Q2

DIGITAL BANKING PIONEER: 10+ product launches, 5 acquisitions, hundreds of earned articles, 3 big awards, 1 integrated marketing strategy

Q2 Holdings, a financial services and technology provider for community banks and credit unions.

The Story

Over seven years of partnership, Red Fan supported Q2’s growth from a promising young tech company through its IPO to become a respected market leader. In its early years, Q2 was focused on delivering technology to community banks and credit unions that provided a seamless, simple user experience for account holders and members. The early days of modern financial services technology, which predominantly arose out of the 2008 financial crisis, built the foundation for the ideas and best practices that guide user experience and the idea of the customer journey today. In the years since, other industries have taken their cue from Q2 and companies like it, and elevated customer expectations about the experience, mobility and digital simplicity in the process.

As the nascent fintech industry grew, so too did Q2’s corporate communication strategy, product roadmap and market share. Through heavy investment in R&D and a series of strategic acquisitions, Q2 began to expand its value proposition and product suite to reach new markets and subcategories within financial services. It developed a new division leveraging open banking technology to provide turnkey solutions to financial institutions. It enhanced its security products and introduced a promising analytics and recommendation engine that helped financial institutions target their marketing to specific customer segments. It acquired several smaller companies and expanded into a new set of services in risk management, account opening and personal lending. In the last decade, Q2 grew at an average rate of 20 to 30 percent every year. Its meteoric rise in financial services and expansion into new markets meant the brand needed a partner who could not only work as an extension of its marketing team and C-Suite, but scale communications and PR strategies to encompass new lines of business with separate target audiences while also keeping its messaging true to its core mission.

To support Q2’s rapid expansion, Red Fan built a fully integrated communications program that included:

  • Media and analyst relations for an expanding product suite that penetrated new markets and fintech categories
  • A thought leadership roster and speakers bureau of more than a dozen executives and subject matter experts
  • Five strategic acquisitions
  • Event, conference and trade association support
  • Sales enablement and integration
  • Owned research
  • Best-in-class PR analytics

By 2019, Q2 saw annual revenue of more than $315 million with a $3.9 billion market cap. It counted among its customer base hundreds of regional community banks and credit unions as well as about a dozen prominent fintech brands, ultimately paving the way for a new generation of financial services technology.

Red Fan Communications’ media relations and thought leadership strategies placed Q2 executives in publications such as Forbes, The Washington Post, The Financial Brand, American Banker, Bank Innovation, The NAFCU Journal, PYMNTS.com, Tearsheet, Credit Union Times and dozens more.

Share this Case Study

The Red Fan team brings a ton of energy, passion and knowledge to everything we do. They’re more than just an extension of our communications team, they work as a truly integrated partner that drives outstanding execution and takes a strategic approach across communications, digital, social and overall marketing programs to help us achieve our goals.

Q2

David Lord

VP of marketing communications

Red Fan is a trusted partner to Q2. They act seamlessly as part of our extended executive team and it shows. I highly recommend Red Fan for any CEO that wants the right team by their side. From the months leading up to our IPO and beyond, we have maintained a strong level of confidence in our PR efforts as Red Fan works seamlessly alongside our internal IR, legal and marketing teams. Kathleen and her team act as part of our extended executive team, and it shows.

Q2

Matt Flake

CEO
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