Fintech companies can compete for share of voice against much larger brands by focusing on specialized expertise, consistent media visibility, original insights, executive thought leadership and authority within a clearly defined industry conversation.
A company does not need the largest marketing budget—or the largest market share—to become one of the most visible voices in its category.
That distinction is particularly important in fintech.
Large, established brands have obvious advantages. They may have bigger communications teams, larger advertising budgets, greater name recognition and decades of relationships across financial services. They can sponsor major conferences, commission expensive research and generate significant corporate news.
But public relations creates a different kind of competitive environment.
PR rewards companies that can provide credible expertise, useful information, original perspectives and knowledgeable executives when the market needs them.
That means a fintech company with 100 employees can sometimes earn a share of industry conversation that rivals—or even exceeds—a competitor many times its size.
The goal isn’t simply to be louder than the largest company in the market.
It’s to become one of the companies buyers, journalists and industry leaders consistently associate with the issues that matter.
What Is Share of Voice in Fintech PR?
Share of voice in fintech PR is the percentage of relevant industry visibility and conversation a company earns compared with its competitors.
That visibility can include:
- Earned media mentions
- Executive quotes
- Contributed articles
- Podcast appearances
- Conference speaking opportunities
- Proprietary research citations
- Backlinks
- Analyst commentary
- Industry awards and recognition
- Search visibility
- Visibility in AI-generated answers
Traditionally, companies have measured share of voice primarily by counting media mentions.
But the number of mentions doesn’t necessarily indicate the amount of influence a company has.
Consider two fintech companies.
Company A receives 50 media mentions during a quarter, many of which are brief references in funding announcements, product roundups or syndicated press releases.
Company B receives 20.
At first glance, Company A appears to have greater share of voice.
But suppose Company B’s CEO is regularly quoted discussing the industry’s most important issue. Its executives contribute articles to publications read by the company’s target buyers. Reporters proactively contact the company for commentary. Its proprietary research is cited by other industry experts. And when prospects research the issue, Company B repeatedly appears.
Which company actually owns the conversation?
Increasingly, the answer is Company B.
Effective share of voice isn’t simply about how often your company appears.
It’s about what your company becomes known for.
That distinction creates an enormous opportunity for smaller fintech brands.
Can a Smaller Fintech Company Really Compete With a Much Larger Brand?
Yes. A smaller fintech company can compete with larger brands for share of voice because industry authority is not determined solely by company size, revenue or marketing spend.
Media visibility is influenced by factors smaller companies can control, including:
- Expertise
- Responsiveness
- Originality
- Data
- Executive accessibility
- Message clarity
- Consistency
- Relevance to current industry issues
A large fintech company may dominate market share while a smaller competitor becomes the more visible authority on a particular issue.
That is why smaller companies shouldn’t necessarily try to match larger competitors announcement for announcement or campaign for campaign.
They should compete for authority.
How Can a Fintech Company Increase Share of Voice?
Fintech companies can increase share of voice by following a focused authority-building strategy:
- Identify a specific industry conversation the company can credibly own.
- Align that conversation with issues important to target buyers.
- Develop executives into recognizable subject-matter experts.
- Build relationships with relevant trade media.
- Respond quickly to breaking industry developments.
- Develop differentiated opinions rather than repeating industry consensus.
- Turn internal expertise and proprietary data into external content.
- Create multiple expert spokespeople across the organization.
- Maintain consistent visibility instead of relying on occasional major announcements.
- Measure whether the company is gaining visibility around strategically important topics.
The common thread is focus.
Smaller fintech companies generally cannot dominate every industry conversation.
They don’t need to.
What Industry Conversation Should Your Fintech Company Own?
The best conversation for a fintech company to own sits at the intersection of three things:
what the company knows, what its buyers care about and what the market is actively discussing.
One of the biggest mistakes fintech companies make is trying to establish authority around overly broad categories.
They want to be known for digital banking.
Or payments.
Or lending.
Or artificial intelligence.
Those categories are enormous. Hundreds or thousands of companies may be competing for attention within them.
Instead, narrow the territory.
A payments company might focus specifically on instant payments adoption among community financial institutions.
A lending technology provider could become an authority on reducing abandonment during digital loan applications.
A digital banking company might focus on vertical banking strategies.
A fraud technology provider could specialize its commentary around a particular emerging fraud threat.
A company that consistently owns a small but important industry conversation eventually earns permission to participate in larger ones.
You don’t have to own the market to own an important conversation within it.
How Can Smaller Fintech Companies Get More Media Coverage?
Smaller fintech companies can earn more media coverage by positioning their executives as useful expert sources, rather than relying exclusively on company announcements.
Large companies naturally generate news.
They acquire companies. They announce major partnerships. They raise significant funding rounds. They hire prominent executives. They launch products across large customer bases.
Smaller fintech companies often look at that volume of news and conclude they don’t have enough announcements to compete.
But announcements are only one component of fintech PR.
Expertise can generate visibility even when the company has nothing new to announce.
Financial services reporters constantly need knowledgeable sources who can answer questions such as:
- Why aren’t financial institutions adopting a particular technology?
- What is preventing instant payments from reaching their potential?
- How is artificial intelligence changing banking operations?
- What does a new regulation mean for community banks and credit unions?
- Why are certain fintech strategies failing?
- What should financial institutions be preparing for next?
A fintech executive can answer those questions regardless of whether the company employs 50 people or 50,000.
That creates one of the most important competitive advantages available to smaller fintech companies:
Reporters don’t necessarily need the largest company. They need the best source.
The best source is often the executive who responds quickly, understands the issue, offers an interesting perspective and can explain it clearly without turning every answer into a sales pitch.
Why Does Trade Media Matter for Fintech Share of Voice?
Trade media can help fintech companies reach highly concentrated audiences of potential buyers and industry influencers.
Fintech companies sometimes view national business coverage as the ultimate measure of PR success.
National coverage can certainly be valuable.
But trade media often has a much more direct relationship with the people actually making technology purchasing decisions.
Banking executives read banking publications.
Mortgage executives follow mortgage publications.
Credit union leaders follow credit union media.
Payments professionals follow payments news.
These publications also tend to cover specialized financial services issues with greater depth than general business media.
That makes trade media one of the most effective places for smaller fintech companies to compete for share of voice.
An executive who consistently provides useful commentary to industry reporters becomes a familiar source.
Familiarity creates trust.
Trust leads to more interviews.
More interviews create greater visibility.
Eventually, something important happens:
The reporter stops waiting for your PR team to pitch the executive and starts contacting the executive directly.
At that point, the company has moved beyond pursuing individual media placements.
It has become part of the industry’s information ecosystem.
Why Can Smaller Fintech Companies Sometimes Move Faster Than Large Competitors?
Smaller fintech companies can often respond to media opportunities faster because they have fewer layers of approval and greater executive accessibility.
Large organizations have resources.
They also have bureaucracy.
An interview request may need approval from communications, legal, compliance, executives and other stakeholders before anyone can respond.
By the time the company approves a comment, the reporter may already have filed the story.
Smaller fintech companies can turn their size into an advantage.
A reporter covering breaking industry news may need an expert within an hour—not tomorrow afternoon.
If your executive can respond quickly with an intelligent, usable perspective, company size becomes largely irrelevant.
This requires preparation.
Executives should understand the company’s core messages before an opportunity arrives. Communications teams should know which executives can address which topics. Approval processes should be established before breaking news occurs.
When the opportunity appears, the company can move.
In media relations, being the best source tomorrow often loses to being a very good source today.
Why Do Fintech Executives Need a Strong Point of View?
Fintech executives need a strong point of view because generic commentary rarely differentiates a company or establishes thought leadership.
Consider statements like:
“Artificial intelligence will transform banking.”
“Consumers expect seamless digital experiences.”
“Financial institutions must embrace innovation.”
“Fraud is becoming more sophisticated.”
“Community financial institutions need to modernize.”
These statements aren’t necessarily wrong.
They’re simply not particularly interesting.
Reporters and industry audiences don’t need another executive repeating conventional wisdom. They need experts who can explain what others are missing.
Perhaps your company believes banks are approaching AI adoption backward.
Maybe you believe the industry is dramatically overestimating the importance of one technology and underestimating another.
Perhaps your data shows that a widely accepted assumption about consumers isn’t true.
Maybe everyone is talking about the problem incorrectly.
Strong thought leadership doesn’t require manufacturing controversy.
It requires saying something substantive.
A useful test is:
Could one of your competitors put its CEO’s name on your quote without changing anything?
If the answer is yes, the quote probably isn’t differentiating your company.
How Can Fintech Companies Turn Internal Expertise Into Thought Leadership?
Fintech companies can turn internal expertise into thought leadership by identifying recurring insights from sales, product, implementation, customer service and executive teams and transforming those insights into useful external content.
Many fintech companies already possess valuable industry intelligence.
The problem is that it never leaves the organization.
It sits inside:
- Product meetings
- Customer conversations
- Implementation teams
- Sales calls
- Executive discussions
- Customer support data
- Platform usage data
PR and marketing teams should regularly ask:
What questions are prospects suddenly asking sales?
What problems are implementation teams seeing repeatedly?
What objections keep appearing during the sales process?
What trends are customers noticing?
What surprising behavior is appearing in product data?
What predictions are executives making internally?
Those insights can become media pitches, contributed articles, research, executive commentary, webinars, conference presentations and social content.
The objective is straightforward:
Turn what your company knows into what the market knows your company for.
How Can Original Research Increase Fintech Share of Voice?
Original research can increase share of voice because it gives a fintech company proprietary information that competitors and journalists may need to cite.
Large competitors may have greater brand recognition.
They don’t have your data.
A fintech platform may be able to analyze aggregated trends involving:
- Transaction behavior
- Application activity
- Fraud patterns
- Lending
- Digital engagement
- Payment activity
- Account opening
- Customer behavior
Companies can also commission original surveys of financial institutions, executives or consumers.
The best research reveals something unexpected rather than simply confirming conventional wisdom.
For example:
A large percentage of financial institutions may say AI is a strategic priority, while only a small percentage have deployed it meaningfully.
Consumers may say they prefer digital banking but still want human assistance during complex financial decisions.
Financial institutions may describe a strategy as important while allocating few resources toward implementing it.
Those gaps create stories.
One strong proprietary data set can generate a research report, media coverage, contributed articles, executive commentary, webinars, conference submissions, infographics, sales materials and social content.
More importantly, other people begin citing the company’s research.
At that point, the company is no longer simply participating in an industry conversation.
It is supplying evidence for it.
Should a Fintech Company Have More Than One Media Spokesperson?
Yes. Developing multiple subject-matter experts can increase the number of industry conversations in which a fintech company can credibly participate.
The CEO doesn’t need to comment on everything.
A chief technology officer may be better positioned to discuss AI or infrastructure.
A risk executive may speak about fraud and compliance.
A chief product officer can address product trends and customer behavior.
A chief revenue officer may offer insight into financial institution purchasing patterns.
Subject-matter experts deeper within the organization may have even greater credibility on highly technical topics.
This creates multiple entry points into relevant media conversations.
Instead of becoming known as a company with one quotable CEO, the organization becomes known as a broader source of industry expertise.
Is Consistent PR More Important Than One Major Media Placement?
For building long-term share of voice, consistent relevant visibility is generally more valuable than relying on an occasional major media placement.
A single major article can create excitement.
It rarely creates market authority by itself.
Authority is cumulative.
A prospect sees your CEO quoted in an industry article.
Two weeks later, they encounter another executive discussing the issue.
The following month, they read a contributed article from your company.
Then they hear your executive on a podcast.
Later, they see proprietary research cited during a conference presentation.
Eventually, your company begins to feel bigger than it actually is.
People rarely remember exactly where they first encountered a brand.
They remember that they keep encountering it.
That is the compounding effect of sustained PR.
Can PR Help a Fintech Company Appear in AI Search Results?
PR can contribute to a stronger digital authority footprint by generating credible third-party mentions, executive visibility, backlinks, expert commentary and clear associations between a company and specific topics.
However, no PR strategy can guarantee that a particular company will appear in an AI-generated answer.
The opportunity is broader than that.
A prospect researching a fintech provider may now encounter a company through Google, LinkedIn, an industry publication, a podcast, an analyst report or an AI platform.
Consider the questions a potential buyer might ask:
- Who are the leading providers in this fintech category?
- Which companies specialize in this problem?
- What are the biggest trends affecting this area of banking?
- Which fintech companies work with community financial institutions?
- Who are the experts on this topic?
- What should I consider when selecting this type of fintech provider?
Then consider the digital evidence available to answer those questions.
Does your company consistently publish useful information about the topic?
Are executives quoted by credible third-party publications?
Do industry publications associate your company with the problem you solve?
Is the company’s positioning consistent across its website, media coverage and executive content?
Has the company produced original research?
Do other authoritative sources cite the company’s executives or data?
A company that consistently creates these signals establishes a stronger digital footprint than one that relies exclusively on promotional content published on its own website.
That means the same authority-building strategy that supports traditional PR can also support SEO, answer engine optimization (AEO) and broader AI discovery.
How Should Fintech Companies Measure Share of Voice?
Fintech companies should measure share of voice using both quantity and quality, rather than simply counting the number of media mentions.
Useful metrics can include:
- Total earned media mentions
- Share of relevant coverage compared with competitors
- Coverage in priority publications
- Executive quote frequency
- Inbound media requests
- Key-message inclusion
- Backlinks from authoritative websites
- Visibility around priority industry topics
- Referral traffic from earned media
- Branded search activity
- Competitive search visibility
- Research citations
- Sales-team usage of earned media
- Prospect references to media coverage
- Visibility within relevant AI-generated answers
The most important question is not:
“How many media placements did we get?”
It is:
“Are we becoming more visible and authoritative around the issues that influence our buyers?”
That is a much more meaningful measure of fintech PR performance.
What Is the Best Share-of-Voice Strategy for a Smaller Fintech Company?
The best strategy is to focus narrowly, build genuine expertise and appear consistently wherever buyers encounter the issue your company wants to own.
Smaller fintech companies should not try to imitate the communications strategy of much larger competitors.
Instead:
Own a specific conversation. Identify an important problem or trend where your company has genuine expertise.
Prioritize relevant audiences. Focus on the publications, events and platforms that influence your actual buyers.
Make executives useful. Develop subject-matter experts who can explain complex issues clearly and offer distinctive perspectives.
Move quickly. Use a smaller organization’s agility to respond to media opportunities faster than larger competitors.
Create proprietary authority. Use internal expertise, customer insights and original data to produce information others cannot easily replicate.
Build consistently. Treat PR as a sustained authority-building program rather than a sequence of isolated announcements.
Connect PR with search and AI visibility. Make it easy for people—and increasingly the systems helping them research—to understand what your company does and what it knows.
You Don’t Have to Be the Biggest Brand to Become a Leading Voice
Smaller fintech companies often assume size puts them at a disadvantage in PR.
Sometimes it does.
But size also creates opportunities.
Smaller organizations can often move faster. Their executives may be more accessible. Their perspectives may be less filtered. They can focus intensely on specialized areas of expertise. They can react quickly to market developments. And they may be willing to articulate perspectives that larger organizations cannot.
The mistake is trying to behave like the larger competitor.
You don’t need its communications department.
You don’t need its advertising budget.
And you don’t need to appear everywhere it appears.
You need to identify the conversations that matter most to your buyers and become disproportionately visible within them.
Because the company with the most market share doesn’t automatically own the industry’s attention.
And the company with the largest marketing budget doesn’t automatically become its most trusted expert.
In fintech PR, authority can be built.
Visibility can compound.
And a smaller fintech company with a focused, consistent communications strategy can build a share of voice that far exceeds its relative size.
You don’t have to be the biggest company in your category to become one of its biggest voices.
Frequently Asked Questions About Fintech Share of Voice
What is share of voice in fintech PR?
Share of voice measures a fintech company’s visibility within relevant industry conversations compared with competitors. It can include media coverage, executive commentary, thought leadership, research citations, backlinks, speaking opportunities, search visibility and other indicators of industry authority.
How can a small fintech company compete with larger competitors?
Smaller fintech companies can compete by specializing in specific industry topics, developing credible executive experts, responding quickly to media opportunities, creating original research and maintaining consistent visibility in publications and channels their buyers trust.
Does a fintech company need frequent press releases to increase share of voice?
No. Press releases can support a communications strategy, but companies can build substantial visibility through expert commentary, contributed articles, proprietary research, media interviews, podcasts and timely responses to industry developments.
Why is trade media important for fintech PR?
Trade publications reach concentrated audiences of banking, credit union, mortgage, payments and fintech professionals. Because these audiences often include buyers and industry influencers, relevant trade coverage can have significant value even when the publication’s total audience is smaller than a national media outlet.
Can PR support fintech SEO and AEO?
Yes. PR can support SEO and AEO by increasing credible third-party mentions, backlinks, expert citations, topical authority and consistent associations between a company and the subjects it specializes in. PR alone does not guarantee rankings or inclusion in AI-generated answers, but it can strengthen the broader authority signals surrounding a brand.
How long does it take to build share of voice?
Building meaningful share of voice is typically a sustained process rather than the result of one media placement or campaign. Companies build authority through repeated, relevant visibility that gradually creates stronger recognition among journalists, buyers and other industry participants.