What value does FX education really have? MTE-Media’s Erez Shifron uncovers the key points

Opinions vary tremendously with regard to the value and virtue of educational packages provided to retail traders by individual providers and brokers alike.

Indeed, with retention of existing customers right at the top of the list of priorities within the boardrooms of many retail FX firms, effective educational tools for retail traders are a large priority and with courses ranging from short videos which are available on broker websites to extensive, academic studies provided by the University of Essex Online.

Today, FinanceFeeds spoke to Erez Shifron, CMO at MTE-Media, a prominent figure and regular speaker at FX industry events, in order to gain an indepth perspective.

Education in the FX industry is still an integral part of any broker’s conversion and marketing strategy with video leading the way, however; with most brokers offering education in some form or another, has this led to educational services being simply viewed as a promotional offer instead of an important part of every traders development and retention. What is your perspective on this?

First we need to understand why education has such a big contribution to marketing and retention strategies.

Most of the traders are not professional traders to say the least and their trading knowledge is very limited.

For example, in the retail market if we want the trader to do the actual trading himself, then in my opinion three levels of confidence must be achieved before a trade can be executed:

1: Confidence in the brand

2: Confidence in the trading platform

3: Confidence of the trader in himself.

Whilst there are a number of ways in which the first two levels can be achieved, the last level, which refers to the confidence that a trader has in his own abilities, can be achieved with education and trading ideas only. This is why education is and will remain a major feature within FX marketing and retention.

Still, when a broker needs to choose his educational offering it is important to make sure that the broker’s product is actually educating his traders. A major mistake which some brokers make is to provide very short videos. Can anyone become confident in himself to trade after watching a few short videos?

Obviously not. In addition, in-depth courses, videos and eBooks alone are not enough. Once the trader feels confident the broker needs to help the trader to actually open a position.

This is done by providing market research tools such as Economic Calendar, Signals, Chart, News and other similar tools.

What is new in the education sector? In terms of new technologies, methods or mediums that we can expect in the coming years?

At MTE-Media we make sure the brokers who work with us are always getting the best service in the industry.
Therefore, we are continuously improving the technology and services. Currently we are working on better integration in the variety of brokers’ funnels as better integration will lead to better usage and better efficiency.

Market research is also a key factor within education services.

 

These days the new technology allows brokers to give their traders fluent experience by offering education and market research when one feature contribute the other, for example: learning about technical analysis and then going to charts published by analysts.

In the future we’ll see better tools, and new features which helps the broker to use education in its overall business strategy and education and market research based self-funnels will become at least 50 percent of the industry.

To be a successful trader, it is believed that one requires a certain personality type, intensive training, and heaps of time on the trading floor under supervision. How relevant are quick “learn how to trade” solutions toward long term success of retail investors?

In a nutshell, while “quick” videos are effective in terms of acquisition, they are quite useless for the long term success of retail investors. What does work quite well is a combination of in-depth courses, advanced strategies and ongoing trading analysis used by the sales and retention teams.

Let’s talk about content marketing and how education can play a role long term as part of a broker’s content marketing strategy.

Since education and market research is so attractive for most retail traders, it makes sense to use it. There are several ways of usage which are proven to be very effective in a long term content marketing strategy:

PPC: Lower keyword costs + relevant content + vertical with higher lifetime value.

Email campaigns: Daily emails with insights, emails which are sent throughout the trader life time. Each email contains different topic.

Call center support: Many call center employees will find it very useful to have all the education and research tools handy. For example: signals and economic events can help to help traders to open positions. Sending traders some strategies can also help a call center representative to close deals.

Loyalty program: Dividing the content offering into several levels and each client is getting access according to his level. Note that it’ll work only if the content is real and not series of short videos.

Behavior based content: Today’s technology allows broker to segment traders based on their behavior. Sending the right content in the right time can be a great tool. For example, a trader who has spent too much of his portfolio on one trade can be introduced to capital management lessons.

The sky is the limit but the above have been proven to be effective.

What can be improved on within the FX education industry as a whole considering that it has become a huge industry feeding off the desire of retail customers to learn how to trade successfully and in turn lured in many scam or unqualified participants who prey on this desire?

This question is actually similar to the previous one about the future of the industry: Improving the usage of education and market research in self-funnels and better integration in the variety of funnels are all things that can and will be improved in the coming years.

Photograph: Erez Shifron in Harbor Road, Hong Kong. Copyright FinanceFeeds