Ep. 145 - It's Not About Budget, It's About Having Something Worth Saying, with Started PR

Justin Hanna (0:05)

Welcome back to The Payments Shed live here in Lisbon with Fintech Meetup Europe. We're joined by Kimberley Waldron, founder of Starter PR. Kimberley, thank you so much for joining us. Firstly, tell us a little bit more about how you got into this industry.

Kimberley Waldron (0:17)

Ooh, take us back a little bit to around 2006 I was working in some design agencies in Manchester. I thought I was fully into the agency world. And then I took a job in product marketing at a payments company called Payzone.

And was there for about 18 months, two years. And then what they say about payments, so once you're in, you're in. So, yeah, that's how it went.

Justin Hanna (0:40)

Nice. And from a fintech PR perspective, what are the three claims you think that almost every fintech seems to be saying right now?

Kimberley Waldron (0:53)

Okay, three themes that I think are quite, that come up a lot at the moment, obviously AI.

Justin Hanna (0:58)

Yeah.

Kimberley Waldron (0:58)

And because I think sometimes you just, if you don't have AI, it's the risk of not having AI in your marketing materials. I think the claim that they are improving what's already there without substantiating maybe is a big one. And I would say a third one for me is a lot of talk about partnerships, which is not nothing wrong with that. But I think it's about, you can have partnerships without traction or you can sign an agreement, but perhaps not go into how that's then moving forward or what the uptake is like. So yeah, AI can't not say AI.

The fact that you're improving what's there and you're better than your competitors and the fact that partnerships, as opposed to customer wins.

Justin Hanna (1:40)

If it's not about budget, for you, what actually makes a story stand out?

Kimberley Waldron (1:46)

There's a couple of things, but I guess one of the value propositions behind my business is that we want to work with businesses who are changing something systemic about financial services. And if you take on a macro level, money makes the world go round.

Money brings opportunity, the movement of money to take, to manage to take, to make payments, changes lives. And I think we've got so much to go at in terms of integrating the Fintech story into macro topics and really newsworthy events. And I think that that's what makes a story. Also, the people that you choose to tell that story for you, whether that's the partner you work with, whether it's the right spokesperson in the business, that's compelling and the best advocates for what you're about. Yeah, I would say raising your head up and raising the bar up above what's in front of you and thinking where you fit into that bigger story. And quickly to add to that, I would say it's about understanding what might be good news for your business isn't necessarily news worthy. If you look at everything that's taking place at the moment in the macro economy, in global politics, tech development, realizing we are in a busy, busy, busy world, a busy news agenda. So yeah, raising your head up.

Justin Hanna (3:08)

You mentioned before the hype of AI, actually proving that it works for a business. What do you think the industry still needs to be more honest about when it comes to AI?

Kimberley Waldron (3:20)

I think if we can be honest that we're still figuring out where the most value lies, I think there's a little bit of a dichotomy between, am I improving the service for the customer? Am I improving the distribution of financial services? Or am I streamlining to make more money and more profit? And they can coexist, but I think a real honest look at where are we, where actually are we making money? Sorry, where are we making improvements to make money? Or where are we making improvements because it's better for the world?

And then probably the third thing would be around authority and who is making the decisions and why at the top of a bank or of a large PSP, who is deciding how and where we deploy AI as part of a service.

Justin Hanna (4:10)

And as you kind of, we talk about AI and the hype and how we then work with maybe agencies to shout about that. What kind of breaks first when a Fintech out grows its early PR approach? At what point should they start speaking to more of an agency?

Kimberley Waldron (4:25)

Oh, I think it's who you're appealing to, isn't it? So if you're, it's your tone of voice, who you're appealing to and the proof points that they want to hear. So early on, yes, it might be great to talk about partnerships or being part of an incubator or your early stage recruitment or your founder journey.