4 ways in which to avoid wasting your marketing dollars
“In many Forex brokerages the marketing department is typically on another floor, or even another building from the sales department” – Yael Warman, Leverate
Marketing a forex brokerage is not easy work. It’s all too easy to get lost in the online media jungle, find your brokerage confused with other services or have your advertising pitch lost in the wave of information and yet all to the effect of bleeding your budget dry. It certainly doesn’t help matters that forex is one of the most expensive and competitive industries around. Like any other industry a definite marketing budget is still absolutely necessary, so the pertinent question is “how do you out-perform your competition, rather than outspend them?” Here are some tips to explain how.
Marketing team needs to work closely with the sales team
In many Forex brokerages the marketing department is typically on another floor, or even another building from the sales department. By bringing the two teams together, incredible value can be realized. The sales team will often have pearls of wisdom for the marketing team, after all they are on the coal face and know exactly what is happening in the minds of the traders. It is these concerns, fears and aspirations that need to be continually addressed by the marketing team as they pitch your product.
Making the bonuses competitive
Bonus promotions are a frequently used tool in attracting new clients, and to provide further incentive for existing clients to reinvest. However, bonus promotions have become something of an arms race amongst brokerages, with each offering larger and larger bonuses to attract clients.
It helps to keep an eye on your competitors’ bonus promotions, to ensure that your promotion is neither unnecessarily generous nor overly stingy. Generous trading requirements can enhance a low bonus and allow the clients to keep the money more readily. This can sometimes help companies that do not like the dilution risk that comes with high bonuses, provide a competitive promotion.
Content truly is King
Trying to conceive quality content that is original, creative, educational and entertaining can be a significant challenge, but it certainly pays off. Placing engaging content on your website, e-mail marketing pieces and social media channels not only earns you quality inbound leads, but warm leads that are likely to convert, as your content empowers them to make an educated decision to use your brokerage services.
The key is in trying to give real value to your readers, things like daily tips, market updates and trading strategies are all good, but you need to also be creative to attract attention. Try to deliver “something that nobody else is doing” and create that competitive advantage.
Stand out from the crowd
Continuing on from the previous point, many forex brokerages fail to effectively differentiate themselves from their competitors by providing added value. All forex brokers will be promoting themselves the same way you will be, by using Google AdWords (expensive though it may be), social media or lucrative affiliate programs.
However when a client actually comes to your doorstep, which in today’s world is your landing page, you need to focus on which of your services provides extra value over your competitors. Ultimately, the offering is determined by management, however, every company has unique features whether it is different leverages, flexibility on trading conditions or even offering an unusual type of number of instruments. While you may have the scope to get even more creative, the point is to highlight something that will really hold value in the eyes of the consumer.
