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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.
intro: The marketing team you need when
you have 50 customers looks very different
from the team you need when you have 1200.
Michael Treacy knows this firsthand
over the past five years at OpenPayd.
He's watched the company grow
from an unknown FinTech startup
into a global payments platform
processing over $180 billion a year.
And along the way, his role has evolved
too, from marketing lead to director
of marketing and business development.
When he first joined the company,
the challenge was simple.
Nobody knew the brand, and marketing was
mainly about getting the name out there.
Today the challenge is very different.
They have more than 1200
clients, enterprise sales cycles
that stretch beyond a year.
And the role of marketing now is to
build trust, support complex deals,
and work hand in hand with sales.
If you're not aware of OpenPayd, they
are a London based banking as a service
platform that helps digital businesses.
Move and manage money
globally through a single API.
The company raised a $25 million
series B back in 2024, and the
clients they have include companies
like Kraken, eToro, and OKX.
In this episode, Michael breaks down
how marketing needs to involve as a
FinTech company scales, and specifically
we talk about how open page marketing
has shifted from brand awareness to.
A BM.
Why Michael structure the team
around two specifically core
functions, brand and go to market.
How he hires people with skills that
he might not personally have and why
he values certain things more than
experience, and how to justify long-term
marketing investments when deals can
take 12 months or even longer to close.
Let's get into it.
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 Robertson: Well, The first
question I wanna ask you, Michael,
is saw that you've been at OpenPayd
over years, which is really impressive
in the FinTech and marketing space.
'cause I think a lot of people in
marketing don't have the longest tenures.
you went from like a marketing lead
to like a head of marketing and now
you're director of marketing and bd.
How would you say.
That evolution happened, like how
would you say your role is now
different to head of Marketing,
and why did you make that change?
What does that evolution look like?
Michael Treacy: Yeah, no, absolutely.
So I think in terms of.
My journey at OpenPayd.
So I've grown in terms of responsibilities
at OpenPayd, the business has
evolved and changed as well.
So the demands from employees like
myself or the function and the team
has definitely changed as well.
So I think the title is just
a natural progression within
the business and the role.
And I think in particular the BD.
Part of the title, which is which I think
I took on towards the end of last year
is more of a natural extension of, as
I focus more on stuff like commercial
partnerships, which probably naturally
doesn't fit within a marketing function.
And then supporting
the commercial team on.
On specific deals or
whatever that looks like.
Then it was a recognition of broadening
the role rather than completely
changing the role itself really.
But I think the reason I've stayed
at OpenPayd so long is when there's
an opportunity to, as the business
grows for personal growth as well
and for exploring different areas
that you're interested in then, yeah.
That's the reason why I've
seen to have stuck around.
Araminta Robertson: And how, like now
you're more on the BD side of things.
Like how is that different to
what you were doing before?
Are you more leaning on the sales aspect?
As a marketer, do you also find
that's rewarding in a different way?
How have you felt about that transition?
Michael Treacy: Yeah, so I think the way
that we of define BDA at Open Fed is more
on the kind of commercial partnership side
and looking at different opportunities
across the product, et cetera.
And we have a sales function
that which is led by our CCO.
Which is the kind of pure new business
sales and as well as the kind of customer
success and relationship management.
So that's how it's separated.
I think in terms of, my background as
a marketer is, has always been working
in startups where you wear many hats.
So you're often in the early stage
of a startup, you are doing sales,
you're doing customer support, you are
do supporting on the operations side.
And that's where I really, enjoy in
terms of wearing a few different hats and
definitely where I feel like I thrive.
So realistically it's a response
to the business needs, but also
where my interests are or have
been in terms of expanding the
different areas that I touch.
I also think If you actually look
at marketing from the theoretical
side there's the four Ps.
There's the product the, the price,
the place, and the promotion.
And I think often you do find
people that perhaps have been
exposed to marketing kind of place
you in that promotion bucket.
Whereas if you're looking at it
more holistically as a role within a
business or the objectives that are
tied to marketing then definitely.
Being able to kind of work across
functions with different parts of
the organisation is definitely key.
Do.
Araminta Robertson: Do you find that
now that you're doing more sales.
like you'll always a mix or do
you feel like more of a marketer
than a partnerships person?
also has your own, as you're doing more,
you're learning more about what you like.
Do you feel like, okay, I'm done with
marketing, I'm gonna do something else?
Or is it do you like that mix?
A little bit of both.
Michael Treacy: I love
the mix to be honest.
And I think having that flexibility
to, to touch those different areas
something that I really enjoy
here at Oak Bay in particular.
I think that the main thing.
Being able to speak directly to customers
and spend time with customers one
of the things that I enjoy the most.
Not just because you build those
relationships across the industry and the
network, but also that you learn the most.
It's very easy to be sat in an office
trying to write copy or build a
campaign or look at what your demand
generation plan looks like without
ever having to speak to a customer.
And I think that is very.
Counterproductive.
So the more time that you spend with
customers, the more time that you
spend speaking to different partners
that supporting your business and
learning about not just the existing
infrastructure that they have, but what
they're looking at in the next 12 months.
I think it really kind of broadens the
scope of your view , on the industry.
Araminta Robertson: Yeah,
I couldn't agree more.
Like I think I have met a few marketers
that don't talk to customers enough.
Maybe it's because.
The systems are not set up
or the company's really big.
And I think that without that it can
also, like for example, I really need
to be able to see a feedback loop.
Like I've learned something by
speaking to customers and now my
marketing has adjusted because of that.
And now they resonate more with it.
And that, I find that
personally very rewarding.
'cause then it's wow, I'm like
tweaking and constantly improving.
and I think that can be hard.
That's hard to do if you don't
constantly talk to customers.
But it's also true that it is easier
to do when the company is smaller.
Like how.
So OpenPayd a lot over
the past five years.
How have you found that the
marketing team has evolved as well?
Would you say that five years ago
was a lot easier to do that kind
of, these kind of things and now
it's like more evolved, more mature.
How has the marketing team
yet changed over those years?
Michael Treacy: the biggest thing
that I've learned personally, you've
got to build a marketing function
and marketing team around the needs
of the business in that moment.
So when we first launched, when
I joined, we'd first launched the
banking as a service platform.
The business has very different needs
from marketing than it does today when
we're operating with 1200 clients and
all the volume and the transactions
that's going through the platform.
So I think number one is where
is the business at and what
are you expected To deliver.
I would kinda say when you mention
in terms of more difficult to get
in front of customers, I would argue
that's where you need to really push
and make sure that you are spending
those time, the time with customers.
'cause it's easy to
start with drawing there.
And look, I think if you look at the
business, today, despite the scale
and the growth, we're still relatively
lean as a, as an organisation.
And we sit in the same office as the as
the commercial teams, the customer success
teams, and the relationship managers.
So it's very easy for us to say,
okay, I wanna join a call with a
client within this industry vertical.
We've just learned, launched
our stablecoin infrastructure.
Do you mind if I join some of your
meetings to understand how different
clients are talking about it?
We also attend, I think we did over
50 events in the last 12 months.
We generally, 90% of the time
always have someone from the
marketing team at those events.
Yes, because sometimes we're exhibiting or
we're speaking, et cetera, but also having
that face-to-face interaction the rest of
the market is definitely helpful the team.
Araminta Robertson: Yeah.
No, I love that.
And how you were, I'd love to get into
more specifics about how the needs of the
business and therefore the marketing team
has adjusted over the past five years.
What would you say were
the needs were five years?
Was it more we need to just get something
out there and now how is that different?
Like, What does that
specifically look like?
Michael Treacy: Yeah, I think it's,
if you look five years ago in some of
the industry verticals that we were
looking at, nobody know who we were.
Like the brand had just
been launched a year before.
And it was really a case of how
do we get the name out there?
How do we get the key messages out
there in terms of what we do, how we can
support the benefits of the platform.
And a lot of that still stays,
but then there's additional stuff.
How do we raise the
profile of our exec team?
How do we.
Create a demand generation
engine that is, is driving organic
leads as well as the paid leads.
And there's specifically about the
product as the product evolves.
The product's completely different
now than it was five years ago.
We've added new markets, new payment
rails, new trading capabilities.
So all of those different aspects of the
business and the products have changed.
And it's a case of how do you build
trust within the market and the customers
that you are the best service and
all the best product for them to use.
And it's always gonna change.
I think if you look at what the
marketing function will look like
in 12 months, 24 months I'm pretty
sure we'll have this conversation.
I'll be able to say it's
significantly different as it
was before, than it was before.
And I think part of the role of
IIC myself is trying to build the
marketing function to support the
growth of the business in the right way.
which is not, an easy job, but
Araminta Robertson: No, yeah.
Yeah.
So yeah, at the beginning it was more
like, okay, we need to just get the
brand out there, brand awareness focused.
And now it's more about, okay,
trust, banking as a service or
that world is just there's so
much trust that's required, right?
Picking a platform is just a huge.
Endeavour.
in terms of specific marketing
like activities, how has that
changed as well, would you say?
Like maybe five years ago it was all about
putting the name out there, so maybe lots
of ads and now it's more building trust.
So that's a lot of people meeting
people in person kind of thing.
Like how has that also
changed in your marketing?
Michael Treacy: Yeah, exactly right.
We were just trying to find leads and
trying to find businesses at at the start.
I think now we're very clear on the
core verticals that we service and we
will add new verticals methodically.
We're not gonna try and serve
every single business from day one.
It's very much a switch to an account
based marketing approach rather than
a kind of lead generation approach.
So we work very closely with
the commercial function and the
commercial team and identifying
which accounts that they wanna be
closing over the next 1224 months.
Now our sales cycles are quite long.
We're.
A business where you have a, a
deep API integration, which can
sometimes touch millions of end users.
And the process for the enterprise
clients that we work with
they wanna go through a very.
Rigid, proper process to select
which business that they're
gonna bring on to support.
So it's very much a case of A,
how do you make sure that the
brand, they're aware of the brand.
And B, how do you showcase that the
brand is operating at scale with other.
Key enterprise clients, how
do you build that relationship
with the key decision makers?
The influencers within the business?
Yes.
You, we wanna be speaking to the CFO
or the Chief Product officer, but
it's the developers and the operations
team that are gonna be interacting
with the products every single day.
So how do you then build a programme
where we can hit all of these ICPs
across the different businesses?
With a consistent message so
tailored to a certain extent,
but with a consistent message.
and it makes it even more complex
when you're dealing with different
industry verticals at the same time.
So I think this is where you look at the
progression of the marketing function.
The messaging and the content that we
build out and how we've had to build
better systems and better approaches
to be able to deliver those messages.
Araminta Robertson: Nice.
And yeah, that takes me on nicely to
the next kind of question, which is
about because I wanted this episode
to be focused on how to build.
The ideal marketing team or a team
that's, as you said, adaptable.
And now that you're, head of
BD and also marketing, like how
have you set that up currently?
'cause you said as, as you said,
it's more of an a BM approach.
Meeting people in person
is a big part of that.
And a one-to-one kind of
interaction, which is not typically
what marketing does, right?
That's more or salespeople.
So how have you set it up now that
team between marketing and bd.
Michael Treacy: it's a,
it is a good question.
I think, the way that I look at
the team today and the way that it
operates, it has two clear functions.
We have brand and we have go to market.
Now, that doesn't mean that
they operate in isolation and
they don't speak to each other.
But it, there's real, there's clear
objectives that sit behind each of those
teams from the brand side everything
from a brand and content perspective,
from a PR and communications perspective.
really building that trust and awareness
in the market from a go to market side.
Very much working hand in
hand with the brand team.
But also it's their job to,
to find, attract and retain
customers across the base.
And then you've got different bridges
from that go to market team into product.
So you have product marketing
function that sits within
that from a bridge into sales.
We have the SDR function sitting within
go to market as well, which I think.
I've noticed lot of different businesses
are moving the SDR role out of pure
sales and into the marketing and go
to market function at the minute.
And it really does create those bridges
between the different functions.
And I think this is where we've seen,
some kind of joy and some progresses
in making sure that we are trying to
act as a not just a support function,
but a key function to deliver.
the value to the commercial
element of the business.
Araminta Robertson: Yeah.
And so say like for example, you wanted
to target like a dream customer, say like
a FinTech, like Revolut or something.
How would those two teams work
together then to start building
that relationship with that company?
From both a marketing and
like sales perspective?
What do you think that would look like?
Michael Treacy: Yeah, no, absolutely.
So I think you've got multiple
different kind of streams going here.
So you've got firstly, identification of
the target accounts which is working very
closely with the commercial team on that.
It is.
Do we have the right sales
materials, resources, content to
support the benefits that we offer
to types of clients you have?
Do we know which events that
these customers are generally
attending the speaking gap?
Are we getting the right in
front of the right people?
Do we have, across the network of
clients that we already have, are there
any kind of referral relationships or,
or strong ties between the existing
client base and we're building out
a picture of These target accounts
before we then start to run a campaign.
Now that campaign can be the direct
approach through, through an SDR
function and from through advertising
as well as I mentioned, the kind of more
referral and and content driven stuff
that we're that we've been working on.
Araminta Robertson: Nice.
And so if we go back to building a
team, I think often when you're the
leader of a team it can be hard to hire
for maybe specific skill sets that you
don't have or you're not familiar with.
How have you approached that?
Like when you're hiring a team
member, it could be marketing
or on the sales side as well.
How have you historically
tried to overcome that?
How do you try and hire for someone?
Where, yeah.
It's maybe a skill set that
you're not super familiar with.
Michael Treacy: I think that's
been most of the highest.
I am definitely a generalist marketer, so
I'm not super deep in any of these areas.
But no I think that first and
foremost you're looking for
people that that are intelligent.
And I'm gonna be very generic here, but
I'll explain my, my logic behind it.
But people that are intelligent
and have drive is the number one
aspect that we're looking for.
I think the drive bit the key
because you don't want people
coming into an organisation that
are there to collect a salary.
They've gotta be bought into
the mission of the business.
They wanna come and make an impact and
prove themselves across the company.
And I think that's something that
can be missing when you are, when
you're going through that process.
Experience obviously something when
you don't know that person intimately
that's something that you rely on.
But I also think that often you
can miss great people if you
are relying on experience alone.
So I'd say that's third
in kind of priority order.
Because like I say, you're relying
on the experience to say that they've
done it before and they've proven.
But someone that, that, that comes
in with the drive and the commitment
and the wanna make a real difference
is the number one necessity.
Araminta Robertson: Yeah,
no, I totally agree.
I think what's hard, especially
with AI and people applying and just
using AI to write up everything.
It's all about attitude, right?
I think it's all about do
they have the right attitude?
And then from there, and maybe as
you say, experience and skillset.
How have you, do you have a favourite
question or, because it's so hard I think
especially when, yeah, as I said, a lot
of the applications are AI generated and
you have to filter through a lot, and
then you have to use AI to filter out ai.
It's just so messy.
do you have a favourite way of trying
to understand a person and trying to
evaluate whether they're a, a good fit?
Michael Treacy: Yeah, I think
on the AI topic the amount
of interviews now that I've.
Hardware people are clearly reading
AI off a screen pretty significant
and it stands out straight away.
You also like you mentioned CVS or
any kind of content that you asked
them to do in terms of kind of
tasks that a part of the process.
You can really start to tell when
you have that face-to-face meeting.
And I think this is where face-to-face
meetings and interviews are so telling,
with some of these applicants that
are heavily using ai because as soon
as you start to dig a layer deeper
everything seems to fall apart.
And you can see that
there's a lot of gaps there.
I think in terms of going through that
interview process you can start to test
people's knowledge in terms of just.
Just digging a little into the
different areas and look, when you
are going through the interview
process, you don't expect them to
know everything about the business.
But people can go the extra mile in terms
of, okay, you can read a website, but who
are the key people within that business?
What are they talking
about on social media?
What are the key topics
that they're covering?
From a thought leadership perspective,
what are the types of companies
that they're going after or they're
starting to engage with more?
Are they contributing to
different media topics or pr?
All of that extra information is really
how candidates start to stand out.
Because as soon as you say, oh I, for
example, I heard that you signed up this
large client last week, that's great.
And you start to say, oh, what
do you think is great about it?
Then that's when you start to see
that there's perhaps somebody not
really truly engaged with the process.
But it is, like you say, it's
very difficult because when
you're doing that initial scan of.
Cvs or applications you start to
see that everyone's kind of starts
to look more and more the same.
So I think in my personal opinion
it's getting easier to stand out
if you are authentic and you're
actually bought into to what you are.
applying for.
Araminta Robertson: Yeah, it's tricky
because I find that like applicants,
they have certain questions that they're
ready for like your typical, tell
me about your experience, all that.
And so what I have had
to do is ask questions.
It's not like I wanna.
Surprise them.
But I have to think of questions that
the AI hasn't prepared it for them.
So that's how I try and see,
that's how I differentiate between
the ones where they're prepared.
They have prepared an AI response
and others where I actually
just wanna know how you think.
And you can also see the
difference in how they respond.
So if it's a typical question you,
they'll be like, oh, it's perfect.
And they're just reading.
And then if you ask them a
question that's like you have to.
Think a little bit, they'll start like
looking around this is interesting.
So that's how I try and
differentiate between
the two.
But it's so tough.
Michael Treacy: And exactly to that point.
People that have strong opinions
are the best because they really
believe it and they, they show the
passion When they're explaining it.
So making sure that you have those
opinions and you're able to articulate
it, head and shoulders above the
majority of the market at the minute.
Araminta Robertson: Yeah.
No, exactly.
Just to go back between marketing and
silk, because I think you've got a lot
of experience in this and also really
interesting kind of ideas behind it.
What I've often seen is that typical,
like marketing generates a lead and then.
Passes it over to sales and there's
a little bit of a competition.
usually friendly, but sometimes not
so much about working together to
generate like a lead or whatever.
Even if it's an account, working on that.
How have you found I'm curious about
how you've set up like incentives
for both marketing and sales team.
How do you encourage that collaboration?
Do the salespeople work on commission
because maybe they don't like
how have you set it up so that there is.
That collaboration is encouraged and
they end up pitting against each other.
Michael Treacy: it's a great question.
I think if, from a commercial
team perspective here.
It's commission based from sales.
And then the marketing team
compensation is separate as and
similar to the rest of the business.
I think this comes to when you start the
the kind of financial year and you're
looking at the objectives and goals and
what KPIs you're gonna be measuring.
One of the biggest challenges, and
I think a lot of marketers will
say this is clean attribution.
And I think this is a science that's
ever growing because for, and I'll
give you some kind of examples from
my experiences, you can have a lead
source within the CRM, so you know
that this lead has come through, the
website's, come through an event.
It's come through an SDR outbound
campaign, but what you miss is all of the
kind of work between the initial inbound
request initial contact to the go live.
So this could be.
Several events that have taken
place that could have received
an open and a piece of content.
There could be several
calls that have taken place.
And you miss all of that influence
attribution along the way.
And this is something that we're
still working on, but it's something
that we've made vast improvement on
in the last, I'd say six to 12 months
in regards to making sure that we're
not just doing it for an attribution
sake, but we're actually learning
in terms of, okay, how do we then.
Get clients live quicker, how
do we influence deals quicker?
Who has been involved in that decision
making process from the start to the end?
So all of that data provides a feedback
loop into then building a stronger
kind of strategy moving forwards.
So I would safely say that
OpenPayd that it's not competitive
between marketing and sales.
And we do work truly as
one team moving forward.
But I think it's a case of.
More that we wanna learn.
What, how are we best
reaching our customers?
What type of things are
they responding best to?
And how do we replicate
the stuff that's working?
And how do we stop the
stuff that that isn't.
Araminta Robertson: So if, say a lead
came in and they actually did come in via,
I dunno, content for example, or an ad.
But the sales person says
that they brought in, like
how do you manage that then?
Like from an attribution, How
You manage that?
Michael Treacy: For us, we just want to
understand what the actual source was,
but there's no benefit to, or to the sales
person to say that came through them.
They're not on less commissioned because
it came through a different channel.
And I think you.
your question around
incentives is absolutely right.
Because as soon as you start to do
that and you start to cause friction
between the team, it breaks down.
And actually that's not for the
greater good of the business.
It's not for the greater
good of the employees.
And making sure that there
aren't misalignment in those
incentives is I think is definitely
key to that relationship.
But yeah, it's not something
that we experience thank,
Yeah.
No, that's great because I agree, I've
seen it before and I think it can.
Ultimately everyone's
goal is revenue, right?
And so I think having people focus
a lot too much on the credit can
break the relationship down a
little bit and complicate things.
You've also said on another podcast
that you use Gong a lot and that has
been really helpful as well as a tool
between the sales and marketing team.
Can you share a little bit how you're
using it and some examples of Yeah.
How you found it useful for marketers?
Yeah, absolutely.
I think, I mentioned at the start
of the kind of session here that
speaking to our customers is extremely
valuable and we want to do it more.
Now when you're not available
to join every single call
gong is a great platform.
And I'm sure that
there's others out there.
For the ability tools have to dig in.
If there's an interesting call with
a client, which we didn't attend, not
only can we review the call, but we
can summarise some of the key messages.
If we're seeing that pricing is coming
up on a regular basis with certain
clients that can flag and it can tell the
management team or can tell our marketing
team that this is becoming an issue.
If we're seeing the, that deals are
at risk because we haven't spoken to a
client within a week or something like
that, then you get those notifications.
So it's, it serves its purpose as a
from a commercial team standpoint.
They can better forecast
when deals are gonna close.
From a marketing team perspective, we
can see which competitors are being
mentioned on calls and in what context
and for which kind of different verticals.
We can see the lifecycle of a
deal and all of the touch points
that exist within that deal.
It's pretty seamlessly
integrated with our CRM as well.
So it's not just the people that have gone
access that can see the insights, but can
share that on the CRM data level as well.
So it's basically being able
to aggregate a lot of different
data, which would usually sit in
different areas and maybe even in.
In some people's heads.
And it is given us access to that.
One of the things that is quite helpful
when you have a new starter and you're
explaining how a customer operates.
We can share one of those calls
with them to, fully understand
basically as a training call.
Araminta Robertson: Yeah, I think these
types of calls are like so valuable.
as a content agency, one example
of how we've used them is not sales
calls, but calls with experts, is
we built a little tool, vibe coded.
That takes the calls with
experts, which is really where
all the valuable information is.
The experts are the intellectual
capital really, of the company.
And we built a tool that just
takes those interviews and
turns 'em into LinkedIn posts.
And that's like an example of how
you can connect a little bit it's
not really sales, but a lot of
the experts are salespeople often.
And turn that into like
marketing kind of collateral.
Are there any examples like
that of where you've taken.
Maybe the sales calls or something
like that from Gong, and being able
to turn that into marketing material
that's been super beneficial,
has really made an impact.
Michael Treacy: Not specifically
on, on client calls.
I think that the, we use
it for training purposes.
There's obviously confidentiality
that you, you have to keep in mind.
But what we have done and we
actually released a case study to
today the branding content team.
Published is we are starting, whenever
we hear like positive news with a
client, then we can refer that to
our content team and they can reach
out to us to say, look, are you
interested in building out something
case study some additional content
that will, obviously it benefits them.
We can push that information out and
for us, we can really highlight some
of the benefits Of the platform.
So I think that's where we're starting
to use that data in terms of when we are
seeing really strong positive results
with clients, and how do we turn that
into a good brand moment for the business.
I think that there's, we use few different
tools from a, definitely from a content
generation perspective, from a internal
knowledge base perspective in terms of how
we're collecting internal knowledge and
using, building out our own GPTs for that.
I think we're still very much
kind of scratching the surface
with all of different things
that we can definitely do.
Looking at some of the more recent
news about open core and some of
these agents that are operating the
business, I'm sure within 12 months time.
There's gonna be some amazing stuff
that we can do and automate at scale.
I think one of key things that , is
often a challenge is making sure
that you bring the business along
when you are testing these new tools
and making sure that you going.
Through the right processes from
a data protection perspective,
from a security perspective.
And I think over the last 12 months,
again, we've made quite good progress
in being able to make sure that
we're doing this safely and securely.
Araminta Robertson: is clear
that from a content perspective,
there's so much, and that's where
we've been experimenting a lot.
As I said, like the.
Often the challenge, especially
when you're trying to, when you
have to build trust and the sales
cycles are so long the trust is
built really with the experts right?
Who know about.
And the challenge has been how do you
get that knowledge out into the world?
Because experts are super busy, right?
I always feel like as a content person,
our job is to take the expertise
and translate it into like content.
That's our job.
And I think that's where
AI can be very exciting.
'cause it's like, okay, suddenly it
makes that process so much more quick.
maybe a, an expert has a.
I don't know.
They do a webinar and then
you can quickly turn that.
Maybe you can take like an open
claw like agent or something and it
turns it into LinkedIn posts, and
I think that's where it's exciting.
I think the important part
is obviously quality, right?
It has to be really good, and
Michael Treacy: Yeah, I was gonna say
there's probably a lot of people doing
though expert posts at the minute
that perhaps are a kind of not maybe
using it the, in, in the best way.
And I think this is again.
And we mentioned it before, I think
there's a great opportunity to stand out
in a world where there's a significant
amount of kind of AI generated content.
And then not to say that shouldn't
use it and to support with some
of the writing, but it's more
about how can you bring genuinely.
Honest and new opinions to the foreground.
Which again a good opportunity I think
for, definitely for marketers to think
about how do they stand out there?
Araminta Robertson: Yeah, I think
the reason that a lot of AI stuff
is so bad is because it's, the
quality is only as good as the input.
Right.
If you input something, if you
just say, tell Chad, Pete, write
me an article, it'll be terrible.
But if the input is then like an expert
interview or the input is unique,
because I think that's what, especially
when it comes to SEO and Google, that's
what Google's looking for is unique
stuff that you can't find already
online.
So if the input is high quality,
then the output will be, is
more likely to be high quality.
But I think there is also,
there will always have to be
a human in the loop, editing
the content, like making sure it's good.
But I think that's where
if you have really good input.
That's where it could get exciting for
content.
Michael Treacy: Absolutely
couldn't agree more.
Araminta Robertson: Yeah, it's exciting.
You've also said like before that you
really believe that marketers should
become like experts on the product.
And Actually I couldn't agree more, but
I have heard people disagree with that.
Actually so I was wondering, I.
I think it's also super important that
marketers understand the product because
as you have said, like they're the ones
doing the positioning, the messaging, but
I think it can be tricky if maybe they're
a little bit far removed from the product.
maybe they don't understand
the docs, something like that.
What has, in your experience, been
the best way for marketers to learn
about the product and be able to
explain it really in depth in a
way that you know is necessary for
messaging and content and all that.
Michael Treacy: great question.
I think without overly repeating myself,
I'm speaking to customers again is the
number one thing here and making sure
that you are getting exposed to it.
Don't underestimate that.
Speaking to, to different teams
across the business as well,
Yes, you have a commercial person that
is selling this to a client, but you
have products, you have operations teams,
you have finance teams, which really
know what's going on behind the scenes.
So if you say you are a payments
company like OpenPayd, and you
are sending funds instantly to
different markets around the world.
Usually that would take
three to five days.
We're doing it with, in less than
10 minutes, actually speaking to our
product team or our operations team
saying, how do we actually do this?
how do we make this different?
Why do other services of
payment providers, why
aren't they able to do that?
And you can start to really
build a picture in your head in
terms of the differentiation.
Between yourselves and your
competitors or other businesses.
You can start to see how the
mechanics work in the background,
and you can understand the value
that you are ultimately bringing
to the rest of the market.
another example specifically
within the FinTech space is
it's a highly regulated space.
There's lots of nuances across
different jurisdictions.
If you're working within a regulated
business, you have regulatory
lawyers, you have compliance,
people within your organisation.
You the broader legal team.
These guys are the experts in
understanding how businesses operate, how
businesses shouldn't be able to operate.
And you've got all of that
knowledge and that expertise.
Literally in the office with you.
It can be a 20 minute coffee, it
can be a lunch and learn where
you ask one of the teams to come
and present something specific.
But that knowledge sharing definitely
one of the most significant things.
I also think that this is probably and
people hate me saying this but something
that is lost with fully remote work is
that kind of, that knowledge osmosis
that happens at the water machine or
the coffee machine, or in the five
minutes chat that you have at work?
I think you are gonna move to a fully
remote policy, then you need to a way of
recreating that digitally in, in some way.
Araminta Robertson: Yeah, I totally agree.
And I think also going back to what we
were saying about ai, this is also a
potentially, I don't know if you agree
with me, like a potential use case
where, imagine if you could have like a.
I dunno, a custom GBT or whatever
completely trained on the product
because I, I found that we obviously
train writers and stuff on the product
and they have found that just asking
maybe something that plugs into your
docs or something and just asking lots
of questions can be a good way to learn.
I dunno if that's something you've
tried or if you think that could be
interesting to learn about product.
Michael Treacy: building it at the minute,
so I mean, we've, yeah.
Yeah.
So we've had some kind of early
iterations of this in the last 12 months.
I think the one thing that we
are more cautious about is making
sure the accuracy of the outputs.
There's been some trial and error as
we go along, but we're getting there
and, and, we're pretty close and having
a pretty good kind of final product.
And that's gonna be internal only.
You think about it in terms of
we serve different industries.
We have different payment rails
all the way around the world.
yeah it is a case of when we have a
use case that's given to us, we can
start to quickly understand whether
or not it's something that we'll
be able to service and maybe even
include in some of the key benefits
versus alternatives in the market.
With that, so couldn't agree more having
that kind of automated help desk because
yes, you have the experts in internally,
but Get that speed of uh, of response.
Yeah, exactly.
Araminta Robertson: How so?
Yeah, exactly.
How is that like a cust,
is that your own LLM?
What is it exactly?
Is it like a
and have you, did
Michael Treacy: a custom GGPT.
Araminta Robertson: it's a custom GPT.
Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah, I think the challenges, yeah, the
hallucination and that kind of thing.
Michael Treacy: Yeah.
this is the thing.
You feel like you are, you're getting
there and you've added the relevant
restrictions et cetera, and then it
kinda spit something out was unexpected.
but no, a lot.
I think these tools are amazing.
I think.
Organisations like ourselves are are
making sure that we adopt them in the
right places and at the right scale.
I'm very keen to see what it
looks like in, in 12 months
time.
Araminta Robertson: and I think
this is an interesting use case
for Claude Code, for example.
I find it can be a little bit
more.
Accurate, for this kind of thing.
Or
Claw as well.
So it would be interesting to see
if something like that develops.
But yeah.
So my last question is you've said
before that anyone in this industry
knows that it's tough to sell a
marketing activity internally when
the ROI is like in 12 months, right?
The sales cycles are so long.
The revenue, it could be
years before that hits.
So how have you found, and I think this
can be challenging for marketers, maybe
listening where, maybe leadership,
maybe they do understand this, but they
still wanna see movement, for example.
How have you
found communicating kind.
Or tracking kind of results when or
selling, even marketing internally
when, the sales cycles are so long
and it could take over 12 months to
see a close customer, for example.
Michael Treacy: it's a great
question and I don't think there's
like a straightforward answer.
I think number one, i've always been lucky
at OpenPayd that we've got a senior exec
team and and a management team that, that
understands the value of marketing and
understands that you can't click your
fingers and make things happen overnight.
But I also think, Going back
to kinda studying days you
often use case studies, right?
You understand how other
businesses have reached different
different levels of success.
And there's a clear kind of trail
back to where they started on how
they approach different things.
If you are starting from scratch and
you are, you're a new startup and you're
trying to sell that into an exec team
then there's countless case studies
out there that you can show the value
investing in brand early on or how long
it takes to scale up your Google ads all
of these different areas that there's
so much content out there today that
can sort support you build in that case.
And then also the risk of not doing it.
I think this is probably something
that people don't speak about
enough is if we don't do this today
and we're exactly where we are,
what is the risk to the business?
What is the risk to our growth ambitions?
And making sure that you're transparent
to say, look, , not everything's gonna
work, but this is why we test and learn.
We iterate.
And we continue to try different things.
So I think it's a case yes, you
need to build that early trust
with the kind of deep key decision
makers within your business.
And if you're not getting anywhere
then maybe have a question whether
or not you're at the right business.
Araminta Robertson: Yeah.
that's definitely true.
Are there specific.
Maybe marketing materials I don't
wanna say like a white paper or
something that you feel cause I find
that often with leaders, it's about
the best way to build trust is to
start to show that things are moving.
So is there a way that you've
found that you can do that without
obviously having a close customer?
'cause that's gonna take months.
What are some ways that you've, that?
Michael Treacy: Yeah, no, absolutely.
So, The example I would give is,
we did some proprietary research
about 18 months ago on our side.
Now, when we were building out
that research, we weren't building
it out just to generate leads.
We're building it out to actually do
some research and to inform our business,
which products we should be building.
where is the demand coming from?
What can we expect to see over the
next kind of two to three year horizon.
So the value of doing that
proprietary research extends
well beyond just driving leads.
However benefit from a lead
perspective as well clearly there.
So it's, it is about having a bit
more of a holistic approach to how
you pitch these things internally.
And also, it's quite smart to
do our actions that are not
just purely for one objective.
And if you're gonna use your time
wisely and especially coming from the
startup world where resources are small
and you've gotta be pretty selective in
what you do and how you spend your time.
Then looking at things that can benefit
the business more broadly as well.
I think one of the things that we
did pretty early at OpenPayd is we
realised that getting our commercial
team face to face with clients was
the hardest, but then a harder step.
But also when we did that.
We were very good at sharing the value
and closing and win and winning deals.
So we invested heavily on events even
though we didn't actually have the
data to back it up to say that we
were closing deals at these events.
Now you look.
Five years down the line, some
of the events that we did in my
first year or second year are our
largest clients and and market
name clients within the business.
So it is a case of taking some
risks certain areas, but making
sure that you have a team behind
you that, that kind of backs you
Araminta Robertson: Yeah.
Exactly.
And you said case studies.
Where do you like to find I
think that's a great idea as
well, showing how others do it.
I feel that in
FinTech for marketing, there's
not so many because it's so niche.
maybe you've borrow from another industry.
where do you find case studies
to use to explain these things?
Michael Treacy: When I say case
studies, not specifically that
somebody has gone taken their time
out to to write a full case study
and how they've attacked market.
But you look at some of the successful
businesses in the market, you look
at those that have been growing the
fastest the ones that have raised the
kind of tier one capital, et cetera.
You could have a look across their
website activity over a period of time.
The website lookup tool is pretty good
in terms of the historic lookup tool.
You look across their social channels,
what kind of content are they generating?
How did they grow their teams in
terms of where did they prioritise
in which countries, et cetera.
And you can start to build a picture
of what a successful kind of growth
strategy looks like for a business.
I like to do that with some of the kind
of fintechs, which when they reached that
unicorn status, how, try to re-engineer
backwards about the journey to get there.
And I think especially with AI
tools today it's a lot easier to
do this a lot quicker to do it.
Araminta Robertson: That's
a very good use case.
And actually you raise a good point,
like Stripe is often the company
that people use to look up to.
And we had this at one of our
conferences where some, a marketer
made a presentation and said, what
people don't realise is that it's
between, I think five to 10 million.
They spend a year on their website.
And so next time you have a leader
that's like, oh, why can't you
just build a Stripe website?
You can say, okay, do we
have a 10 million budget?
Michael Treacy: Yeah,
there you go.
Araminta Robertson: yeah, it's a good way
of saying okay to manage expectations.
'cause I think a lot of leaders maybe
think that yeah, we could just do
a stripe or an addon and actually,
it's a different case.
Like you can't compare really.
Michael Treacy: Absolutely.
But then if you go even further back with
an example of Stripe, in the early days
of Stripe, I'm pretty sure that they were
focusing purely on developer communities.
So there were running community events
on a regular basis in kind of key
towns and cities Around the world.
So yeah, if you want to say,
okay, this is how you pitch it.
Say, oh, if we want to get to that point
and you want to be spending that amount
of money, go even further back and say
and try and generate some ideas that way.
Araminta Robertson: Yeah.
No, that's really, really good insight.
Amazing.
Well, Thanks so much, Michael.
I really appreciate you coming on
and uh, yeah, I hope um, this was
useful to all our listeners, but I
think I learned a lot on how to build
a marketing team and how to grow it.
So thanks again for coming on.
Michael Treacy: Appreciate it.
Thank you very much for having me on.
Okay.
A pleasure.
outro: 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.