How FinTech startups can win customer trust with a dual language marketing campaign

Welcome to this wonderful episode to Alejandra Slazepolsky joining us from Miami. Alejandra, I hope I have pronounced your name or names properly.

You did. You did. I know it's, it's, it's a mouthful.

Well, and I'm British and we're not famous for our language skills, but what we are famous for on this podcast, the Unnoticed Entrepreneur Podcast, is introducing really smart people who can help entrepreneurs to get noticed. So All the way from Miami, originally from Argentina. Can you tell us how do you and Scale Alto help people to get noticed?

Basically, we start by our blueprint, which we call the X-Alto program, in which we define your 3 main verticals to scale. And for us, the main one where you should always start is of course your business strategy. And I know that sometimes it's hard to get to that when you're in the, you know, in the weeds launching a company and sometimes you leave it behind or you say, I'll get to the business plan later. But we have an approach that is not about sitting down and making like a 50-page business plan. We focus on what is your core value proposition. So we like to say, we, we just look at ourselves inside first. So what do you bring to the world really? What is your purpose here? How do you want to impact, et cetera? Of course, we're big fans of the Golden Circle by Simon Sinek, which I'm sure a lot of people have mentioned it. We do a couple of exercises that just get you to that point of really describing where you're coming from and why you want to make an impact in this world. And then we actually go for the, the other side and go outside and say, okay, how does this fit the current situation in the world? What are your growth options? What is the space in the market that you're going to occupy? And all that is no marketing talk, no lead generation talk, no, what can I sell? Nothing. You know, what is my business doing in this market? And what market is that going to be? And after that, we actually do get to work with, okay, what is your marketing communication strategy? And I have a journalistic background. I used to be a journalist way back then and went into PR and ended up in marketing and communications. But for me, everything you say, everything you do builds your brand and builds you, right? And now with, of course, everything is digital. So whatever's online, that's who you are, right? So we work on really seeing how you're going to take ownership of that space that you decided you want to take ownership of and what you're going to contribute to the world. Like, for example, you are in PR, you decided to contribute help to the entrepreneurs out there, right? And that's your niche and that's your message and you, you know what you're going to talk about, right? So that's what we, when we say, when we work on content pillars and we say, okay, what are you going to talk about? What is it that, you know, if you were going from party to party, uh, networking to networking event, what would you repeat every day? And what would you try to teach everybody? So those are the content pillars and your brand story. And we work on all that. And then we say, okay, who are your stakeholders? Who's involved in your organization? Who do you want to influence? And try to do a lead generation process for each of them, which is different one from each other. Like every target is not in the same space. They're not in the same room. They're not in the same platforms. They don't have the same interests. So try to personalize that. And the third component that we work with is the customer journey. I'm a huge, huge believer. In that client experience is making or breaking a company right now. No matter what type of company you are, your client has superb experiences from the biggest companies in the world. Amazon, Facebook, Google, everything is seamless, right? So whatever you do, Go back to how your client is experiencing your process. Take a look and improve all the time. So that's the work that we do with working on your client experience.

Wow. So it's pretty complete. So really like, like me, you feel that PR and the reputation of a brand really is the entire package, isn't it? It's not just press relations or social media.

No, no, no, no. Then we have what we call the marketing engine. Sort of works as a traditional marketing communications platform for clients. And that's when we do the awareness, the getting noticed, the everything that you need to do day to day, every single day to work on your marketing process. And just before we hit record, you were saying, how do we scale that process? And that with my years as an agency, as a marketer, I, I had too many times people coming to me saying, hey, I need a website or hey, I need leads. I need, you know, it's one single thing that they're looking for that they think that is a solution. And I have always have had to go back and say, okay, but what's your strategy? Where are you trying to get? I want to make sure that the tool that you're asking for is the right answer. Because many times it ended up not being the right answer. With, you know, with customer journeys, that's the beauty of them. When you really analyze lead to loyalty, you know, everything that happens in between, right? There is most of the time, and I talk to CEOs and entrepreneurs all the time and tell them, look, it's not a problem of lead generation. I'm sure you can find a cheaper lead down your funnel, down your journey. I'm sure there are cheaper leads in the middle that you're missing because you're losing in the conversion process. So that's, that's what happens with, uh, you know, with, if you really work on this constantly and, and rethink the way you're using your strategies and not just do them because you see everybody doing them.

Alejandra, you talk about customer journeys and often people associate that particularly with the example, the financial services and fintech. I know that's an area that you're particularly skilled in. Do you want to share with us, are there some specific aspects of marketing in B2B and fintech or as a fintech startup that you think people should know about?

Well, in fintech, what they have going for them that financial services did not have is the technology. aspect. What most of the fintechs I run into, the main challenge they have is trust building. I think that money is the, the latest frontier on converting clients because of the trust issue. You have no problem buying soap or a dress or whatever online. But buying financial services and I don't know, transferring money into a fund that you don't know about, or, you know, buying bonds, that's sort of like still an issue that people are having trouble with, especially high net worth or ultra high net worth individuals because they're used to very personalized approach to their service. So fintechs that I've run into. That's the main issue they have. They think that they can put the product out there and just like opening a Facebook account, people will use it.

Okay. So how do they overcome that? How do they overcome this trust issue? Because that is central to actually all brands, isn't it? But if it's a commodity product, the risk is relatively low, isn't it? For the consumer, especially with the buy and return. How do you help them, Alejandra, with the idea of overcoming loyalty?

Well, we, we have to work a lot on thought leadership. We have to work a lot on exposure and on a lot of education and on hyper segmenting your targets. So basically I say, okay, we have, I, I have a client that has this product that is for Latin Americans, which is great. So Latin Americans, we have millions and millions of people. Let's, you know, segment it a little more, segment it a little more. You have to really communicate with them in a way that the message is just right for them and it's talking to their pain, their very specific pain. So once you find them, then you start nurturing them and talking to them and providing solutions and ideas to problems that you know they have. So. Just become a super, super knowledgeable person about your client. That's all I can tell you because it's not, it's when you used to go to a bank branch and open a bank account, well, we still do. It's pretty straightforward. You have somebody in front of you and you know what they're doing. They're showing you what they're doing. In technology, it's sort of everything is in the background, so You have to open up as much as possible, and that's what financial services companies, you know, historically have been very bad at with compliance and all that. It's like, oh no, no, I can't, I can't show that much, or I can't tell them I'm going to do this for them because then compliance is going to stop me from saying it. Da da da da. So it's all about being open, simple, and really. Connecting constantly and saying, I know you have this pain, let me solve it for you.

Now you talked about customer journeys. Can you just give us an idea then, Alejandra, of, you know, you went from lead to loyalty. What are some of the practical steps that an entrepreneur can take when it comes to mapping out that journey? Because that's often something that entrepreneurs don't even think about really. They think, well, I made it. People might come and buy it because I like it. So tell us, how do you, how do you, how do you map it out?

Well, the bigger, the bigger your organization, the harder it's going to be for sure. But remember, there is a lot of talk in retail about that, the mystery shopper, right? So you have to do that exercise and put yourself, you know, if you can do a mystery shopper, do it, go ahead, because that's really going to work for you. But if you cannot, because it's harder, for example, in financial services, it's really hard to do that. But I miss the times when we would get together in a meeting room, grab Post-its, and just start, you know, saying, okay, I have Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter. That's where my leads are coming from. And then they're going to my website. Or I have word of mouth. Where are they landing? You know, what team is getting that? Whose face are they seeing? Right? Then you put that. Okay, what happens once they see that face? Who do they talk to? So think of it in terms of touchpoints and make that path describing each touchpoint, who they see, what email they get, what webpage they see, right? Sometimes it's very simple. Sometimes it's very complex. So it really depends on your organization. If you cannot do it with your team, then split it up between awareness, conversion, and service. I'm trying to simplify it. Yes. So if we say awareness, okay, what happens right before a client comes into your website or comes in touch with you? Becomes in touch. Then conversion. What happens between the first time that they hear from you Until the time that they actually buy from you. And there are many things that happen in between and have in mind that it requires a lot of touchpoints for them to buy from you. That's one thing that people do not understand.

Yeah. And Alejandra, can, can you recommend a software or, I mean, you've mentioned Post-it notes, but now where people are distributed, so can you recommend a customer journey or do you use something, a Lucidchart to map it out, or are there some good customer journey apps that you recommend?

There are many. There are many. You know, if you say customer journey builder, you'll find 100. There isn't one exact that I like. I do like one collaboration tool called Miro, M-I-R-O, and that one helps you manage meetings and collaborate, like life and you can build it together.

That sounds nice. That sounds nice, Miro. Yeah. Alejandra, then just talking then about collaboration. Let's just also think about you've got your own and your own consultancy service. I want to ask you a quick question about, you're obviously bilingual. What differences do you notice in customer journeys between having to do the marketing, say, in English and Spanish? You're in Miami. So you, you must have to run dual language programs. Can you just give us a quick, oh, not a quick, but an answer on how do you help companies or what should companies look for if they're doing dual language?

Never just translate. Never.

So never just translate. Localize.

Yeah. At least a filter. You know, your product may be the same, but there is always a switch, a conversion, an adaptation to be made whenever you enter in a new culture. And be conscious about it. I actually have that issue that we are helping a lot of Latin American companies enter the U.S. and scale in the U.S. And most of them, the main issue they have is that they don't understand the magnitude of the U.S. market, right? Actually, we are helping European companies enter the U.S. too. And that happened too. It's like, okay, they. They lose sight of the amount of money that there is in the market, which is really good, but also the amount of offer and competition that you'll have. And that's when everything about finding a niche becomes more and more important. For me, it's all about finding your niche. And the other day I was talking to somebody and they're like, yeah, I know everybody talks about finding a niche, whatever. I found it. I'm like, what do I do when I find it? Like, it's enough. When you find your niche, make it smaller. That's all my answer.

And then if you're doing dual language, you've got to maybe, well, I guess each one is unique, right? Each one is its own niche. Now, Alejandra, for you, what about how you're marketing as an entrepreneur, your own business, Scale Alto? Just tell us about how you're going about building your own business as an entrepreneur.

Well, I'm taking my own medicine and I'm doing content. I have my own podcast. We create content online. We are writing some blog posts and we try to add value as much as we can. Also for entrepreneurs, for me, it was key for many years. I only worked through word of mouth and I just, you know, it was good. I didn't need that much more. And I knew that with my niche, it was an easy conversion, honestly.

This is in the, in the fintech, in the financial services.

In the wealth management and fintech scene, you know, you put me in front of a CEO in that area, in the US or in LATAM, they see me, they're like, oh, you understand my business, I'm good to go. So the conversion was pretty high whenever I got in front of them. However, when you grow and this, it's what's been happening, I had to figure out a way to make it bigger.

Yeah, to scale, right? To scale beyond your own brand personal connections.

Exactly. But I hate, honestly, networking events. I don't have time to write and I decided to sit down and say, okay, what do I like doing? And I said, I love the one-on-ones that we're doing right now. So I, at first I started saying, let's do a strategy session. And I would do strategy sessions with entrepreneurs and with people in the industry and it converted. It was good. Not scalable. That's when I said, okay, let me, let me record the strategy sessions. And that's how my podcast got started. And. A lot of entrepreneurs think that, you know, the podcast is just, it has to be, it has to have an ROI directly. It has to have, you know, millions of downloads or whatever. But what I always say is the podcast is just one component that helps you create all of this material for you to be out there. So that's what we call our marketing engine too. We, we do digital events. that help us, that feed into our, into our need for content. And then as an entrepreneur, you don't need to spend that much time. You just do your podcast and then we extract, you know, you put your team to extract the content and reuse it, which is, you were saying, is similar to what, what you do, but it's pretty simple if you have the team behind it. Just make sure you do, you have the team. Yeah. Create the content the way you like it. For example, my, my partner, she, she doesn't like that much being on camera, but she's a genius at doodling. Like, you have a conversation, an hour, an hour conversation, and then at 45 minutes, she'll, you know, she'll show you her iPad and say, oh my God, that's, that's the summary. That's where we need to go. That's it. So we started recording her. Doodling, you know, explaining concepts while she writes. So my point was find what you like doing, where you feel comfortable, and expose it. Don't try to do whatever the other one is doing because just, you know, that's what you do. Find where you're comfortable, what you can do, and, and do that. If you like writing, write. If you like speaking, speak. If you, whatever that makes you feel more comfortable.

Alejandra, that is great, great advice. And you're plainly very comfortable on the mic. Thank you so much for joining me on The Unnoticed Entrepreneur today, all the way from Miami. Alejandra Zlatopolsky joining me from Scale Alto. Thank you so much for joining me today. And we'll put all your contact details in the show notes.

Bye.

Thank you. Okay. And then we should say hasta luego.

Hasta luego.

Hasta luego. Okay. Goodbye. Thank you so much for joining me on this show.