I got a glimpse at a financial media/fintech organization chart recently and I chuckled a bit.
The structure of the sales and marketing team was:
- At the top --- CMO
- Next, a COO in charge of operating the sales and marketing
- On the COO's same level, a "Design/Brand" guy
- Same level was a "Sales Manager Ops"
- Under the COO ---> A "Sales & Marketing Manager" who likely keeps tracks of stats
- Under the COO ---> A "Media Buyer"
- Under the Sales Manager Ops" ----> A main sales guy (who had foot soldier sales people under him)
- At the very bottom of the chart under the "Sales and Marketing Manager" was a Sr. Copywriter
Why did this make me chuckle?
Because it's completely backwards.
At the top is a CMO corporate suit who had corporate suit jobs before. Not much "in the weeds' marketing experience writing copy, testing offers, etc. Just a regular 'lead the troops' person.
Then, at the top, is some gal working on the "branding" of the biz.
In a business like financial media and acquiring customers for fintech, brand is usually less important... especially as a company grows. Your main goal is to attract customers and retain them... not worry about what colors your website is.
Then, you have a stats and media buyer overseeing perhaps the most important member on this team...
The friggin' copywriters!
Now, I started as a copywriter when I launched my biz. Call me bias...
But think about this...
The person most in the weed with your product... the person studying your customers, your product, studying what angles and offers work... that's the copywriter!
The CMO isn't looking at deep, deep customer avatar pieces. He just wants to see "is customer acquisition costs going up or down." "Are there more customers this month than the same month last year?"
After all, the CEO will be up his butt if the numbers aren't trending up.
(Are you shocked most big company CMOs only last around 2 years?)
How does a media and fintech company scale?
You need:
- New offers and angles weekly
- Re-targeting and warm up emails for cold contacts
- New ads and promos running whether that's long form, infomercials, print
You build traction and attract new customers with these pieces.
So it starts with the copywriter.
Yes, you better have a damn good copywriter. If you have a piker as a copywriter, you can't implement any of this.
An amazing copywriter is always coming up with new ideas, angles, product ideas... maybe even recommending new team members.
A piker copywriter waits to be told what to write and checks out when there's nothing on the table.
Start with a damn good copywriter and pay them well.
No, it doesn't mean your copywriter is the CMO. It really depends on how large your team is if you even need a CMO.
But the copywriter needs to set the creative direction.
How it could look
You could then have assistants and the like under these pieces.
Here's the point...
Stop approaching things as "data and spreadsheets" first and creative second.
Doesn't matter if you're a startup fintech co. or a $200M financial firm...
We're in the age of creative. Everything is creative on social, ads, TV, YouTube... it's a bloody brawl and you signed up.
Stop hiding behind a desk and put the copywriters in charge.
Copywriters are fearless, bold, action-orientated. Corporate folks are reactionary. You can't react. Technology moves too fast now. How many small banks are out of business now because they stopped pursuing deposits? Low interest rates made them lazy with marketing to attract deposits to lend. When interest rates go up, they get sucked dry, can't lend, can't grow. (We'll likely see this trend continue for the next 10 years).
If you disagree with my org chart, send me an email at joe@suitefin.com
Would love to hear your thoughts,
Out for now to go throw some balls to my boy, Theo
Joe Cassandra
"Creative Director" of Suite Financial
