When Your Entire Market Is Ten Deals a Year

For some fintech companies, the standard demand playbook is beside the point. B2B fintech marketing is usually built to fill a funnel with leads, but when a company can name every bank, retailer or insurer that could realistically buy from it, the job becomes earning those few buyers' trust, which takes credibility more than lead volume.

Imprint sells co-branded credit card programs. In that market there are perhaps ten major deals in a year, and the company knows precisely which brands those are. A brand is often tied to one bank for years, so the contracts come up only at intervals. When one does, the retailer, airline or hotel chain runs a long bidding process. The bidders come from a short list of large issuers, with JPMorgan Chase, Capital One, Citigroup and Synchrony among the biggest. They generally know which brands are shopping for a partner to put their name on a card. Finding the buyer isn't the hard part. Getting the buyer's boss to take you seriously is.

To win, a challenger has to operate like the banks it bids against. Look at it from the buyer's side: the person who tells their boss they picked a company the boss has never heard of over an old bank risks their job if it goes badly, so the startup's job is to make that person feel safe taking it to the boss.

As I see it, that is a perception problem more than a pipeline problem, and demand generation does little for it. The product advantages have to be real, but they have to come with the staying power buyers expect from an established provider. A startup bidding against institutions with longer track records and more scale that shows up only as the innovative alternative is, I think, in a weak position. It needs to be seen as an equal.

Key takeaways

• Co-branded credit card contracts often tie a brand to one bank for years, and the bidders come from a short list of large issuers.
• When every buyer can be named, credibility can matter more than awareness. The person who picks a startup over an established bank is staking their own job on that choice.
• A quick test is to count the organizations that could realistically buy this year. Thousands calls for demand generation. With fewer than twenty, known by name, check whether credibility is the obstacle before spending on leads.

What builds credibility with a handful of institutional buyers?

A fintech selling to a handful of institutions builds credibility in the few places its buyers' leadership already trusts, starting with one substantial feature and widening from there.

Prioritize features that explain the business. Institutional credibility comes from substantial third-party treatment in a publication the buyer's board recognizes. In my experience, a roundup mention does little for it.

The publication matters more than the reach. A retailer's CFO evaluating a card partner has heard of Forbes. Whether they've heard of the fintech trade press you love is a different question.

Relationships beat pitches. For Imprint's $75 million Series B we didn't send a press release. We arranged an in-person meeting between the founder and a Forbes senior editor, because the depth of feature required to change institutional perception doesn't come from a cold pitch.

Third-party voices reinforce it. We coordinated investor interviews, including with Thrive Capital, so the story carried validation from the investors backing the company.

Then you syndicate for coverage density. After the anchor piece, breadth matters — Irish Times, Fintech Magazine, Fintech Futures, AlleyWatch, Silicon Republic and the fintech newsletters — so that anyone who checks finds a company being discussed rather than a company that issued one release.

The Forbes feature positioned Imprint as a serious alternative to legacy banks rather than a challenger to them, which is exactly what was needed walking into those ten conversations. The following year Imprint landed on Forbes' Next Billion-Dollar Startups list. Since then the company has raised a $75 million Series C at a $600 million valuation and a $150 million Series D at a $1.2 billion valuation, secured a $500 million credit facility with Mizuho, Truist and HSBC, and been named to the Forbes Fintech 50.

Does your B2B fintech marketing need demand generation or credibility?

The quickest way to tell whether a fintech needs demand generation or credibility work is to count how many organizations could realistically buy what it sells this year.

Thousands. You have a demand generation problem. Build the funnel, measure the channels, optimize the conversion. The standard playbook applies.

Dozens. You have a hybrid. Some awareness work, but the named accounts matter disproportionately and should be treated as a separate program.

Under twenty, and you know their names. In my view, you have a perception problem first. Before spending much on lead generation, work out whether the obstacle with those accounts is awareness, credibility, timing or the offer. If it is credibility, find out what evidence those specific people need to see before they will consider you.

In my experience, a lot of fintech companies selling into banks, large retailers, insurers or payment networks are in the third category and running the first category's playbook.

How do fintech startups build credibility with large buyers?

Credibility work starts with the people who make the decision: identify them and ask them, or the people who sell to them, what they read and which analysts they trust. I find the answer is more often mainstream business press plus one or two industry publications than the fintech media.

Build for depth. One substantial feature, executive thought leadership in the outlets their board reads, analyst awareness, and the credentials that survive a procurement review. For any analyst firm, ranking or badge, I check the selection criteria and whether paying affects inclusion or placement.

Use funding moments for positioning rather than announcement. A round is the occasion to be treated seriously by a publication that matters, and that treatment outlives the news by years.

And accept that much of this won't show up in standard attribution reports, which can miss a retailer's CFO reading a Forbes feature eight months before an RFP. You can still track it: talk to target buyers, ask your sales team how prospects describe you, and watch whether you make shortlists and how far deals get. Buyer interviews can capture that kind of exposure, though not how much it influenced the decision. None of that isolates what PR did, but it shows whether perception is moving.

Common questions

What is B2B fintech marketing? B2B fintech marketing promotes financial technology products and services to business buyers, such as banks, retailers, insurers and payment networks. Some B2B fintechs have thousands of possible customers and can run a standard demand program. Others can name almost every realistic buyer, and for them the work shifts from generating leads to building credibility with those specific people.

Does fintech marketing always mean demand generation? No. When the addressable market is a small number of known institutions, the work is changing how those specific buyers perceive you, which requires depth and credibility rather than reach and volume.

How do you compete against incumbent banks in a pitch? By being perceived as a peer rather than an alternative. That takes real product advantages, operating capability and evidence of staying power. Substantial coverage in publications the buyer's leadership recognizes can support it, alongside customer references and credentials that survive procurement scrutiny.

How do you measure perception work? Use buyer interviews alongside attribution data. Talk to target buyers and your sales team about how prospects see you, and watch shortlist inclusion and deal progression, without treating those changes as proof that PR caused them.

Why does a fintech startup need to look like an established company? Because the person who picks a startup over an established bank can be risking their own job if the partnership goes badly. A startup has to make that choice feel safe, with real capability and a public record a skeptical boss can check.

Salient PR works with fintech and payments companies, including Imprint's Series B campaign and its subsequent placement on Forbes' Next Billion-Dollar Startups list.