Smart segmentation, GDPR and emails: Marketing insights from FinanceFeeds Cyprus FX Industry Seminar

Is email marketing gone for good? How have the new regulations reshaped Forex marketing? What are the new solutions that form the sine qua non for a brokerage’s marketing department? These are some of the questions that were discussed by the participants in a marketing panel during the FinanceFeeds Cyprus FX Industry Seminar that took place on June 21, 2018 at the St Raphael Resort in Limassol, Cyprus.

The participants in the marketing panel, moderated by FinanceFeeds’ CEO Andrew Saks-McLeod, included: Laoura Salveta, Director of Marketing at 120advertising; Maya Kenner Fitoussi, Head of Professional Services at Leverate; Yaara Rozenblat, Head of Marketing at Leverate; and Tamir Salman, Product Manager, Leverate.

The panel discussion was preceded by a keynote speech delivered by Maya Kenner Fitoussi who presented a brief history of the evolution of marketing and highlighted the need to redo the whole game via smart analytics and smart engagement. She emphasized the importance of enhancing customer experience by means such as capturing emotions. She also underlined the necessity to overcome the “bonus culture” and to focus on the building of broker-client relationship that may provide a genuine customer experience. The quality of the experience is crucial, Maya Kenner Fitoussi said. This means less spam and no bombarding of the customer with emails.

The marketing panel discussion initially focused on the quality of customer experience and on how brokerages may empower themselves to do marketing correctly and provide such experience to their customers.

Tamir Salman noted the challenges that the new regulations, especially GDPR, have presented to traditional marketing approaches. The numerous emails that each member of the audience has received in relation to GDPR were mentioned as an example of how burdensome these new rules may be for companies and their clients. Apparently, GDPR has exposed the problems associated with email marketing, at least the traditional way that it is done, and has raised the need for a more personalized approach towards the customer. A brokerage has to understand what the customer cares about.

Laoura Salveta said that she is a firm believer in segmentation but warned that such an approach is time-consuming.

Maya Kenner Fitoussi added that there is now a need for smart segmentation and that brokerages have to know how their clients behave in order to bring them from where they are now to where they want them to be.

Tamir Salman stressed that email is not dead, as for some people it remains the preferred channel. Laoura Salveta agreed by adding that mass emails don’t work and that the approach should be specific.

The need to measure marketing effectiveness and success in new ways was also highlighted. Tamir Salman stressed that instead of traditional measures like CPA and impressions, this effectiveness is now measured by cost per experiment.

The participants also replied to questions from the public about the problems associated with old-school sales processes and the need to overcome traditional sales pitches. There were also questions about gamification and why it seems that it has been gone from the industry for some time. The comment regarding the latter question was: because of regulations.