7 Real-life Fintech Marketing Strategies for Loyalty and Referral Programs

If you’d type in any “marketing strategies” in the Google (or any other) search, you’d probably get hundreds of thousands of results. Still, when it comes to fintech marketing strategies, there aren’t many examples out there. Is it because fintech companies guard their marketing secrets jealously or because people don’t expect to find reliable information on that matter online?

The answer’s probably both, so you’d be relieved to know that I decided to change things a bit and provide you with 7 fintech promotion examples. Keep reading if you’re interested in finding some fintech promotion inspirations here!

The challenges of the fintech industry

In an ever-changing world of digital finances, government regulations, and people cornered by thousands of ads every day, it’s particularly difficult to grow a fintech company that responds to all the needs of their customers. Trying to keep up with the data security requirements and other legal issues, while building trust with the customers is a tough job, but also a must in a fintech industry.

One of the biggest concerns for fintech companies, though, is how to effectively acquire new customers, and how to keep them from churning. There are a few solutions for these problems, and you can find some of them later in this article. Feel free to get back to them while creating your fintech marketing strategy in the future.

Contents

In this article, you’ll find fintech promotion examples from seven companies – loyalty programs, referral programs, vouchers, online contests, and other types of promotions you might find useful and inspiring.

1. utu – Loyalty program
2. Taxfix – Double-sided referral program
3. CoinDCX – Vouchers and contests
4. Bibit – Cashback promotions
5. Transfez – Vouchers and contests
6. Metamouse.cc – Referral program and a rewards program
7. OttoPay – Pre-sign-up referral program

1. utu – a mobile-based loyalty program with a twist

A Thai fintech company – utu – specializes in handling tax-free shopping worldwide in a way that feels simple on the outside, but requires serious work beneath the surface. Thanks to utu, customers from around the world can use their mobile app to shop and get rewards instantly, without having to go through a painful refund process.

utu has created its own loyalty program called utu Rewards in cooperation with Voucherify. The program features earning points for plenty of activities, such as spending money in certain online stores, watching videos, connecting credit or debit cards with the utu app, or… participating in running competitions!

The main focus of utu’s marketing strategy is encouraging loyalty program participants to perform various actions in exchange for loyalty points. The promotions are often location-exclusive and, of course, time-limited. utu’s loyalty program is built around utu Rewards – an easy-to-use mobile app in which users add their payment cards, earn and track points, enable cashback, get information about current promotions, and spend utu points.

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Promotion examples from utu

Let’s browse through some promotion examples by utu:

• Loyalty points for spending money – it’s a commonly used loyalty program practice. There are even some loyalty programs that run solely on this kind of promotion. In this case, utu Rewards participants can earn additional 500 utu points for spending at least 1500 baht in popular Thai stores, such as Ati Singha Online Shop or King Power Online.

• Points for watching videos – sometimes, spreading the word about an event or initiative can get tricky, but with a broad base of loyalty program participants, who can bring additional points for performing a relatively easy task, it can become a walk in the park. utu decided to assign 50 points to all participants who took their time to watch a specific video. It’s a perfect way to distribute an important message or a piece of content to the audience!

• Gain points for adding a debit or credit card – it’s a simple yet effective way to engage new loyalty program participants. It can work miracles, especially when you’ve got plenty of newcomers who downloaded an app or joined the loyalty program in any other way but didn’t manage to earn any loyalty points yet. utu offers 100 points for each credit or debit card added to the app. Note, though, that users have to verify their identity first to earn those points.

• Additional points for various activities – and I don’t mean social media activities this time, which might be surprising, but real-life activities, such as participating in a race, for example. utu encourages their customers to take care of their health by granting additional points for participating in fun runs, such as Isan in Love Virtual Fun Run – 500 additional points for running an extra mile (or two) seems like a win-win situation!

You can find more information here: https://th.utu.global

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2. Taxfix – refer a friend, get an Amazon gift card

Taxfix offers an exciting take on a double-sided referral program powered by Voucherify. There’s basically one reward for referrer and one for the referee, but they both are very enticing.

The referrer gets a €30 Amazon voucher for each person they recommend using an individual referral link. Instead of collecting points for cashback, users get a gift card they can use immediately almost anywhere in the world to buy almost anything. That was, though, a time-limited offer, valid in April 2022.

On the other hand, referees gain no less than a 50% discount on their first Taxfix tax return, which is an excellent offer for those who are genuinely interested in running their tax return through Taxfix.

Usually, after the referee completes their first tax return using Taxfix (the one with the discount), the referrer gets an additional 10 EUR discount for their tax return to use in the future.

Learn more about their referral program here: https://taxfix.de/freunde-werben/

3. CoinDCX – lots of contests with prizes in bitcoin

CoinDCX is one of the most successful Indian fintech startups – a cryptocurrency exchange platform. Their claim is “Making Crypto Accessible to Indians”, and they make it a reality with a robust learning platform and  various sales promotions, such as the first investment for free with a welcome voucher code for each new user:

Vouchers don’t mark the end of CoinDCX’s promotions, though. Instead, they also use in-app messaging and notifications to distribute coupons and inform users about various promotions.

Also, CoinDCX organizes lots of giveaways and contests, where users may win bitcoins or other prizes in cryptocurrencies:

4. Bibit – mobile app-based cashback promotions  

Bibit usually offers cashback promotions for new users, but they don’t forget to treat their loyal customers with attractive promos from time to time.

Claiming Bibit offers usually requires downloading the Seed app and performing particular actions via the application. One of their latest promotions offered:

• RP75.000 cashback for existing users in exchange for three transactions made via GoPay in the app.
• RP30.000 cashback for each new user.

They also run their referral program in cooperation with Jago. Not so long ago, in March, they launched a one-sided referral campaign rewarding referrers. For each new user registered for Jago through Bibit, they can get RP40.000 cashback.

It’s an interesting case where companies split costs and make the difference visible. For example, each referral program participant knows on the spot that Bibit provides 25K and Jago 15K of referral cashback:

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5. Transfez – holiday vouchers and contests

Like most fintech companies I’ve reviewed in this article, Transfez focuses on using vouchers to back up its marketing strategy. One of their recent promotions – launched for the occasion of Hari Raya – is a simple voucher that has two equally great functions:

1. It activates a free transfer fee to any country – which is basically a discount coupon;
2. It gives users access to a lucky draw in which they can win special holiday hampers, traditional in Hari Raya celebrations.

Transfez also proved that social media contests work and can be used for fintech promotions as in any other area of business.

While celebrating Ramadan, they ran a fun little game on Instagram – users were asked to figure out the abbreviation for “THR”, and the three best answers were awarded RP100.000 saldo for OVO or GoPay:

6. Metamouse.cc – money for feedback

Metamouse is another cryptocurrency product, but with a twist: they let their users pay their bills with cryptocurrencies, which is a new thing on the crypto market. Metamouse decided to try a referral approach in its marketing efforts and make it one of its main promotion mechanisms.

Their referral program is a straightforward, double-sided arrangement – both referrer and referee get $10 in BTC for each new referred user.

To improve their product and gather valuable insights, Metamouse also ran a ProductHunt campaign, asking people to give their product a spin in exchange for $10. Users were asked to perform a test payment and leave their feedback for a prize.

7. OttoPay – pre-sign-up referral program

As we’re nearing the end of the list with fintech promotion examples, I have an interesting example of a referral program created by OttoPay. It’s the first time I have encountered a referral program that begins long before you can create an account. How does it work?

If you want to sign up for OttoPay on their website (by clicking a welcoming “Join” button on the homepage), you will be redirected to a simple form which puts your name on a waiting list and… adds you to their referral program!

After I joined the Waitlist (since I was determined to see what this is all about), I learned that my place in line is – no kidding – 17680, but I can climb up the queue (and earn some extra cash) by referring friends. After scrolling down a bit, I noticed that OttoPay created some kind of a giveaway here:

Performing social actions and inviting friends not only boost a user-to-be waitlist position, but also grants a bit of cash to your Otto account – you can get access to them after identity verification.

Though it’s one of the most interesting referral program ideas I’ve stumbled upon recently, I wonder how fast will the queue move by itself, since for now I would have to invite more than three-and-a-half thousand friends to finally sign up. I’ll keep you posted.

Summary

As you can clearly see, many fintech promotion types might come in handy while carrying out your marketing plan for financial services. Be it a referral program, a loyalty program or various discount vouchers. There’s always a way to attract new customers or re-engage existing ones.

In a summary, here are three golden rules you might want to follow when planning your fintech marketing strategy:

1. If you plan to launch a loyalty program (or a cashback loyalty program) for your fintech company, make sure users have plenty of activities to choose from to earn points. Limiting the set of actions to two or three things can massively shrink the interest people might have in your program.
   
2. While working on a referral program, consider making it double-sided, but don’t forget that such a type of program would cost your company much more. It is proven, though, to attract people better, for it guarantees rewards for both involved parties.
   
3. It is easier and much more effective to run promotions via a dedicated promotion engine. Using such a solution cuts development time and costs, saves your company the pain of maintaining all the technicalities, leaving you with plenty of time to design new promotions, contests, and incentives.

Most of the examples shown above, are powered by Voucherify – an API-first promotion engine with a well-documented, broad API allowing the connection with any touchpoint, as well as a long list of SDKs for mobile apps.

Learn more: Explore Voucherify's Open Source Loyalty Accelerator

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