Marketers are both an optimal target audience—as well as a uniquely challenging demographic. Experience in the industry lets marketers recognize and reward savvy marketing strategies, while sniffing out more scammy, insincere, or uninspiring efforts.

Marketing to marketers, especially CMOs, therefore requires a careful mix: targeting the right potential customers, delivering insightful and clear takeaways, and highlighting the big-picture implications of the fintech product or service being marketed.

Building the right pipeline

Research by Zippia suggests that there are more than 70,000 executives working as CMOs in the United States. While that may seem like a relatively small market to corner, that figure underestimates the true footprint of the CMO stack, which can be used by entire marketing teams and other core employees.

Given C-suite execs’ limited bandwidth, fintech marketers targeting CMOs should make concerted efforts to do their homework before building out a pipeline. Understanding the specific pain points of CMOs according to sector is key to designing targeted—and ultimately successful—marketing efforts.

Cutting through the noise

Targeted marketing efforts involve a delicate balance: cutting to the chase while also making a potential customer feel special. Fintech marketers should communicate clearly why a CMO is being marketed to, what the fintech product accomplishes for a marketing team and its leader, and how.

“But don’t try to be tricky, be genuine… We marketers can smell link-bait and it will definitely kill your brand [credibility],” said Shawn Herring, CMO of airSlate. That means explicitly outlining whether the fintech product is designed to help cut costs, expand a marketing team’s impact, or both.

Highlighting the bigger picture

Finally, CMOs know that they’re only as good as the inputs and teammates informing and assisting them. Marketing fintech products to CMOs therefore demands far more than casting a light on the personal convenience that a solution delivers to an individual; it also entails demonstrating how a fintech product or service can improve team processes, communication, productivity, and ROI.