Finding your Target Audience is (not) a day at the beach.

Most Fintechs face the same challenges in finding their target audience. They have a fantastic product which solves a problem for a bank. But how do they enter the considerable and risk-averse market of banks? A challenge like this isn’t a day at the beach, or is it?

This article is an informed intuition rather than an analytical exercise. So tag along and let your thoughts run freely. The point of this article is that you understand how to find a target audience. 

First of all, you need to know why a target audience is so vital for fintechs that offer innovative solutions.

Most companies get into trouble because they focus on a target market or target segment rather than on a target customer.

They forget to define to whom they are talking. Markets are impersonal and what you need here is the opposite. 

So let’s take a look at a market in a different and, in my humble opinion, better way. What if we define a market as (potential) clients of your company that reference each other? I’m not necessarily talking about geographical nearness here. Because in practice, it happens that neobanks talk to neobanks, Tier 1 banks to Tier 1 banks and insurers to insurers. All types of financials have their own ecosystem.

Keep the ecosystems in mind when you want to define your target market.

These networks will be the vehicle for promoting and selling your product by word of mouth. Now the real challenge is to enter these markets that are dominated mainly by risk-averse pragmatists. i.e., bankers. They mostly depend on references when they try something new. But… How do you get endorsements or a great implementation practice when you are new to a market?? 

The answer seems counterintuitive, but it is essential: focus, focus and focus. Or, in old marketing terms: segment, segment and segment. 

You can do so in a couple of steps:

1. Find out which problem you exactly solve. 
2. Cluster the potential clients suffering the same pain and find out if they reference each other. 

Add the outcome of both steps, and you have found your first target market. I know you’d rather sell your excellent product to everyone at once, but first, you have to enter the market. You do this by creating a beachhead market, just like the allied troops entered the beachheads of Normandy to enter mainland Europe. Once you’ve conquered the beachhead markets, you have a base to invade the whole market. 

Finding your beachhead is essential for your success.

The key is to keep focussing on your target market so you can create cases and ambassadors that spread the word within their ecosystem. Do not get distracted by other ‘opportunities’ because these additional opportunities distract you and will bring you further from your goal: to become a market leader. Pragmatists, like most customers in the finance world, want to buy their products from market leaders. Even if the market (defined by you) is very, very small.

The journey from finding your first target audience to becoming a market leader may not seem like a day at the beach. But by entering and focussing on your beachhead market, it can become a lot more effective.

In our next blog we will talk about the buying committee and how to get to know them.