Venmo’s Money Talks financial education series featured a celebrity host in conversation with their community of friends and collaborators.
Branded Content Series
Community-centered stories about money and relationships.
Opportunity
To elevate real people and tell real stories that make talking about money a little less awkward and a little more helpful,
Solution
When Venmo broadened its offerings to younger customers, ages 13 and up, we coupled the launch with a commitment to providing financial information alongside new products tailored to teens and families. Quantitative and qualitative research indicated that young people were searching for advice and info, and turning most often to family and social media for (limited and unreliable) answers. It also showed that they were open to learning from brands like Venmo that they already used and trusted in their daily lives. So, we took the opportunity to build ownable, repeatable, longform content that included community centered conversations, expert-led Q&As, and learning guides for practical topics about friendships and finances. It was all backed by a brand-level content strategy that ensured Venmo’s value remained clear in the minds of our customers.
My role
Content strategy, end-to-end development, strategy refinement and creative direction, script editing, budget management, agency coordination, talent sourcing and management, gaining executive support and buy-in, and an integrated rollout across channels.
The team
This project included a lean in-house team for channel-specific rollout, as well as multiple agency partners.
Process and results
Watch on YouTube at youtube.com/@venmo and see current financial education articles on venmo.com.
To lay the groundwork for customer-centered, outcome-led content at Venmo, I created a holistic content strategy for the brand that would show the value of financial topics and information — regardless of whether Venmo or its products were mentioned — for our audiences. Up until this point, the brand did a lot of push marketing, but not a lot of pull marketing. Offering content that was both informative (useful, generous) and entertaining (relatable, inspiring) created a way for us to engage with customers on topics that mattered to them and furthered their financial journeys, without expecting something in return.
Next, I led the end-to-end development of the Dear Venmo content series featuring a financial therapist and a certified financial educator, as well as Season 2 of Money Talks featuring Grammy-winner Tierra Whacks as host. Content included longform articles and FAQs as well as episodic content and social-first cutdowns.
After creating content and rolling it out across channels, including web, social, and paid media, we tracked brand lift and monitored engagement. Money Talks showed a +6.1% lift in brand consideration and a +1.8% lift in brand preference. Click-through rates in email placements were above benchmarks, and the content resonated most with our churn-risk customers, who engaged with the content at much higher rate than others. Dear Venmo also showed high engagement via email and a +3.2% lift in brand preference. We anticipated that both series would continue to drive positive brand metrics long after the initial brand lift studies.
Most importantly, the content was relevant and useful for Venmo’s youngest customers who were engaging with financial topics and choices for the first time — as students, at first jobs, and while navigating complex roommate and relationship dynamics for the first time. The positive reactions and quality engagement we received from the community, talent, and across the business showed that the content itself was well received.
