In fintech, many companies treat quarterly PR planning as a formal communication task. The PR team prepares a document based on the company’s plan and receives management approval to work according to the agenda. Then, within a few weeks, the plan begins to drift far from what the company is actually doing. By the third month, the PR team is advancing one narrative while the business has moved on to another.
According to Alina Sysoeva, Head of PR at Drofa Comms, this happens when a company pulls away from the discussion of the final goals it wants to achieve. Founders may say they want to raise brand awareness and build trust, but they fully delegate the “hows” to the PR team. As a result, specialists often have to plan an entire quarter without access to the necessary data or an understanding of customers’ beliefs.
As part of our PR Strategy column, Alina shares her insights on overcoming this gap between what a PR team needs and what clients provide. She believes that quarterly plans should be built together with the client’s leadership and based on actual business goals.
Below, we share her perspective on this topic, supported by years of experience in fintech PR:
This Is Not a PR Problem
The gap between a plan and its execution is not a uniquely PR problem, it ranks among the most common failures in business. Roughly two-thirds of strategies, no matter how polished and well-thought-out they are, fail because, at some point, execution breaks down when it meets the reality of day-to-day work. Workers constantly face unexpected obstacles and find ways to overcome them, leading to shifts away from the initial plan.
PR is no exception here, because it often relies on decisions made elsewhere and has to communicate them. When those decisions are not shared early or change without notice, the communications plan suffers too.
This is why so many teams remain reactive toward what is happening. The less context a team has, the more time it spends responding to events rather than shaping them. However, only answering incoming signals rarely helps build reputation and trust. PR teams should address questions before they are asked and be ready to shape the media agenda themselves.
The Gap Between Reality and Plans in Fintech
In fintech, bridging the gap between plans and reality is even more important since trust is the main product there. A single misjudged message sent by a company can cost it confidence, which is much harder to rebuild than awareness.
When a fintech company communicates, it reaches a much wider audience than only its customers and investors, as it is always watched by regulators, banks, and other players. Every word that is said or written shapes the image of the whole industry and affects the company’s image in the eyes of those who make the rules. Being aware of a company’s actions helps PR teams manage these challenges well.
What is more, fintech is an extremely fast-moving environment, where a plan that addressed all the nuances today would be irrelevant tomorrow. A product may change direction two or three times within a few weeks, and regulators can redefine the terms with little notice. The same is true for the journalists covering this space. To get a story published today, a company should offer credibility supported by data, which is only possible if the PR team has that information.
All these challenges and fintech specifics show that a PR plan should not be prepared independently and simply approved by the business.
When it is, nothing prevents the product team and the PR team from moving in different directions and merely reacting to how to close the gaps later. The much better approach is to incorporate business goals into the quarterly plan and discuss every aspect of what a company wants to achieve and exactly how to do it.
Building a Plan That Suits Every Challenge
The value of early involvement is clearest when responding to incoming messages from the media and stakeholders. PR teams cannot answer them well without knowing more than what is being announced. Specialists need to know the product itself and understand how it would be developed.
Quarterly planning should define what the PR team needs to know and where it can obtain the necessary information. What is more important, it should explain how the updates would be translated, because even the best professionals would find it hard to manage incoming questions with outdated product knowledge.
Working closely with PR will also help build consistency. A fintech company should communicate simultaneously with customers, investors, regulators, and partners, and all messages should differ in tone but tell the same story. In practice, most reputational trouble begins with a contradiction between what a company said in a funding announcement and what it said in a compliance disclosure. Holding that line is only possible when communications can see across all of it.
A strong quarterly plan, then, is developed as a partnership. It depends on PR’s understanding of the company’s strategic goals and visibility into the product roadmap. The PR team should be in constant touch with the founder and adjust plans in response to the company’s actions.
Only after these steps does communication begin to benefit the direction in which a company moves.
Conclusion
To build a long-lasting reputation, a company should be consistent, which is not possible with updates that are made once a quarter during the planning. Treating these plans as a formality that should only be signed and then forgotten may be one of the biggest mistakes fintech founders could make.
The good news is that more and more companies recognise the issue — today 84% of communications leaders say their clients are seeking their advice more than in any previous year. Businesses start to understand that reputation is closely tied to strategy and cannot be addressed only after decisions are made.
If your fintech company is planning for the next quarter and wants PR to support real business goals, Drofa Comms can help you turn internal priorities into a clear external communications strategy.
