The challenges and rewards of ‘fintech’ PR

Our Guest Author is David Wachsman, founder of Wachsman PR. a Wall Street fintech consultancy. 

Financial technology, commonly known as ‘fintech’, is the rapidly-growing field that deploys the latest technology to make financial services easier and cheaper.

Even if you don’t realise it, you probably use some form of fintech every day, whether you’re transferring money on your mobile banking app, using PayPal to fund a purchase or Venmo to pay back a friend for dinner.

The future innovations of fintech are seemingly endless, with the ability to disrupt traditional financial processes and tools from lending to investing even to units of currency themselves.

Investors and venture capitalists are increasingly taking note of this reality: In little over a decade, funding for fintech companies has grown from $5.5 billion to $78.6 billion, according to 2016 data from the Boston Consulting Group.

Taking on fintech clients, however, can pose a significant challenge for PR professionals. The work of these companies is often complicated and difficult for the average consumer to grasp —and even harder to break down into a concise pitch that’s palatable to the media.

Additionally, though the industry is relatively young, it’s a fairly crowded field. From mobile banking to crowdfunding to bitcoin, there are a plethora of compelling fintech stories already vying for journalists’ attention.

Therefore, it can be difficult to continually find untapped angles and consistently place your clients in the news. However, the rewards for successfully communicating and spreading a fintech client’s message are substantial.

By generating public interest in fintech companies, this field of PR can make a significant difference in the lives of everyday consumers, granting them improved access to and control over their own money.

At Wachsman PR, we focus on the fascinating and fast-paced fintech space.

This concentration has allowed us to work with cutting-edge technology companies that also aim to improve financial transactions. In order to generate the best media exposure and brand recognition for our clients, we’re constantly curious about the latest news and trends in fintech.

This allows us to form educated opinions and predictions about the future of this complex industry and the topics that publications might be interested in covering down the line.

We’re also deeply knowledgeable about our clients’ day-to-day work, as well as their long-term visions. That’s because we need to be highly proactive and creative when approaching journalists about company news or a fresh news hook. Ideal timing and framing of a pitch are crucial to achieving optimal results for our clients in this burgeoning, yet very much saturated space.

Although making a career switch to the often-complicated industry of fintech PR may seem intimidating, the rewards are substantial.

The ability to translate a fintech company’s message into layman’s terms is an invaluable skill, with the potential to transform an obscure technology company into a household name. This branch of PR not only helps these burgeoning startups gain crucial exposure and achieve their long-term goals, but can also radically transform the way that millions of consumers manage and understand money.