Have you ever wondered what makes a successful fintech marketing strategy? In our "How they did it" series, we look at how some of the most successful and exciting fintechs in the world have approached marketing in their early days. Today's article is about one of the most successful Swedish fintechs, iZettle and their UK launch campaign.
iZettle created a unique pop-up market at a press event in London as part of their UK launch strategy. Rather than just telling everyone about their business, they decided to let the product speaks best for itself.
Run a physical pop-up to engage with customers and generate buzz
After gaining significant traction in its native Nordic markets and Continental Europe, iZettle decided to enter the UK market in 2012. To do so, the company appointed a local PR team and agency to implement a launch strategy with a limited budget of £25,000 and a set of 3 clear goals: to reach the mass UK market specifically targeting the small businesses and tradespeople segment, to drive immediate product sales, and to generate buzz about the brand.
A key aspect of the strategy was to host a press briefing for local journalists and influencers that featured a physical pop-up market aiming to replicate the type of business environment where iZettle can be used. The market brought together a number of small businesses which were trading at the event, accepting card payments through their smartphone or tablet and providing instant feedback about iZettle’s product to the media.
With a limited budget of £25,000, iZettle looked for further support and sponsorship for their launch event from their investor MasterCard and a retail partner EE. The pop-up concept attracted 70 journalists and stakeholders, ranging from the BBC to HM Treasury. At
the event, all guests were provided with pre-paid MasterCards to purchase any goods at the market stalls, while all card payments were handled via iZettle.
The launch proved to be a real success generating more than 80 articles in local press and media including BBC News Online, The Financial Times, The Sun and ShortList, and increasing sales by 425%, with 17,000 products sold following the event. In addition, iZettle’s website saw a massive surge in traffic in the week of the launch event, and its app was named as one of Apple’s App Store Best apps of 2012.
Creating a physical pop-up experience is one of the most effective and affordable tactics to engage with your target audience and bring life to your brand story by physically showcasing your product or service. Also known as experiential marketing, pop-up marketing has lately gained significant popularity among marketers as a powerful tool to generate buzz and boost sales due to its exclusive, temporary and enthusing nature.
However, the big challenge for brands running experiential/pop-up campaigns is how to drive the investment and impact beyond the life span of the popup event or activity and the buzz generated at that time. A possible way to do this is by extending the campaign into digital and social media activities.
iZettle is a Swedish payments fintech that was founded by Jacob de Geer and Magnus Nilsson in 2010. The company started off by introducing the world’s first mobile chip-card reader and app allowing people and small businesses to accept credit and debit card payments on their mobile devices. In 2018, iZettle got acquired by Paypal for $2.2bn.