How to improve outbound sales campaigns for fintech startups in the UK

Cormac Repman
2 days ago
5 min read

Blog Post: Improving Outbound Sales for Fintech Startups in the UK

Fintech outbound is broken. Your campaigns hit the same decision-makers everyone else is targeting, your compliance team is terrified of FCA guidelines, and your conversion rates are half what they should be. We know because we run cold calling teams that specialize in fintech. We've seen what works and what doesn't, and the patterns are clear.

The problem isn't that outbound doesn't work for fintech. It's that most fintech teams don't know how to target it properly. They chase vanity metrics like call volume instead of real meetings. They send generic sequences that trigger every spam filter in London. And they completely misunderstand how compliance actually shapes your strategy—it doesn't constrain it, it focuses it.

Here's how to fix it.

Know Your Actual ICP Before You Touch a List

Most fintech outbound campaigns fail at the list stage. You pull a database export, filter by "fintech company," and call it a day. That's backwards.

Your ideal customer profile needs two dimensions: the buyer's title AND their industry context. A COO at a £2M insurance broker isn't the same as a COO at a £50M B2B platform. They have different budgets, different urgency, different objections.

For fintech specifically, we segment by:

Company size (seed through Series B, Series C+, or established fintechs)

Vertical focus (payments, lending, insurance, embedded finance, compliance tech)

Business model (B2B2C, enterprise SaaS, API-first)

Buyer persona (VP Sales, Sales Director, Operations lead—depends on your product)

Before enriching any list, map out which combination actually converts. One fintech payment processor might land 30% of meetings from CFOs at invoice finance companies. Another might get there through Risk & Compliance heads at neobanks. Don't guess. Test with 50-100 records, measure what sticks, then scale.

When you do enrich, filter ruthlessly. No job titles like "Founder," "Owner," or "Manager" without context. No companies with 3-4 people. No finance roles at marketing agencies. The list you call is 60% of your campaign's success.

Messaging for Fintech Buyers (Specificity Over Polish)

Fintech decision-makers ignore polished copy. They ignore sequences that could apply to any SaaS company. What they respond to is specificity about their actual problem.

Don't say: "We help fintech teams close more deals."

Say: "We're seeing lending platforms struggle to get meetings with CFOs at mid-market accountancies. Takes 40+ calls with generic sequences. We're running dedicated teams that book 3-4 of those per week."

The difference: the second one proves you've worked in their world. You know the buying motion. You know the objection before they voice it.

In your outreach, reference:

Real companies they know (even if they're not prospects—it shows you're not fishing blind)

Specific roles at their company who typically drive the buying decision

Industry dynamics that affect them now (regulatory changes, market shifts)

Your track record with similar buyers, if you have it

For email sequences, keep the copy short. Two sentences max. Fintech teams read fast and decide faster. They're not impressed by storytelling—they're impressed by people who understand their constraints.

One more thing: always mention compliance early if it's relevant. "We've worked with FCA-regulated lenders on this" signals you're not naive. It builds trust immediately.

Compliance Is Your Competitive Advantage

Most outbound teams treat FCA regulations like an obstacle. We treat them like a filter.

The Financial Conduct Authority doesn't ban cold calling. It bans misleading cold calls and targeting of vulnerable customers. For B2B fintech outreach, that means:

You can call businesses, not retail consumers

You can call decision-makers who expect commercial calls (don't target current customers' support lines)

You document that you've tried to find direct contact info first

You respect "do not call" requests immediately

What this actually does: it eliminates 70% of teams operating in your space because they're scared of the rules. You follow them, you have less competition.

Document everything. Capture call dates, numbers, outcomes. If someone says "don't call again," you stop. That's it. This protects you and it's the law. Most UK teams don't do this rigorously enough, which is why campaigns get shut down.

Build a Process That Scales Across Multiple Channels

The highest-performing fintech campaigns we see use three channels in sequence, not in parallel:

1. Email first (2-3 light touches over a week)

2. Phone follow-up (by day 7, after they've seen your name twice)

3. LinkedIn connection (if they don't pick up, connect and engage their content)

Don't email and call on day one. You're not hunting. You're building recognition. By the time they hear your voice, they've seen your company name. That shifts the conversation from "who is this" to "what do you want."

For email:

Subject lines should reference something specific about their company or recent news

Keep body text to 2-3 sentences max

Link to something useful (an article about their vertical, a case study from a peer)

Don't ask for a call—ask a specific question about their workflow

For calling:

After the email sequence has landed

Have their LinkedIn profile open when you dial

Reference something recent (a new hire, a funding round, a recent article they engaged with)

Expect "no" more than you expect "yes"—aim for 10-15% connect rate on cold calling

For LinkedIn:

Connect with a personal note referencing your outreach

Don't pitch in the DM—engage their posts first

Add them to a long-term nurture sequence for the ones who don't book

Measure What Actually Matters

Most fintech teams measure activity. We measure outcomes.

The metrics that matter:

Connects: Conversation started (phone, meeting request via email)

Meetings booked: Confirmed calendar slot

Qualified conversations: They've advanced in their buying process

Cost per meeting: How much you spent per booked meeting

Your target connect rate on cold calling is 8-15%. Meetings from connects is 15-25%. Everything below that means your list or messaging needs work—not your dialer.

Set a threshold: if a campaign isn't hitting 8% connects after 200 dials, pause it. Adjust the list, adjust the messaging, then test again. Don't just dial harder.

Track campaign cohorts, not aggregate metrics. "We got 40 meetings this month" is useless. "We got 12 meetings from accountancy CFOs and 6 from payments product leaders" tells you exactly what works.

Book Fintech Meetings the Way We Do It

Outbound works for fintech. But only if you're specific about who you're calling, honest about what you're solving, and disciplined about your process.

We've built Glencoco, a pay-per-meeting marketplace where you only pay when we actually book a qualified meeting with someone who wants to talk. No setup fees. No monthly retainer. No vanity metrics. You get meetings with UK fintech decision-makers, we handle the cold calling.

If you're running outbound yourself, start with one vertical, one buyer persona, one tight message. Measure connects and meetings. Fix what breaks. Scale what works.

We can help with either. Reach out on [Cal.com](https://cal.com/nurturance) or reply to this if you want to talk through your campaign.