How To Get Your Fintech Strategy Right, Learnings from Google

Perhaps no other tech company in the world is more ubiquitous than Google. From dominating search engine traffic to providing apps and tools for individuals and businesses alike to delivering mobile experiences to more than 2.5 billion active Android users globally, Google touches nearly every person in the world with an internet connection.

So it should be of little surprise that Google is heavily involved in the Fintech industry, particularly the mobile side of things. That’s why it was particularly interesting to hear from this week’s guest on the Fintech Growth Talk. Charlene Jolly is the Fintech Apps Partnership Manager at Google for AppDev, and she shared some key insights for Fintech startups.

Know Your Audience.

We hear this time and time again, but it truly is a core part of product development and marketing. “You really have to immerse yourself into the [users’] current reality to be able to resonate with them and ultimately engage with them,” Jolly advises.

From a product standpoint, thoroughly understanding your audiences will help you develop a much better user acquisition strategy. Users are relying on apps more than ever, but that also means there’s more competition. It’s essential to “nail the basics,” says Jolly. That means having an app that not only matches the users’ needs, but also offers a compelling interface with as little friction as possible.

Additionally, knowing your audiences will help you choose the right key performance indicators (KPIs). This is a crucial step, because you need to measure the right things in order to be able to tell if you’re truly growing and moving in the right direction.

Lastly, knowing your audience will help you shape your brand strategy, an essential ingredient to not only your marketing, but also your customer relations.

Be realistic about those KPIs

Speaking of KPIs, Jolly stresses that it’s not only about measuring the right things, but about setting the right goals for those KPIs. KPIs need to reflect your long-term business goals, not just immediate gains. Too often, startups set very unrealistic goals for KPIs, such as underestimating the cost of user acquisition. The ones who succeed, says Jolly, are the ones who set clearly defined KPIs that are specific and actionable. What’s more, everyone needs to be on board with what the KPIs should be and how they’re measured, including investors.

Take the time to address privacy and security.

Because Fintechs are involved with some of the most intimate details of a person’s life, it’s essential for them to properly address privacy and security. Not only from a regulatory standpoint, of course, but also from a user expectation standpoint. Over time, Jolly expects more and more apps to grant users higher levels of privacy than we’ve seen previously, and Fintechs need to get comfortable with this and build it into their business strategy.

About Charlene Jolly

Charlene Jolly is Fintech Apps Partnership Manager at Google for AppDev. Her work includes leading Fintech apps in EMEA on their strategies ranging from banking, investment, trading, insuretech, payment, billing, taxing, and more. She also leads a number of Fintech initiatives for Google, including events, materials, training, research etc. Before Google, she worked in marketing, event and communications for HubSpot, The Financial Times Hong Kong, Schneider Electric France, Gameloft South-East Asia and Airbnb Vietnam and completed her Master’s degree at Grenoble Ecole de Management.

Follow Charlene on Twitter or LinkedIn. 

Listen to our full interview with Charlene Jolly here .