Memento_logo Earlier this week, Mike Braatz spoke at our quarterly networking breakfast on what it took to turn Memento Security into the go-to resource for insight about banking fraud. The below blog post was contributed by Mike, detailing the key takeaways from his talk.

I’ve led marketing for a number of early stage B2B technology companies.  Needless to say, I’ve learned a lot, from both successes and failures. When I first arrived at my current company, Memento, we faced all the usual challenges, and then some.

On the positive side, we knew we had a great solution to a real problem: bank fraud. It’s rampant, often unseen, and enormously costly.

On the negative side:

  • Most of our prospects didn’t necessarily agree on the nature of the problem. And, oh, yeah, we’re targeting hundreds of prospects.
  • In the beginning, most barely knew who we were and didn’t really care. They had budget and processes to manage the problem as it existed, and making it go away would put their budget at risk, too: Not exactly incentive-based selling.
  • Adding to the problem: It’s a niche market, with a finite number of media outlets to speak of, and only one conference that matters. So traditional channels wouldn’t work. Nor would traditional top-of-the-funnel-based marketing: getting 10% of 50,000 leads wasn’t an option.

So what did we do?

1. We segmented the market very precisely. Given the state of customers’ requirements and solutions available, we knew that only the largest banks had a big enough problem to make this investment make sense. So initially we settled on the top 200 institutions. That’s it. A total universe of 5 to 15 prospects at each bank, our world narrowed to 2,000 prospects. Given today’s marketing systems, it was easy to treat each of them as a segment of one.

2. We worked really hard to understand our target customers. Our primary targets running these programs are security people; many are former law enforcement officials. They trust their gut, and evidence. So we started with free proofs-of-concept that provided real-time evidence.  The results were inevitably much, much more eye-opening than they had expected. We gave them new insights about their business – in short, we provided evidence that our solution worked.

3. We gave them information they couldn’t get anywhere else.

  • Our blog became a go-to resource, and we didn’t overtly brand it. It was for the industry, plain and simple. And it worked.
  • Then we wrote a book. It worked too, because the content was rich, and relevant, and not self-promotional.  It educated our customers and others in the industry. Because there were very few public places where they could get this kind of education, it was effective.
  • We created our own version of must-attend industry events. We called them “Peer Bank Forums,” and run them more like industry conferences, and much less like traditional vendor events (with a sales pitch at every turn). We bring together peers from across the industry and provide a venue, an agenda and a format that promotes learning and sharing of best practices.

4. We became a leading news source. Fraud is an everyday event in the banking industry, accelerating, and it’s constantly mutating. We noticed an information gap – and decided to fill it – with a news service we publish twice weekly. Anyone can subscribe. Our brand is minimal, but the penetration is strong. And because it’s such a small community, we don’t have to shout for our name to be heard.

We continue do several other things, of course, to reinforce our connections and our brand. Because our target market is so intimate and focused, we track everything and have a very tight read on what each of our individual prospects has opened, read and responded to.

It is working? Absolutely. Growth has been phenomenal, and these investments in branded- and unbranded-outreach will continue. The deal cycle is still long; and time can kill any deals. But so does silence.

By the way, we’re flattered that our competitors are beginning to follow in our footsteps.