Brexit: time to engage

By Nicc Lewis, VP Marketing, Leverate

The Brexit debate in Britain is heating up; each side countering the other with evermore sensational and headline-grabbing claims. Political parties are divided as the country heads into a historic referendum that will decide whether or not Britain remains in the European Union. Does the final outcome matter for brokers? Possibly an exit vote could mean complications with EU versus FCA licenses but on the whole the final result is fairly irrelevant.

The debate and the potential outcome of the vote is another story altogether.

The speculation, the polls and the debate give brokers an amazing tool in retention marketing. The majority of traders have skin in the game. Euro – USD is the most popular pair by far, but you can think of all the combinations of pairs that include Euro or GBP, not to mention the indices and other instruments, and you start to see you have a subject matter that enables you to engage with your traders at a level that they have interest in.

The weekly and sometimes daily news updates, keep the topic hot and very public. We are still a few weeks away from June 23rd and the story does not end there. The post analysis and meaning of the result will run for weeks after.

As an experienced marketer, I thought I would share some tips and leave you with an absolute peach of a tip at the end.

At a very basic level, at this point in time, you should be connecting and communicating with your traders on an ongoing basis, and encouraging them to take positions in order to profit from the direction they see the vote going in and in the interim, the swings created by sensational headlines. At the same time you have the opportunity to easily convert traders into taking positions on new pairs, which they do not normally trade.

Let’s take the example that a new poll indicates Britain may leave. Does that mean that the GBP will be seen as weaker against the Euro without the muscle of a common economic policy? How about the GBP against the Dollar? Maybe the Euro will weaken against other major currencies without Britain’s economy to offset struggling economies such as Greece and Spain? Now you have a variety of trades that are relevant and can be offered.

There is far more you can do to leverage the news and build up the fever in your trading room. As human beings, we always seek peer approval. Running your own polls based on market sentiment can assist traders in making decisions about trades. For example, sending a message to relevant traders that X% of traders are currently buying or selling USD-GPB based on this morning’s headlines could cause traders to act.

Brokers can also look into encouraging long term trades targeted towards June 23rd with short term hedges based on interim fluctuations. If you leverage the Brexit event correctly, suddenly you can see that regardless of the outcome, this is the best thing since sliced bread for your brokerage. Of course, you can also build an acquisition and conversion strategy to leverage the news and have your experts grab a little SEO ranking along the way.

I promised to leave with a peach of a tip. If I were a broker, I would be looking to make my traders my champions and ask the top performing traders to give their ongoing analysis to share with your community. Not only does this offer the peer support we all crave, it builds stickiness with your VIPs as they feel a sense of ownership with the brand.

Be creative, be active, but do not let Brexit pass you by.