Here’s why you should join us at The Forum 2018 May 7-9th in Las Vegas.

1) The latest financial marketing ideas, actionable insights and networking with peers!
The Forum 2018 brings specialists in banking, financial services, digital marketing and design explaining the “how to,” not just “why you should” — three straight days loaded with strategy sessions, killer keynotes, and in-depth workshops.  The Forum 2018 Agenda.

2) Learn from the best in the business.
No one goes to a conference to listen to a bunch of consultants make sales pitches. Which is precisely what makes The Financial Brand Forum different. Our speakers never “sell from the stage.” When we build our agenda, we look for one thing only: the smartest teachers we can find — period. The Forum 2018’s world-class lineup includes speakers including, Guy Kawasaki, Randi Zuckerberg,

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We’ve accelerated growth for Fintech and financial service companies at all stages of growth.

Whether it’s a humble startup, recently nourished with their first investment, or a blue-chip brand looking for exponential growth, both will likely hit a wall at some point. That’s usually when our phone rings looking for help.

Here are a few key questions to ask yourself:

1. You’re short on experienced resources

Assessing the competition’s marketing efforts can be a heartbreaker. You know you need to establish/re-establish yourself but you don’t have the staff or expertise to pull off what you want to achieve.

2. Sales pipeline needs priming and conversion rates are poor

When filling your sales pipeline and meeting conversion goals cause you to let out a “BIG SIGH! It’s equally heartbreaking to tinker with website copy, email marketing, paid advertising,

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Having been personally involved in crafting Finovate pitches and having seen many dozen more, I know how exhilarating and scary it can be. You’re putting it out there, trying to communicate all of your hard work and vision to a room full of fintech practitioners, partners and investors (don’t forget the investors!), to tell them that you are the next big thing in financial services — all in seven minutes.

If just the thought of it makes you break out in a cold sweat, here are five tips to remember that might help you prepare for your big moment in the spotlight:

1. Keep it stupid simple – I know, the saying is “Keep it simple, stupid” (KISS), but I prefer to take it a step further. Keeping it “stupid simple” doesn’t mean dumbing it down, but getting to the very basics of your offering.

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A single ant can bear 5,000 times its own weight – not too shabby for such a small insect. But strong as they are individually, ants are most impressive when seen in their colonies. Each ant serves a necessary function, whether that’s gathering food, laying eggs, or protecting the queen. Together, they sustain a thriving, dynamic colony.

Marketing teams, whether internal or a collection of outside resources or contractors, can learn something from these tiny heavyweights. Rather than each person toiling away in isolation, everyone should collaborate and innovate together for the greater good of the company.

When you draw customers into your pipeline, you must give them a coordinated path to follow. You can’t delight them with a fun social media post, then expect them to follow up on their own. Clear calls to action turn prospects into customers.

Establishing that path requires a team effort,

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When you first launch a new site or even a new digital marketing campaign, traffic seems like the Holy Grail. All you want is to see those numbers climb in your analytics data, so you sweeten the deal for prospective visitors. Maybe you run a free iPad giveaway or a car sweepstakes. Everyone likes free stuff, and those shiny contests will bring people to your site in virtual droves.

But somehow those droves turn into barely a trickle when it comes to conversion numbers. Your brilliant marketing strategy brought in lots of eager giveaway participants and very few actual prospects. The sales team often takes the blame for those low conversion rates, but the fault actually lies with marketing. Your sales representatives can’t do much with leads who are only interested in freebies.

The Price of Traffic

There’s traffic and then there’s good traffic.

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So far, we’ve looked at trends in Lending, Payments and Security leading up to Money 20/20. This week, we present the last in our series – cool companies and technology to see at the show.

What makes a company cool? Nothing more than we like what they are doing and how they are doing it. This completely subjective category is made up of companies and technology that has impressed us, or new ways of doing things that made us say, “hmmm.”

So without further ado and in no particular order, here are CSTMR’s “8 Cool Companies to Watch” at Money 20/20:

1. NYMBUS – While other companies have nibbled around the comfortable edges of banking, NYMBUS is taking it right to the heart of the bank – the core.

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