Communiqué 66: Come for the content, stay for the money

How PiggyVest used comics, videos, and clever content design to become one of Nigeria's most beloved fintech brands.

1. Do or do not. There is no try

It’s World Savings Day on October 31, 2023. PiggyVest, a Nigerian wealth management fintech, has just released its inaugural Savings Report. Its findings were grim: nearly 30% of Nigerians were in debt, battered by inflation, currency devaluation, and soaring fuel and electricity costs.

PiggyVest had spent the last two years building a content engine that chronicled the financial lives of Nigerians. Tales of hustles, windfalls, and survival found expression across different content formats. But that was not enough. Real influence required stories that were contextualized correctly, with up-to-date data. So, the PiggyVest content team set out to get that data with the savings report. In 2023, they surveyed a little over 1,000 of their users.

The following year saw the team ramp up its effort, polling over 10,000 people, a more representative sample of Nigeria. The results were even more staggering: only 1% of Nigerians could afford to spend more than $609 monthly.

Each report didn’t just make headlines—it reinforced PiggyVest’s position as an authority in Nigeria’s financial industry. The media cited the report, policymakers referenced it, and everyday Nigerians shared it on social media.

The day after the 2024 report launched, PiggyVest received the single largest savings deposit for the year.

Several organizations pay lip service to content as a marketing tool. But, PiggyVest has shown that it could be a worthwhile investment if done right—its content marketing engine has propelled it to over 5 million users and cemented its status as Nigeria’s most influential wealth management platform.

2. Building a blog that converts

When Daniel Orubo resigned from his second stint at Nigerian pop culture publication Zikoko, he had no idea what he would do next. He knew his next job would be in tech, but he was unsure how that would materialize. As he mulled over his future, his close friend, Odunayo Eweniyi—who also happens to be Piggyvest’s co-founder and COO—approached him with an offer to lead the company’s content department.

Orubo and Eweniyi had been friends for years, and he was wary of taking up any job that could muddy those waters. But Eweniyi was persistent and convincing enough, promising creative freedom. She managed to win him over.

From inception, PiggyVest had cultivated a strong social media presence, but there remained an untapped opportunity to drive growth using content. Its blog was the most obvious vehicle.

Orubo’s first instinct was to flood it with articles—a holdover from his time running a busy newsroom. In his first month running the PiggyVest blog, Orubo’s team published three times more than their initial target, driving significant traffic. But traffic by itself was meaningless. "If 100,000 people read an article without bringing in new users, that’s a failure," Orubo told Communiqué.

PiggyVest wasn’t a media company; its content had to fuel growth directly. The team slashed output, focusing instead on fewer, higher-impact pieces designed to guide readers toward a single conclusion: “PiggyVest is the solution to your financial problems.”