First Circle

The brief

First Circle is a Philippine fintech company offering simple, affordable financing to businesses that can't get traditional bank loans. As a leading non-bank lender for small and medium businesses, with almost every transaction starting online, it offers several loan types for investment and working capital.

Like many markets, the Philippines is full of loan sharks and unreliable lenders. Beyond building trust in the First Circle brand, our job was to educate SME owners about alternatives to bank financing and connect them with the products that fit their needs.

Challenge

When business owners look for funding online, they search for "business financing". First Circle's flagship product is invoice financing, open to many businesses that don't qualify for bank loans and built for real-time cash needs. Showing people how to search, and what to look for, was key to helping them find the right fit faster.

Research

Two months of keyword research and outreach to prospects and leads showed a complete mismatch between the words customers searched for and the words First Circle used. We had to rethink how we wrote, both to win the search results and to re-educate the audience.

Solution

We created a visual and marketing concept that explains alternative financing options and what each one is for. That helps decision makers choose well, and points them toward First Circle's products.

What we delivered

The outcome

Over our 12-month engagement, First Circle doubled its team and grew traffic significantly across its website and social channels. We hit the year's lead goals and received strong feedback through our client summary video series.