you think has enabled.
You to be able to do so much
with like a small, uh, small
but mighty marketing team.
Paul: Yeah, I, I think it's super
interesting 'cause we are lean,
which can sometimes have its own
troubles, right?
It's like, what do you prioritize today?
And yeah, even you know, we,
managers and owners of our space.
James and I, but we're also individual
contributors, so it's like how you
split your time between strategy and
execution and I think like what's
what's been good at primer specifically
that we have executive buy-in.
We don't have to sell.
Internally what we do so we can
focus on actually just doing it.
a lot of the time if we're presenting
something to leadership it's,
it's very easy to get sign off.
They, they have real trust in
the people that they've employed.
So that, that just is another.
Like bit of red tape that
Araminta: Yeah.
Paul: to worry about as much.
And because we're so data-driven,
it's usually quite easy for us
to find, okay, well this works.
Well, let's do it again, or let's
invest a little bit more this next time.
Or let's turn this off
because we're not just
seeing, we're not really
seeing the results of it and
it's taking up too much time.
So I think like.
At primer.
It particularly has been quite refreshing
coming in and just getting the job done
and not worry about politics as much.
But yeah.
James, I dunno if you have anything
else to say on, on that one.
James: Yeah, I, I agree.
The, uh, the, the, the sort of lack of
Araminta: Yeah.
James: For want of a better
word, it is really important.
So like, if I need to speak to our head
of product, if I need to speak to our CEO
to unblock something or to get their input
on something, not only are they willing to
and actually want to, which is, you know,
a, a really interesting position to be in.
Like I can get time with them on the same
day.
And that makes a huge difference.
And I think.
Implicitly, like Paul spoke to it, like
Araminta: Yeah.
James: there.
I think we've, we've
delivered on targets quite
regularly.
Always, you know, progress to make,
but I think we're, you know, it's
not like we're constantly saying, oh,
Araminta: Yeah.
James: behind here, or
slightly behind there.
We've been pretty good at
delivering and then that just
gives us the creative space to go.
Do other things and you know, we're, we're
not fighting for our seat at the table.
We have it already.
I also think we've got a pretty
solid team within marketing as well.
You know, we're, we are, we are very lean.
There's only like or five
like pure play marketers.
But we all work very well together.
We enjoy working with each other.
We're very respectful
of each other's ideas.
Like the content guy, if.
Juliana, who is in our demand gen
team, comes up with an idea or.
It gives me a rebuttal on something.
I'm not gonna be like,
Araminta: Yeah.
James: This is what I want to do.
I'm very like, open and receptive to
that, and we, we find solutions together.
And there's not those, those silos just
don't exist, which, you know, I think
we've all experienced in bigger companies
where everyone has these very different
initiatives that they're working on.
They don't necessarily always
jive together, and that just
doesn't exist at primer.
It's everyone's striving towards
the, the same overall set of goals.
And I also think the goals are quite.
They're, they're ambitious, but they're
not too what's the word I'm looking for?
They're not too, sort of
spread out all over the place.
We're not trying to be
all things to all people.
We're, we're quite focused.
And we know what our
core goals are as well.
So we know that if push comes to shove
in Q3, that certain things have to drop.
There's never really
much of a debate around, oh no, that
needs to stay because that's my project.
I've worked so hard on that.
It's like we know for the greater
good we now need to like focus here.
So there's that flexibility as
well in, in how we operate and,
and the goals that we have, which
I think is super helpful as well.
'cause it just means we're not constantly
like going down paths that aren't
Araminta: Yeah.
Yeah.
I have to say like of all the
clients we work with, I think
primer is one of the, the companies
that I, I see respects content.
You'd be surprised at how many
companies we work with where
content is really at the.
Bottom of the, the priority list.
And because of that, we're able to
experiment and try new things , and do
things that we wouldn't be able to do.
And as you say, like get access to
experts and do some work with them.
That would be very hard to
do in other companies because
content is just like whatever.
But here at Primer is very much like.
As you say, because you're,
you've got that trust.
You're allowed to test and, and, you
know, be creative with new things,
which also makes it really exciting
for us to try all these things as well.
What, what do you think
that comes down to?
Is that like a top down kind
of, this is our culture, is this
just hiring the right people?
What do you think has enabled
that kind of environment?
James: It's a great question and one
that I haven't necessarily thought about.
I think it's a mixture of both
without sitting on the fence.
I think there's definitely a, a,
I think top down like our, from
our CEO, our head of product, as I
said, like they are engaged, right?
And they encourage others
to produce content.
they will be like, Hey, we should
be posting about this on LinkedIn.
Like they, they're encouraging, they
see the value there, which is good.
also have.
You know, for the other teams in the
business, like we work a lot with product,
we a lot with the the, the sales team
and the, and the customer success team.
all happy to
chip in and I think that's, they're
not doing it because they want to
boost their own personal brands,
which I've, you know, seen before.
And that's a great lever to pull, right?
If someone wants to become, like,
known for something, work with
them, , it works for, for both there.
But within primer, I think it's more.
I think people are generally excited
about what they're working on as,
uh, sort of cliche as that sounds,
but it, it definitely comes through.
I think we have interesting points
of view that we, we want to share and
I think I'll give us some credit as
well as the marketing team, right?
I think we've
Araminta: Yeah.
James: work to make people comfortable
with how they work with us.
They know that the workload's
not gonna be too much.
They know that we're not gonna be.
You know, asking them to write every
single word, we'll carry as much
of the load as we possibly can.
And I think that's also really helped.
So I do think it's a, it's a sort of
mixture of both and it's, it's found
this real nice sweet spot where, I
can't remember the last time I came
up to a, I came up to any barriers
creating content because someone wasn't
available or didn't have time for me.
In fact,
Araminta: Wow.
James: at primer.
And that's remarkable.
In fact, in
Araminta: Very.
James: that that's never
Araminta: Yes.
Unfortunately it is.
Yeah.
Paul: I, I think like, uh, just
to add what James said from a data
perspective, which is very much
where I, I live at primer, that.
I think the confidence that content
is working for us Down funnel
has really helps sell that
Araminta: Yep.
Paul: So, and with the thanks of of Mint,
we've been able to see a lot clearer data
in what content is working for us, where
we are seeing people coming onto blogs,
through organic search and then going
on to fill in a contact form for a demo.
That data is now.
Quite
Araminta: Yeah.
Paul: to us, which we didn't have before.
And that also gave us the
confidence to turn off
Araminta: Mm.
Paul: paid
Araminta: True.
Paul: because we knew organically
we, we were performing.
And now, and then we're able to see
Araminta: I.
Paul: what influence content
has on opportunities and even
contract values coming in.
So, I think.
Uh, that trust that obviously James
has built through just creating
content, we can now build trust to
leadership our board of like, this is
actually why we're continuing doing it.
Araminta: No, this is,
I mean, this is huge.
This is why it, it's such a complicated
world in a way, marketing, because
attribution is getting harder in some
ways, and tracking is getting harder.
But at the same time, the benefits
of doing it is just so huge because
there's a lot of skepticism around
marketing, I think, because it's so
hard to track that if you're able to
track as much as you can, I always say.
Yes, it's hard.
Doesn't mean we shouldn't try
as hard as we can to, to do it.
Um, then that allows you to, when
you're able to do it and show, it
just builds so much trust, which
then allows you the freedom to,
to try all these different things.
And that was gonna be kind of my next
question, which is yes, you're, you're, I
think you've got a good balance of being
data driven, but you're still able to.
Try things that maybe are harder to
measure because it is true that often
the activities or the investments
that have the biggest impact are
often the hardest to measure.
And I was actually just gonna
ask like, how do you, how, how
have you been able to do that?
Like some of the campaigns that you've
run and, and things that you've done
have been maybe harder to track.
How do you think.
You've communicated that to leadership?
Is that just because you've gotten
really good results in the past and so
now they're like, okay, we trust you,
or is there anything else to that?
Paul: Is a, it is a good
question and, and not
Araminta: Yeah,
Paul: be tracked, right?
I think there's a lot of stuff that
Araminta: I.
Paul: either content or campaign led
or paid ads that have an indirect
link to things going down funnel.
So when I look at the data on our side.
You know, direct and organic
search is like the biggest
Araminta: Yeah.
Paul: where people are going, uh
uh, and then filling in a form.
But actually, when you look at everything
that we've been doing, everything impacts
Araminta: Yes, exactly.
Paul: It's not just uh, the campaigns
that we're doing with and the UTMs
that we're adding to these links.
If someone comes onto our website
directly, it might be that they've
had a conversation, a word of mouth.
They might have met us at an event or
seen our logo somewhere, or searched on an
Araminta: Yep.
Paul: of like.
What is payment orchestration
and what are the top companies
that I should be talking with?
I think like of those things
we can't always track.
And we do try to track some self
attribution
Araminta: Yeah.
Paul: Measurement as well.
Which shows that.
Actually, it's not just where we see
their, they come in from, straight away.
It's actually all this other
stuff that they've done.
'cause they've might, they're likely at
that point have done a lot of research
beforehand and everything that James
Araminta: Yep.
Paul: on his side, is actually impacting
the, the results on the end of it.
So I think it is a
Araminta: Yes.
Yeah.
Paul: I think marketing teams need to
realize, like, especially when it comes
to branded type plays, not everything
can be attributed towards it, but.
You should naturally see
Araminta: Yep.
Paul: on the direct and organic
search traffic, uh, being
increased.
James: Yeah, I, I would ag
I would agree with that.
I think it's, it's very interesting,
like we've had lots of discussions,
Paul and I, about attribution
over the years , tracking the
untrackable to a degree and I think.
One of the things we also look
at, not formally, but more sort
of just like anecdotally, is, is
how people are filling out contact
forms, the language they're using.
and we, we have noticed a
Araminta: Oh, brilliant.
James: the past 18 months of
people using different language.
They'll be using vocabulary that we
may that others do not, or they may.
Describe certain challenges they
have in ways that I know for a
fact we've described out like
this challenge word for word
Araminta: Wow, that's huge.
James: Yes, they've read
that and come and done this.
We don't know, but we can.
I think those softer signals are so
Araminta: Yep.
James: You know, in a world
where, you know, data and
attribution is so important.
I do think trust, trusting your
Araminta: Yeah.
James: well, and spotting those
signs that are a bit more.
You know, harder to concretely
say, yes, X has led to Y.
But I think you see it over time and we
just feel like, yeah, okay, this, the
market's getting it now it's changing a
little bit and very hard to concretely
say exactly Y and what led to it.
But I think it's just combination of,
uh, combination of all those efforts.
And, and to go back to your original
question as well around like how
do we get leadership buy-in to
do those things that are perhaps
a little bit more, untrackable.
It is quite easy actually,
because we co-create with them.
Like we, I don't, I don't think ever in
marketing we come up with anything in a
silo and say, right, we are gonna build
this campaign because this, like, it will
be built because we'd had a conversation
Araminta: Yeah.
James: else in the business or a group
of people in the business and you
know, got their input into something.
Taken all of those data points from
around the company and thought, okay,
what's the best way to apply this to.
A marketing campaign.
So I think it's, uh, again, we,
we, there's no silo of marketing.
We're not sitting there like,
coming up with our own ideas.
They're very much ideas that are
generated with products, with sales,
with customer success the leadership as
well, which again, just makes it so much
easier to, to sell back to the business
Araminta: Yeah.
No, that's great.
James: Just, just pack, just packaged up
Paul: Yeah, just touching on that.
Uh, 'cause we're a remote
first company we rely
heavily on Slack we have so many
like, interesting channels internally
where our leadership are, where
other people around the business are.
And the, the conversation
is always free flowing.
Like someone might have an idea or we
might have had a conversation with an
existing customer and like all that
information gets fed back into Slack.
And then like you can just.
Really find what's u what's useful
to our ideal customer, and then
build content off of the back of
that and, and work in collaboration.
And because our leadership
is so intertwined with all
of those conversations, they
can see it happen naturally.
So yeah, it's, it is a really good mark
on like what we're doing and just what
James said also about the contact forms
which is interesting, all of our forms
and all of the data intent signals.
Also go
into Slack with enriched data.
Now what's great about that is if James.
Post like a case study and, uh,
the next day someone has filled
in a contact form and says they're
interested in x and X has actually
talked about heavily in that case study.
Yes, it's not gonna be attributed
one-to-one, but instantly James or
our head of marketing Jade might
instantly be like, well, this is pretty
Araminta: Yes.
Paul: in because we've posted this.
so it's, it's really easy to
see the connections because
all of that information is
all in our slack and everybody
Araminta: Yes.
Wow.
That's really, uh, well, I wanna touch
on AI in a second, but I think, uh,
what's really, what you're kind of
saying here is storytelling, right?
When you've got, like, even when
it's qualitative, you can still
show leadership a little bit of a
story of like, look, they discovered
you through this case study.
You can see that they have been
reading some of your content because
they use some of these words.
It's kind of, you're showing a
little bit of story and that's.
Ultimately what gets leadership
to understand a bit better, the
role of marketing and kind of.
What's happening, so, yeah.
No, that's really cool.
Um, so I wanted to touch on Paul, you've
been, uh, interviewed by Sifted on an
article on the GTM engineer, and here
we can talk a bit about AI and some
cool ways that you've been implementing
AI as a lean team and also getting
the most out of your, out of your data.
So I guess first of all,
what, what is a GTM engineer?
Can you explain that
and, and what that means?
And yeah, what are some examples of
the kind of things you've been doing?
And in that kind of realm.
Paul: Yeah.
It's a world that I have completely it's
taken over my life this last like year.
GTM engineer coined by, uh,
clay like a data enrichment, a.
Automation tool, essentially takes what is
a operational role and really builds upon
all the tools that we have today around AI
and automation to help sales, marketing,
customer success teams be more efficient.
And really a GTM engineer is someone
that just likes to tinker with things
and likes to figure out solutions
to, to things that they're seeing.
we've, we've created a few things here.
We have a, we have a great partner our
Shia in our operations team that, that I
partner very closely with, and we build
so many interesting, uh, tools and uh,
some of the ones that like, I think like
everyone's like used to seeing, but.
It's so much easier to actually
create these things now with
ai, you are vibe coding a tool.
I, I myself, like last summer, I,
I went through like, a phase of
just creating loads of like tools.
Like I built myself through vibe
coding, so like UTM trackers
and email signature builders
Araminta: It's addictive.
Paul: uh, just like, really like basic
Araminta: Yeah.
Paul: like that.
Every organization should
have, but usually you have
to pay a subscription and usually it's.
A tool that doesn't really
intertwine very well with your internal
processes, we initially just built
some of that stuff out, but some of
the things that are more impactful is
definitely, uh, like utilizing, uh,
platforms like Clay where you can get
intent signals and instead of like
partnering with all of these different
data sources and tools, clay has
Araminta: Yeah.
Paul: all of those tools through tokens.
So you can very much.
Use their data source to figure out
intent signals like, uh, web visitors,
who's searching your subjects on
review websites job changes, uh,
people that's been promoted in
your arc, active account lists.
Who's had funding recently who's liked
and commented on a LinkedIn post that's
either your company has posted or
someone in your business has, has posted.
I think like.
What you then do with that is like
post it into a channel like Clay.
Assign an owner, give them more
information, like give them direct links
to their LinkedIn page and like why it's
come up, what pages that they've visited.
And then you're taking
out all of that, like pain
Araminta: Yeah.
Paul: that a sales person
doesn't really have time to do.
And you're basically saying like,
Hey, this person's been on our
website, they've viewed these pages.
a LinkedIn, here's the top like person
we recommend you reach out to based on we
typically convert with down the funnel.
And then go and, and do it.
I think like AI's in a really
interesting space right now where.
The velocity of different tooling and
automation that you can do is, is crazy.
And we actually have got
to the point now where we
Araminta: Yeah,
Paul: with every tool
Araminta: it's full on.
Paul: and
being created.
It's almost like
every week there's a
new thing to
Araminta: Yeah.
Paul: But yeah, the BTM engineer, I think
like every business should really have a
person that is dedicated to building and
automating these tools and saving, uh.
The
Araminta: Yeah.
Paul: and money.
Typically, you know, if you have
a a hundred person company, you
could be operating as of an a
thousand person company.
If you get the right tooling and
Araminta: Yeah.
Paul: like this is how you compete
with the big dogs out there.
If you're a
Araminta: Yeah.
Yeah.
And, and just to, so I understand better,
like what you're doing with Clay, does
that mean that you've got, I don't know,
like I've used it a little bit and it is
super powerful and I really, I can see
what you're, you're saying is it kind
of like a spreadsheet that you have with
maybe your target accounts and then it
just kind of refreshes regularly with
those different things that you mentioned?
So they like to LinkedIn post or
they got promoted and that the tool
then just refreshes and you can, I
dunno, the sales person can see that.
Is that how it works?
Paul: Yeah, I mean there's a few
different ways that you can utilize it.
Araminta: Yep.
Paul: So like you can, uh, for
example, we've like listed all
of our active accounts, so.
Whenever Salesforce is updated,
the table in clay is updated, and
then whenever the intent signal
happens to one of those accounts is
when it triggers the notification
Araminta: see.
Paul: Slack.
So like that's definitely
like one way you can do it.
Or if you wanna build something from
scratch and you don't have that data you
don't even have to go into Clay anymore.
You could go into something like Claude
and Link Clay and you could be like.
you know, I like, uh, this company
is, is, is really interesting to us.
Finds 20 other companies
that are the same.
then it will spit that out and
then you can be like, okay, now
give me free contacts per company.
And like, all within an AI chat, you
can get this information without any
experience, uh, to go into a platform
like Clay, which can be quite, it's not
Araminta: Yeah.
Paul: but it's, if you're not.
Into that space, like
all the time like I am,
Araminta: Yeah.
Paul: it's, it's, it'll
take you a lot longer.
But if you could just do that in an
AI chat and get the information you
need, imagine how much time that
saves, uh, A-A-B-D-R or a sales uh,
Araminta: Yeah, that's huge.
How about you, James, like
from a content perspective?
I know you've been also experimenting
a little bit with AI and,
and building a few workflows.
What are some, what are some cool things
that you've done in that area and that
you've have found really helped you?
James: Yeah, it is not been quite as
natural to me as it has been pulled.
I'd be the first to admit that I've
been using AI for a long time, actually
probably for three, four years.
Like using chat GPT and using,
its sort of help content
production in, in certain ways.
Recently I've been thinking about
it a bit more deliberately, I guess,
and trying to break free from just
a prompting base way of working.
So I did earlier, well last
year, sorry, build a, uh, a
sort of workflow to help our.
Team be able to write LinkedIn
posts in their tone of voice.
It was somewhat successful.
We used
NAN to do it, which is
probably a little bit
Araminta: Yeah.
James: in sort of like a spreadsheet flow.
You probably wouldn't need to do that
now 'cause the tooling's moved on so far.
It was, uh, so yeah, it, it
worked, but it, it did the
intent, which was to get people
used to posting and feeling
more confident about it.
So that worked in its own respect.
I'm actually currently, there's
a bit of a side project building
a, uh, building a tool to.
Basically create a bit of competition
amongst people at primer to be posting
Araminta: Cool.
James: so that's something that I'm,
uh, working on slowly in the background.
I'm refusing to pay for another
tool, so I'm using lovable
Araminta: Love lovable.
Yeah.
James: yeah, but, uh,
so I'm, I'm doing that.
And then I think one of the biggest
things actually, and Paul sort of
introduced, uh, the whole team to
this on a workation we had recently,
it was just using Claude code.
now obviously.
Not a coder at all, but the sort
of way we're using it as sort of a
day-to-day management context repository.
So linked, Paul, you could speak this
better than I can, but like linked to
obsidian where it's holding all of our
context that we're feeding it and then
using it for, , what's on my agenda today.
What was the last thing I spoke to?
Pulled about when we had our
last one-to-one, like what action
points do we need to take from it?
That, that kind of stuff, I'm
finding very, very useful just from
a keeping track of all the different
projects that we've got going on
and, and making sure that, you
know, things are being done on time.
And then equally it's making content
editing easier.
So, so one of the things we spoke
about before I in is like I said,
that like I found chat, GPT and,
uh, all of the LLM seem to have
Araminta: A little bit.
Yeah.
James: And maybe it's just, it's just
as well, we're just used to seeing
all the rubbish out there, right?
We all know the, the,
the sentence structures.
We all know the, the way things are
framed and I was getting a bit sick
of it and I was just finding actually,
it, it sort of taking the joy out
of my work a little bit.
And.
I was like, I dunno if I wanna be
doing this for like another 10 years
if this is what it's gonna be like.
So I went back old school you know,
doing things properly, listening
back to transcripts rather than just
saying, Hey, transcribe this for me,
and then building stuff out, which
has, uh, been a useful exercise.
But I have found like now that Claude
code in particular and with obsidian is
all loaded with the context of primer
and how we work, our tone of voice.
It is very much helping on
like the feeding it a finished
draft and being like, right,
okay.
Make this sound uniform to
how primer should sound.
And I think that's like a really
useful thing that I started to do,
particularly as we expand and grow as
a team or, or if we use freelancers
or, or agencies like you guys like.
It is just a helpful tool for everyone
to have then, so that doesn't matter who
creates content for primer across the
business or externally, it all sounds
the same and I think that's like a a use
case that I'm gonna continue building on.
We are gonna build some skills
Araminta: Cool.
James: to help with that as well.
So,
Araminta: Nice.
James: yeah, some exciting stuff there.
And that's
Araminta: Yeah.
James: surface as well.
There's loads more that we can
Araminta: Yeah, I think it's interesting
what you're saying as well, like
it is true how the tools, like one
year ago, you know, we obviously
did the whole GPT projects, our
GPT, um, custom GPTs and all that.
We have that for every client,
but like, it was never as good.
And I feel like I agree with you
now with Cloud code finally, where
I, I asked it to write an article
based, because I always say like.
Your output is as good as your input.
And because we're able to interview
experts, that input is gold.
Like you can't get better than that.
And because of that, now I feel like
finally we're getting like some really
good stuff with, with Claude quote.
I was, I was, I've been
playing around with it as well.
And, , now it, but as we always say, , you
do need a person to, to edit it and review
it, but I feel like we're slowly finally
getting to a place where it can be good
enough, but it requires really good input.
And I would also say, as you said, like
a big body of work, if you're starting
from scratch and don't have any content
that you, you should start with a
person writing because if not, like
the, the content will be good enough.
But, um, I think like companies that
have already quite a bit of content
and experience, that's where there's
a lot that you can use it for.
James: Yeah, I, I agree entirely.
I think like, I'm definitely
not against using it to speed up
processes, create more like faster.
I think that's all very
good, but just don't ever
Araminta: Yeah.
James: because you, as you
said, what you put in
Araminta: Yeah.
James: so much.
And I, I think, like for me, it's
just, I, I always do an acid test
with anything I read actually
now.
cause you don't, you don't know if
someone's, if, if it's been written.
By a human or by an ai, whether
it's been written by a human or ai,
doesn't necessarily matter actually.
It's more does the person who pushed it
out in whichever form or channel they're
doing, did they understand what they were
Araminta: Yeah.
James: and did they actually, is
is the intent behind what they were
saying is being what's delivered?
the asset test I use
for just anything now.
Like when I read a paragraph, I'm like.
Do I
understand that?
Because if I don't understand that, I'm
Araminta: Yeah.
James: under one of my
colleagues' names or my name or
Araminta: Yeah.
James: is.
And I think that's another area where
I think we, the industry as a whole,
risks falling into a bit of a trap where
people are, I, I've see it all the time
on LinkedIn where people are just, it
sounds pretty and they've used some great
words and stuff, but I'm like, you have
Araminta: Yeah.
James: really what that means.
And it's not delivering at the intent.
Yeah.
Paul: It it, I mean, just if you Yeah.
Scrolling through LinkedIn, like
you, you can, you just know who has
Araminta: Yeah.
Paul: hasn't.
Customize that prompt to create it.
And everything has started to
Araminta: Yeah.
Paul: And, and we are a
huge risk of that, right?
but yeah, when using ai, we
just all need to become like
prompt masters and utilize our
expertise to get the results we need.
There's just using a
Araminta: Yeah.
Paul: or GBT
Araminta: Not enough.
Paul: enough.
Uh, you have to give it.
Araminta: Yeah.
Paul: much more context, whether that
is tone of voice, your business, like
existing content that you've created.
If you are able to give it everything
then and, and prompt it correctly, you
will get the results that you need.
But yeah, if you, if you
don't and you keep it
Araminta: Yeah.
Paul: you're gonna get rubbish.
Araminta: and this is why you could
argue you need the GTM engineer
because like it's not enough to
just, uh, yeah, just use chat pt.
You need someone who's gonna spend
some time building the systems and the
processes to actually have something good.
And usually you're gonna have to need
someone who loves doing that because
if not, they're not gonna wanna do it.
I wanted to end on the payment
Pioneers series that you did.
I think it's.
A year ago now, or a year and a half ago.
And I thought it was really cool
and a really good, I imagine great
for marketing, of course, but
also I imagine really good for you
internally to get a really good
understanding of your target audience.
So, uh, could you share a little bit what
that payment Pioneer series was about and
what kind of impact did you see from it?
What are the benefits that
you got from that campaign?
James: Yeah, I'll, I'll go back
in time to November, 2024, which
was when it, when it launched.
So it, it was a, at its core it was
a research paper with, with customer
interviews and, the, the genesis behind
it or the, the sort of like main.
Theme is like, who are payment leaders?
We've gone full circle
from what we were talking
about, the start rate where payment
leaders aren't necessarily very
well defined as a, it's, it's not
defined as a profession, it's not
necessarily defined as a role and,
and we're selling to these people.
But we don't necessarily know who they
are all the time and like what keeps
them up at night, what makes them tick,
what they want to do, like where they
even came from in terms of their career.
So the point of this was really
just to not worry about selling
any products or anything like that.
It was just to like,
Hey, who are you?
Like, tell us about yourself.
And like we, we run a research survey.
Ask them all that types of questions.
Like, yeah, where did you, what
roles have you previously done?
Who do you report into?
What do you like about the role?
What don't you like about it?
Like that kind of stuff.
Supplemented that with, uh,
interviews with, uh, people who are
running payments in various guises
globally, different size companies.
And just really tried to get a, a, a
snapshot for, you know, the end of 2024,
what does a payment leader look like?
And that was really the, the point of it.
We also, from a marketing
perspective, just thought it's just a.
A
angle.
We're not pushing out a
product or a feature or like,
Hey, look what we can do for you.
It's like, Hey, learn about your peers.
Like, and I think it goes down to a,
you know, probably a longer term thing
that we, we we're trying to build at
primer, which is like becoming a bit of a
Araminta: Yep.
James: for payment leaders and,
and the people that we work with.
You know, by nature, like we are
agnostic so we can help them.
And be that platform for them to speak.
And, uh, we actually brought,
we're bringing payment pioneers
Araminta: No way.
James: it's exclusive for your podcast.
Araminta: Very cool.
James: at least the
interviews, um, for this year.
So I, I completed
Araminta: Nice.
James: so yeah, we'll be, we'll
be rolling those out again 'cause
we didn't, do them last year.
But I do think it's something we, we
want to pick up again and start doing.
In terms of the I think we actually
took a bit of a bold move and
ungated everything.
Um, so I was thinking about this,
Paul: as someone
Araminta: Tracking.
Yeah.
Paul: always a concern
when we try to do that.
James: Yeah, so, so can we say that like,
it led to X amount of deals in business
and this is probably when we were a little
bit less sophisticated as well, right?
From like a tracking perspective
Overall, given, you know, we're
talking about 18 months ago.
But I think it was one of those,
like going back to like we
Araminta: Yeah,
James: Like there was no way that
this couldn't be interesting to our
Araminta: exactly.
James: And for us it's a case of like just
putting primer on the map a little bit.
Another like, you know, they see
our logo, they see us involved in
this, and I think, okay, that's good.
And I think it certainly
helped from that perspective.
It certainly helped deepen relationships
with the people we interviewed and sort
of get to know a bit more about them.
It's helped me because I now have like.
Araminta: Yeah.
Yeah.
James: message them and get things
that I need from them, which is great.
Interesting for the business.
'cause they found out some
things they perhaps didn't know.
Araminta: were they all car
customers or was it a mix of
customers and potential customers?
James: It was, it
Araminta: Okay, interesting.
James: there was some pushback
internally for why we didn't just
do customers, but I said, I don't.
I don't wanna
Araminta: Yeah,
James: a, a
Araminta: totally.
James: exercise.
I, I care about like
just do they do the job.
Yeah, I think it tied to that as well.
I think it was one of the first
things that we'd done as primer
that was a bit more, that was not
Araminta: Yep.
James: And I think that was quite
a brave step to think actually
we don't just need to spend our
marketing dollars, time, and effort on
Araminta: Yep.
James: There are other ways that we can.
You know, resonate with our
audience without talking
at all about us.
So it's an interesting exercise
in, in that respect as well.
Um, Paul, I dunno if there was any like,
direct results that we saw off of it, but
again, I know we left it, it was a more a
Araminta: Yeah.
James: exercise than anything else.
Right.
Paul: goes back to what we
were saying before, right?
Like this is the type of
stuff that does affect us.
It might not be direct, but increases our,
our, our voice, uh, and our visibility.
And
Araminta: Yep.
Paul: important.
Even if you can't share
Araminta: Yep.
And you're able to do that because
you have the trust and you've been
able to hit your results in the past.
So it's like, okay, yeah, let's do that.
It's, it's also context of the situation
that you're in that allows you to do these
things, which is also really exciting.
But yeah, it looked, I, I really enjoyed
reading it and I thought, I think the
reason I really liked it was because.
It was different, as you say, I
hadn't really heard that perspective
before, and it was a good way of
showcasing a little bit kind of
the pain points that people have.
And I imagine as a marketer also, it
must have been fascinating to learn about
what it's like to be a payment leader.
Because you're right, they're not really,
these people are very rarely interviewed.
They don't really go on podcasts.
People don't really know what
they're thinking every day.
So, yeah, no, I thought it was a really
good way of showcasing your ideal
customers kind of problems and all that.
So.
No, I thought it was a, a great campaign.
So last question, quick fire.
What's the first tool you'd implement
if you're starting a new marketing
job at a FinTech brand new job,
first tool that you'd implement?
What would that be?
Paul: Yeah, my I mean, I've talked
about clay too much and my team are also
sick of me saying that, but it won't
Araminta: Ooh.
Paul: actually, although
it would be probably a
fast follow.
it all comes down to data
Araminta: Yep.
Paul: uh, in a DG role and every business
that I've ever joined, the first thing I
do is make sure the forms on the website.
Araminta: Yes.
Paul: the
Araminta: Yep.
Paul: If you don't have that, it's
hard to do anything else, to be honest.
So, yeah.
One that I've partnered with
in several companies now
Araminta: Yep.
Paul: It just allows you to not only take
in the information, uh, that standardize
across our industry, but also the, the
stuff that aren't as standardized and
the language that you talk internally,
you can convert that information.
Easily into back into your
Araminta: Yeah.
Paul: So yeah, that's always
one that I, uh, I implement.
Araminta: Love formulate.
I think it was, it really shares a lot of
good information that, um, has helped us
as well understand the impact of content.
So, really cool.
How about you, James?
James: I am gonna slightly
Araminta: Sure.
' James: cause it's not necessarily a
tool, although you could maybe class
it as one, but as a content person, I
think it's just having either a great
Araminta: Yeah.
James: Who can support you,
uh, or a great agency, right?
I've been lucky to find Mint.
There you
Araminta: Boom.
James: your plug.
And you know, searching,
like working with a lot of
Araminta: Yeah.
James: again, we spoke about this before,
like, you know, you guys get our business.
You are, you are my
Araminta: Yeah.
Yeah.
James: right?
And I think, you know, if I was to go
into a, business really, even if it
was just, even if I had a team already,
I would still probably look for that.
External person who, or people who could,
you could offload to some work and but
Araminta: Yeah.
James: Because I think otherwise it
just creates so much more work for you.
So, so for me, like particularly
working in startups primarily, it's
just having that support and I don't
think any tool can really replace
Araminta: That's a good point.
James: yeah,
Araminta: the kind words and yeah,
definitely having people who understand,
especially in a complex industry, right?
Like.
That is just saves a lot of energy.
So it's a huge deal.
But yeah.
Amazing.
Well, thanks so much James
and Pulford for coming on.
This has been really interesting
digging into other sides of primers
marketing that I'm not so familiar with.
So yeah, thank you so much for coming
on and I'm looking forward to seeing
that new payment pioneers this year.
Paul: Thanks for having us.
James: Yeah.
Thanks for having us.
Speaker 10: Thanks for listening.
You can find show notes and
information about guests@www.mint
copywriting studios.com/podcast.
And finally, huge thanks to orama
TV for producing this podcast.
Thanks for listening, and
see you at the next episode.