Being on both sides of the trading industry’s stage I’ve noticed that my perspective happened to be quite unique and that I can observe events and their effects taking pretty much objective stance.
In Comparic our job is mainly to help brokers to promote their offers. However, to provide a high quality service we often need to advise them. In the same time we keep strong relations with traders taking part in social and educational projects. I’ve noticed that most brokers choose one of four possible approaches which I would like to outline here speaking of pros and cons and hoping that you will find it interesting.
1. Banners, clicks and accounts
Brokers want money. Most basic way the usual retail broker thinks can be simplified to‘more clients -> more money’ relation. So their marketing departments often focus on measurable effects reflected in numbers, such as: clicks on adds, leads gathered, registered accounts or number of attendees at sponsored events.
Such approach usually determines type of advertisement and/or advertising content. This way internet is flooded with adverts of how a pretty girl can earn $1000 in just two hours using her laptop. Other advertisements go further using yachts, luxurious cars or millions of dollars. Even brokers, who discovered content marketing or marketing through education still haven’t resigned of those classical tricks mentioned above.
These adverts are showing up continuously over the internet, because people click them and because they seem to generate positive numbers that can be measured. However, not everything can be measured in such simple ways.
Clicks are not essential
Broker can measure how many people registered an account or how many unique viewers have come through a tracking link. This is easy. However, it is harder to measure factors of trader’s loyalty or perception of the brand. For example, if your adverts say that people can make loads of money in just 2 hours of clicking their mouse, they will quickly understand that you have tricked them and they will probably leave your shop.
Message is the right key for the right doors
It is not a secret, that message you are sending out will be essential for building your brand’s image. Therefore, you don’t need to have thousands of clicks on your banner to reach thousands of traders with your message. This is one of most common mistakes broker focused on clicks makes. They shape actions and messages to get effect that misses the point. You don’t need any people to click your ad, you just need the right people that you can provide with service they need.
It is like a shop with cheap clothes. It can advertise Jeans for $1 counting then $100 for shipping when client is finishing his order. The shop will get plenty of clicks but only few deals if any. Meanwhile, a vast majority of visitors will feel tricked and won’t be happy to visit the shop again. Isn’t it better to reach only few clients who can find there exactly what they are looking for? But number of clicks won’t satisfy most marketing guys in this case.
Target the right audience
The trading community is extremely specific and it is uneasy to target the right audience. This should be the area of great attention for every Forex marketer and marketing specialist. We know the case when brokerage company refused cooperating with us on their marketing missing a large amount of traders focused around our channels and meanwhile they bought very expensive ads in TV. Unfortunately, ROI of TV ads was very poor mainly because general public is not particularily interested in such services. This is an example of poor targeting and very bad sense of audience’s specificity.
2. Offering more than others
Due to heavy competition these days, brokers cannot afford to follow only easy ways anymore. It is relatively easy to buy an ad, place a banner or find an IB. But how to shape brand’s image, trader’s perception or relations with the community? How to become one of the top brokers in traders’ minds?
Marketing specialists realized some time ago that they need to offer more than others. It was the time when major brokers started offering an education, financial services (transfers, debit cards) and bonuses. Also, many brokers discovered the social media.
So this is where my part begins. In my work I strive to track and follow social moods regarding brokerage industry in my country. I am observing both community sentiment and feedback about brokers. Thanks to listening to what traders talk about I can spot their needs and I am able to learn from their opinions about brokers, to see their side. And this side is far deeper than many marketing specialists think.
Have them as long as possible
Brokers provide educational content to attract more clients than others but it has also another effect – educated traders stay active longer. Education and impression of skill improvement allow them to control their trading better – they have more successes, they are eager to trade more and to deposit more money. But still, every meaning broker provides some sort of education now even if it is of a low quality.
Get closer to potential clients
Many brokers decide to engage social media somehow at some point in their business. They do it by creating forums, trying to engage traders on independent discussion groups, running blogs or simply buying social media ads. Sometimes it is hilarious and sometimes disastrous but in most cases hardly successful. At first let’s state that a controlled environment like business blog or website with moderated comments and ratings cannot be home for a real community. Full independence is required here.
Social media is a double-edged weapon – you can send a message to potential customers but you can be also sure that you will get a reply. Many replies. Sometimes unfavorable. This is where the hardest part begins. If you will make mistake formulating the message or shape of your ads or if you mistreat your audience in social relations your reputation will surely take a hit. Such cases of misconduct do not necessarily has to be made on purpose – inexperienced marketing specialist who is great at buying banners and measuring clicks is not able to analyze the real feedback which he will face in social media. Therefore, we see here and there examples of marketing disasters where companies need to hide comments or pause whole campaigns due to an unexpected reaction from their audience. It is very important to use advise of specialized experts as social media marketing can be both beneficial and pretty dangerous.
They need to like your company
When you combine various tools smartly you may get an outstanding boost to your reputation and real interest in your offer. You need to interact with actual and potential clients, respect their feedback and treat them as thinking human beings instead of sheeps that need to be sheared.
However, it is hard to measure your real influence just with clicks. For example, one of good ways to check your brand awareness is to ask people anonymously about ‘broker they would recommend’ as well as ‘What do you think about broker X?’. You will get a lot of subjective opinions – yes, because it is all about subjectivity. You can also track independent brokerage ratings and feedbacks attached to them.
For example, we are cooperating with a foreign broker who wanted to engage in our country. After couple months they have become one of the first brokers that people were suggesting while answering to ‘What broker’ questions in various discussion groups.
3. Leaving all work to IBs
It is very convenient to let Introducing Brokers do all the work for you and sometimes it is the only possible way of reaching new clients in new regions. If you do not know the culture and language of a country, then you will need some middlemen to introduce your offer there. However, there are couple flaws of such expansion.
You have limited influence on how IBs will advertise your offer while their actions will impact your business’ reputation – they may try to pouch new clients with an aggressive marketing and unrealistic promises. Also, you do not have enough insight in their credibility and their success or failure may burden your brand’s image. Therefore, it is essential to select IBs carefully.
There is another great shortcoming of leaning your expansion on IBs only. Clients they bring to your business are very often more loyal to an IB than to your firm and they may leave just like that because your relation with an IB went bad.
4. Do not expose yourself, go low profile
What often surprises me, there are kind of minimalist brokers who do not want to engage in any kind of open marketing actions. Such brokers choose to sell directly over the phone to contacts from their base which they bought somewhere or acquired in other way – for example a custody bank is able to sell its FX offer over the phone to current clients who use its other services. It seems like this approach saves you marketing mistakes but actually having no marketing is a mistake itself. Saving on marketing projects you resign of influencing people’s thinking – at least in a good way. You can be pretty sure that after reaching certain amount of clients, some feedback will show up here and there and in such case you can’t control the message at all.
Which way to choose?
Obviously you won’t find one true way but rather mix of methods can produce outstanding results. Reaching harmony in a fine marketing strategy is a very individual problem that needs individual approach in each case. I will be happy to provide more insights about optimal strategy and common mistakes brokers make in my future publications.
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