RegTechs & LegalTechs: Dealing with the Downturn
What COVID-19 taught us
As we stand on the precipice of a global economic downturn, thanks in part to COVID-19 and to the ripple effect of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, LegalTechs and RegTechs will be bracing themselves.
Although caution is wise, as we saw as a result of the pandemic, with challenge comes opportunity. Organisations and communities adapted quickly and learned to live in new, innovative ways. COVID-19 fast-tracked businesses into vastly unknown territories with a huge digital shift which has since paved the way in which businesses are now operating.
The uncertainty that came with lockdowns meant that organisations were forced to find the best and safest ways possible to open online and continue to operate. This bought with it an increased urgency to implement technologies to help businesses adapt to the new needs and behaviours of their customers and employees. Working from home bought pressure for organisations to find ways to support and regulate individual activity which meant an increase in tech sales.
The pandemic and regulatory environment further exposed the need for technology solutions. Financial and corporate organisations faced this head on, and like the rest of the world, found ways to adapt and overcome the economic hurdles. According to Custom Market Insights, global RegTech was valued at $6.8 billion in revenues in 2021, with estimates of $8.1 billion for the current year, growing to roughly $44 billion by 2030. So, if COVID-19 is anything to go by, indications are positive that RegTech and LegalTechs will again, fare well. However, there will be hurdles along the way and tough decisions to be made, not least when it comes to marketing and maximising sales pipeline.
Current Challenges
Realistically, in the current economic climate, organisations will need to reduce costs, and when reviewing excess expenditure, technology is a common place to start. Organisations will become even more discerning when it comes to their regulatory software and start to consider if there is another proposition on the market that is more cost effective. That said, they will be looking to automate as much as possible, freeing up their workforce to focus on the day job. Essentially, we will see corporates and financial organisations demanding that RegTech and LegalTech vendors provide more for less.
Not only will RegTechs and LegalTechs feel the pressure from their clients, that pressure will be mirrored by competitors as increasing revenue share becomes King. Marketing budgets will be closely monitored and the decision whether a line item makes the cut will be based on emphatically proving return on investment. For RegTechs and LegalTechs, budgeting and fighting for marketing spend will naturally be challenging with many competing priorities. The closer you can stay to the numbers (pipeline/revenue/ROI), the easier the budget is to obtain. The ability to fully scrutinize and report on performance metrics will be essential. A critical part of forecasting will be linked to understanding existing customers and their current versus potential spend. It is far easier and cheaper to keep and grow existing customers than to seek out and win new ones.
Buyer beware: aimless, short-term cost-cutting initiatives that are not connected to a strategy can cause irreparable damage in the long-term.
How Gungho comes in
As an outsourced B2B marketing function, proving return on investment is not new to us. Brand awareness is the first step, but in the long term, ROI is vital. Over the last 15 years, RegTechs and LegalTechs have been keen to understand why they should complement their in-house sales functions with our services. Through our integrated appointment setting and email marketing service, clients gain access to our proprietary dataset of 400,000+ decision makers within 90,000+ regulated entities including company name, structure, industry, turnover, employee size, assets under revenue, time zone and head office location.
Gungho Marketing’s entire workflow for each client is contained within Salesforce.com. Every activity is logged, and campaign results and analysis are shared weekly. Although clients have constant access to the results, we host post campaign meetings and share the results of each campaign exchanging ideas for the next, so that we can maximise ROI.
Having worked with hundreds of RegTech and LegalTech organisations, we have generated an estimated £1B in revenue. We are an extension of your team and work with our clients to develop a business discovery strategy, including planning, profiling and training. Everything we do is white labelled so that we become part of your marketing team and ahead of any new project starting, ideas are shared to identify the target accounts, audience, countries of interest and if any particular languages required. Consideration is given to likely challenges, the local market regulations and how the campaign might conquer these issues. The competition is meticulously scrutinised, and workflow is built to register and report on likely outcomes.
As specialists in the RegTech and LegalTech B2B marketing space, Gungho has continuously streamlined our processes, improved our data and trained and retained experts in the field. Our knowledge and expertise allows some of the pressure to be taken off our clients as they are safe in the knowledge that they are getting the best bang for their buck.
