The Fintech Marketing Lab

Araminta interviews Paul Staite and James Hayward at Primer, a unified infrastructure platform for global payments and commerce. They explain why traditional SaaS marketing playbooks often fail in payments due to long sales cycles, hard-to-demo “background” products, extreme regional and vertical nuance, global-first targeting, multiple personas, and buyers for whom payments is only part of the job. Primer’s lean team succeeds through executive buy-in, data-driven prioritization, tight cross-functional collaboration, and clear goals, while using both quantitative and qualitative attribution signals. Paul describes the “GTM engineer” role and using automation/AI and Clay to surface intent signals into Slack; James shares AI workflows for tone-of-voice consistency. They also discuss Primer’s ungated Payment Pioneers research series and highlight key “first tools” like robust website forms.

Key topics include:

1.  Why traditional marketing playbooks don't really work in payments
2. What’s a go-to market engineer 
3. How Primer operate as a lean, high performing marketing team 

Useful links:

Find Paul Staite on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulstaite/

Find James Hayward on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-h-92178975/

Find Araminta on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aramintarobertson/ 

Mint Studios website: https://www.mintcopywritingstudios.com/

For show notes and more information about guests, head to: https://www.mintcopywritingstudios.com/podcast

This episode was produced by Orama - a video and podcast studio for B2B Fintechs.: 

https://orama.tv/

About Araminta Robertson:

Araminta is the Co-Director of the fintech Marketing Hub and Founder and Managing Director at Mint Studios, a content marketing agency that helps financial services and fintech companies acquire customers and position themselves as experts with content marketing. She also co-manages the 2,000+ person fintech Marketing Slack group, is the host of the Market Like a fintech podcast and co-runs the fintech Marketing Hub's events and conferences.

About Fintech Marketing Lab

Fintech Marketing Lab is a podcast hosted by Mint Studios, a content marketing agency specialized in the fintech and financial services industry. This podcast is where we experiment, explore and break down how fintech marketing actually works in practice. Each episode, our host, Araminta, talks with top fintech marketers about what they’re testing, what they’re learning, and how they’re pushing the boundaries of brand, strategy and team building.

Timestamps:

0:00 Why FinTech Content Matters

01:31 Meet Primer Marketing Leaders

02:59 Why Payments Is Hard To Market

05:44 Global ICP And Persona Complexity

10:13 ROI Proof And Data Gaps

16:31 Building A Content Culture

27:06 What Is GTM Engineering

32:45 Content Team AI Workflows

39:45 Payment Pioneers Research

45:03 Tool Picks And Wrap Up

Tom Rudnai from Demand Genius and Araminta discuss why content is often not viewed as a revenue driver due to attribution challenges, despite its broad impact across the funnel, the rising pressure to make content measurable as AI makes creation easier, the need for “information gain” (tiered from reframing to empirical and conceptual novelty), how AI reshapes discovery and AEO beyond an SEO lens, and why citations appear mostly at conversion-stage prompts. They also cover using content to accelerate deal velocity, enabling sales distribution by removing friction and embedding content into workflows, and how Demand Genius connects web engagement to CRM data to measure content’s pipeline impact.

Key topics include:

1. Why most content fails to drive revenue
2. What information gain really means in the AI era 
3. How AI is reshaping content discovery
4. How to use content to support sales conversations and actually accelerate deal velocity

Useful links:

Find Tom Rudnai on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-rudnai-0539b6151/

Find Araminta on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aramintarobertson/ 

Mint Studios website: https://www.mintcopywritingstudios.com/

For show notes and more information about guests, head to: https://www.mintcopywritingstudios.com/podcast

This episode was produced by Orama - a video and podcast studio for B2B Fintechs.: 

https://orama.tv/

About Araminta Robertson:

Araminta is the Co-Director of the fintech Marketing Hub and Founder and Managing Director at Mint Studios, a content marketing agency that helps financial services and fintech companies acquire customers and position themselves as experts with content marketing. She also co-manages the 2,000+ person fintech Marketing Slack group, is the host of the Market Like a fintech podcast and co-runs the fintech Marketing Hub's events and conferences.

About Fintech Marketing Lab

Fintech Marketing Lab is a podcast hosted by Mint Studios, a content marketing agency specialized in the fintech and financial services industry. This podcast is where we experiment, explore and break down how fintech marketing actually works in practice. Each episode, our host, Araminta, talks with top fintech marketers about what they’re testing, what they’re learning, and how they’re pushing the boundaries of brand, strategy and team building.

Timestamps:

00:00 FinTech Content Ebook

01:13 Ebook Launch Details

01:49 Episode Setup Tom Ruay

03:12 Podcast Intro

03:41 Content Attribution Problem

07:55 Information Gain Framework

10:07 Creating Tier Two Content

13:39 Tier Examples And Distribution

15:50 AEO Beyond SEO Lens

18:09 Demand Genius POV

22:24 Bottom Funnel Debate

25:10 Balancing Trackable Impact

36:49 Dark AI Explained

40:19 Future of Content

Cristina Ciaravalli talks about why sales and marketing often misalign in FinTech and how to build revenue teams that close. Cristina explains what makes FinTech sales uniquely complex—regulation, tri-party deal dynamics, and the need for reps who understand compliance—and highlights common early-stage mistakes such as hiring only one rep, doing shallow discovery, and targeting an overly broad ICP. She outlines how marketing should support sales through assets, storytelling, SEO, targeted campaigns, and events, emphasizing tight feedback loops, shared pipeline reviews, and access to call recordings. They discuss effective ABM as a true sale–marketing partnership with highly tailored experiences, the risks of ABM too early, and why warm outbound and community-driven events outperform AI-driven high-volume outbound that sacrifices trust.

Key topics include:

• Why fintech sales is different and what it requires. 
• The biggest mistakes founders make when building early stage sales teams.
• How sales and marketing should work together to drive revenue. 
• Why warm outbound and ABM are more relevant in today's market.

Useful links:

Find Cristina Ciaravalli, on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cristinaciara/

Find Araminta on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aramintarobertson/ 

Mint Studios website: https://www.mintcopywritingstudios.com/

For show notes and more information about guests, head to: https://www.mintcopywritingstudios.com/podcast

This episode was produced by Orama - a video and podcast studio for B2B Brands: 

https://orama.tv/

About Araminta Robertson:

Araminta is the Co-Director of the fintech Marketing Hub and Founder and Managing Director at Mint Studios, a content marketing agency that helps financial services and fintech companies acquire customers and position themselves as experts with content marketing. She also co-manages the 2,000+ person fintech Marketing Slack group, is the host of the Market Like a fintech podcast and co-runs the fintech Marketing Hub's events and conferences.

About Fintech Marketing Lab

Fintech Marketing Lab is a podcast hosted by Mint Studios, a content marketing agency specialized in the fintech and financial services industry. This podcast is where we experiment, explore and break down how fintech marketing actually works in practice. Each episode, our host, Araminta, talks with top fintech marketers about what they’re testing, what they’re learning, and how they’re pushing the boundaries of brand, strategy and team building.

Kate Young talks about building an event strategy that ties back to company goals and revenue. She shares how her background in neuroscience, music, and museum events shapes her focus on perception, curation, and memorable experiences, and explains how to map event types across the full funnel while balancing budget and bandwidth. They cover practical approaches for limited budgets, including investing in digital thought leadership, hospitality events, and focused programs like summits, as well as how to make big trade shows work through multi-touch activations. She also discusses what makes events feel premium, how to run effective executive dinners, how to staff a “dream team” booth, and why the best swag is what attendees genuinely need.

Key topics include:

1.  How to build an event strategy from scratch
2. How to get buy-in from leadership
3. How to map your events across the full funnel, from awareness all the way to revenue
4. What to do when your budget is limited
5. What makes an event genuinely memorable

Useful links:

Find Kate Young on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kate-young-philadelphia/

Find Araminta on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aramintarobertson/ 

Mint Studios website: https://www.mintcopywritingstudios.com/

For show notes and more information about guests, head to: https://www.mintcopywritingstudios.com/podcast

This episode was produced by Orama - a video and podcast studio for B2B Brands: 

https://orama.tv/

About Araminta Robertson:

Araminta is the Co-Director of the fintech Marketing Hub and Founder and Managing Director at Mint Studios, a content marketing agency that helps financial services and fintech companies acquire customers and position themselves as experts with content marketing. She also co-manages the 2,000+ person fintech Marketing Slack group, is the host of the Market Like a fintech podcast and co-runs the fintech Marketing Hub's events and conferences.

About Fintech Marketing Lab

Fintech Marketing Lab is a podcast hosted by Mint Studios, a content marketing agency specialized in the fintech and financial services industry. This podcast is where we experiment, explore and break down how fintech marketing actually works in practice. Each episode, our host, Araminta, talks with top fintech marketers about what they’re testing, what they’re learning, and how they’re pushing the boundaries of brand, strategy and team building.

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro

02:08 Neuroscience Meets Events

03:58 Museum Curation Lessons

05:47 Designing Multi Path Experiences

08:32 Defining Event Strategy

12:21 Webinar Types And Outcomes

16:58 Trade Shows Full Funnel Week

19:21 Small Budget Playbooks

25:40 Hosting Builds Credibility

32:38 Executive Dinners That Work

36:35 Booth Dream Team And Swag

Michael Treacy shares how OpenPayd’s marketing function evolved as the company scaled from an unknown FinTech startup to a global payments platform with 1,200+ clients and long enterprise sales cycles. We discuss the shift from early-stage brand awareness and lead generation to building trust and running account-based marketing in close collaboration with sales. Michael explains how he structures the team around two core functions—brand and go-to-market—including product marketing and SDRs, and why customer conversations and event presence remain critical. He also covers hiring for intelligence and drive over pure experience, using tools like Gong to improve feedback loops between sales and marketing, and how to justify long-term investments like proprietary research and events when ROI can take 12+ months.

Key topics include:

1. How OpenPayd marketing shifted from brand awareness to ABM 
2. Why Michael structured the team around two specific core functions 
3. How he hires people with skills that he might not personally have 
4. How to justify long-term marketing investments

And a lot more!

Useful links:

Find Michael Treacy on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikeytreacy/

Find Araminta on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aramintarobertson/ 

Mint Studios website: https://www.mintcopywritingstudios.com/

For show notes and more information about guests, head to: https://www.mintcopywritingstudios.com/podcast

This episode was produced by Orama - enterprise fintech podcasts and videos: https://orama.tv/

About Araminta Robertson:

Araminta is the Co-Director of the fintech Marketing Hub and Founder and Managing Director at Mint Studios, a content marketing agency that helps financial services and fintech companies acquire customers and position themselves as experts with content marketing. She also co-manages the 2,000+ person fintech Marketing Slack group, is the host of the Market Like a fintech podcast and co-runs the fintech Marketing Hub's events and conferences.

About Fintech Marketing Lab

Fintech Marketing Lab is a podcast hosted by Mint Studios, a content marketing agency specialized in the fintech and financial services industry. This podcast is where we experiment, explore and break down how fintech marketing actually works in practice. Each episode, our host, Araminta, talks with top fintech marketers about what they’re testing, what they’re learning, and how they’re pushing the boundaries of brand, strategy and team building.

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro

02:17 Marketing to BD Growth

03:36 Wearing Many Hats

05:21 Customer Conversations Matter

06:40 Marketing Team Evolution

09:46 ABM and Trust Building

14:40 Hiring in the AI Era

20:10 Attribution Beyond Lead Source

21:36 Aligning Incentives Sales Marketing

22:35 Gong Insights For Marketers

26:36 AI Content Quality And Differentiation

28:34 Becoming A Product Expert

33:01 Proving Marketing With Long Cycles

What CEOs Actually Want From Their Marketing Leaders | Patrick Huynh, CEO, Fiska

In this episode, Arminta sits down with Patrick Huynh, CEO of integrated payments company Fiska, to unpack how a CEO views marketing. They discuss how payments have evolved from decades of stagnation to rapid innovation driven by e-commerce and integrated, frictionless experiences like Uber. Patrick shares his pragmatic approach to marketing as part of the sales cycle, the metrics he cares about most (customer conversion and revenue), and why leading indicators matter but shouldn’t dominate reporting. They also dive into what Patrick wishes marketers understood about CEO decision-making—keeping communication simple, results-focused, and grounded in trust, domain expertise, and honest progress updates.

Key topics include:

1.  How does he as a Fintech CEO think about marketing? 
2. What are the Marketing metrics CEOs really care about? 
3. How does he evaluate a channel when he knows it's hard to calculate the ROI?
4. And what does a CEO wish more marketers understood about how CEOs make decisions? 

Useful links:

Find Patrick Huynh on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/huynhpatrick/

Find Araminta on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aramintarobertson/ 

Mint Studios website: https://www.mintcopywritingstudios.com/

For show notes and more information about guests, head to: https://www.mintcopywritingstudios.com/podcast

This episode was produced by Orama - a video and podcast studio for B2B Brands: 

https://orama.tv/

About Araminta Robertson:

Araminta is the Co-Director of the fintech Marketing Hub and Founder and Managing Director at Mint Studios, a content marketing agency that helps financial services and fintech companies acquire customers and position themselves as experts with content marketing. She also co-manages the 2,000+ person fintech Marketing Slack group, is the host of the Market Like a fintech podcast and co-runs the fintech Marketing Hub's events and conferences.

About Fintech Marketing Lab

Fintech Marketing Lab is a podcast hosted by Mint Studios, a content marketing agency specialized in the fintech and financial services industry. This podcast is where we experiment, explore and break down how fintech marketing actually works in practice. Each episode, our host, Araminta, talks with top fintech marketers about what they’re testing, what they’re learning, and how they’re pushing the boundaries of brand, strategy and team building.

Timestamps:

00:00 Patrick Huynh: Introduction and Background

02:49 Evolution of the Payments Industry

06:55 Challenges and Responsibilities of Being a CEO

22:41 Personal Insights and Industry Views

27:42 Building Trust and Demonstrating Results

31:06 Challenges in Marketing Leadership

37:05 Understanding CEO Priorities

39:14 Final Thoughts and Farewell