The PR edge: How FX companies should present themselves to their audience

Our industry is as faceless as it is technologically advanced, due to its online nature. As a result, technology providers, FX brokerages, liquidity firms and innovative vendors alike share a similar requirement, in that the approach that they take toward public relations is essential to their success.

In London, where the top institutional FX firms compete for global market share and have neighbors of high standing in the FX technology, platform and liquidity sectors, positioning and attracting the correct commercial clients is paramount.

Today, FinanceFeeds CEO Andrew Saks-McLeod spoke candidly to Vanessa Green, co-founder and Director of Wigwam PR to gain a detailed insight into how to bring value propositions offered by top quality companies in this industry to its target audience.

Vanessa Green is a highly experienced professional in our industry, representing Gold-i, CFH Group, FXecosystem, Tradable, and Sucden Financial, she has vast experience across the entire spectrum of innovators and industry leaders in London’s prestigious FX business.

In an industry where everyone is offering very similar products and services (almost identical apart from minor variations) and no clear value propositions to set each apart from the other; how does a broker find their niche?

I always think that it’s important to feature the people who are running the organisations and build a personality for the brand. This helps to differentiate all organisations. Of course, if a broker or technology company is first to market or has a unique product or service, there is so much more potential to raise awareness.

As you know, advertising in the ecommerce and online space is the most expensive by a long shot over any other industry. CPA can cost upwards of $600 and even higher when campaigns are not optimised or the broker is new. How would you approach getting a brand out there on a tight budget? – Vanessa Green

We focus predominantly on PR which is by far the most cost-effective strand of marketing. In this industry, the same few titles are read by the majority of the industry and therefore, with a tight budget, I would recommend focusing on gaining a regular editorial profile – through news stories and interviews – in these few titles rather than casting your net wider and having ad hoc articles in a broader range of titles. Keep the PR effort focused and, when more budget becomes available, you can look at widening the target media and extending to more mainstream titles.

It’s important that the PR messages used are an accurate reflection of the broker’s organisation – for example, there is no point in fabricating a positive message about an organisation growing rapidly when those within the industry know that it is hemorrhaging clients. PR is all about communicating an organisation’s key news to its target audiences and raising the profile of the organisation. The skill of a PR consultant is to convey the messages effectively and identify opportunities for editorial coverage.

Outsource marketing for fresh ideas or hire from within the industry?

I would definitely say outsource your marketing as you can usually get better value for money and access to a more experienced team than you would be able to afford to employ. Your outsourced team can bring fresh ideas from other clients and an invaluable external perspective. It’s important that they have a strong understanding of your industry, though.

What advice would you give to industry leaders whom seem stuck in what is believed to best (safe) approach to branding and marketing Forex, to help them and their teams come up with new, fresh and creative approaches to marketing in a crowded digital space?

It’s no surprise that I’d advise them to use PR – and to think beyond advertising. There are a lot of opportunities for a broker to gain online news coverage – and people are more likely read editorial than an ad. We always suggest that organisations promote the media coverage about them on their website and via their social media channels as well as directly to clients and prospects in order to maximise awareness. Use video interviews where possible – as this will help with their SEO – and many companies now have YouTube channels where they can post video updates.

In this industry, PR is often supported by advertising – and it’s important to have an integrated approach so that all marketing messages, whether in PR, advertising or on social media – are consistent.

Wigwam’s first client in this space was Gold-i, almost six years ago, and we were very lucky that Tom Higgins, CEO of Gold-i, gave us an opportunity to work with him. We had a great deal of experience in technology and business to business PR but no understanding of the retail FX industry – and we seized the opportunity to build our industry knowledge quickly. Many of Gold-i’s clients and partners were impressed by the profile that Gold-i was gaining and asked to be put in contact with us. As a result, Wigwam has worked with a number of industry leaders in the retail FX sector over the last five years. We have created bespoke PR campaigns for each client to reflect their strengths.

We focus predominantly on media relations activity – helping clients to identify news stories and drafting the press releases in an appropriate, ‘non-salesy’ style for the media. However, we also have a much wider remit for many clients including copywriting (content for paid for articles or websites), branding (from creating or updating a brand identity) design (exhibition stands/marketing collateral), drafting award entries, organising photography, commissioning research, identifying sponsorship opportunities and developing case studies. As we are well connected in this industry, we are able to alert our clients to a wide range of opportunities to help them to raise their awareness which they may otherwise not have heard about.

Whilst PR can seldom be linked directly to sales, PR works best when we work closely with the sales teams in order to gain an understanding of the key issues they are regularly being asked by prospective clients so that we can reinforce these in our copywriting. We usually work closely with the CEO of an organisation in order to have a full understanding of the company’s strategic direction. This helps us to create more meaningful campaigns. The more we understand about a client’s business, the more we can help them to grow.

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