Marketing has come a long way since the early 2000s, and so has the Forex and CFD brokerage industry. It has grown and developed into a staple part of many investors’ portfolios. With its rise in popularity, there are now more brokers than ever before competing to offer similar products and services for your attention.
What distinguishes a good broker from a great broker? Technology.
And no, I am not talking about expanding your trading platform technologies. Although the top 5 brokers in the space (FXCM, Gain Capital, IG, Saxo, Plus500) all offer their own unique trading platform that sets them apart from the run-of-the-mill MetaTrader 4-only brokers, the true difference is this: their capacity to MARKET the perception of a different product while providing similar product advantages as everyone else. By doing this they are building of core product advantages other brokers are using and providing a differentiator to draw more attention to their brand. To do this these brokers use enterprise marketing technologies, which enables them to target the right user at the right time in the right place, and help drive conversion to their brand, even when using the same type of messaging and offers. Marketing technologies are what make the top brokers stand out from the rest of the pack, using them well will allow you to take advantage of the shortcomings of many smaller brokers.
Let’s look at an example: email marketing technology. Yes, there are Small Business Mass Email Providers like Constant Contact and MailChimp (I’ve even setup Constant Contact for DailyFX back in the early days so Analyst [non-tech users] could send their Research out to different opt-in groups). These are great tools for Small Businesses. However, if you dream of becoming a big player in the space, you cannot simply use tool like this. You need to setup Oracle Eloqua or Salesforce Marketing Cloud for your firm. These technologies offer robust Nurturing campaign capabilities allowing you to create synergy with your company through consistent messaging and branding across all your marketing touchpoints. It also has better deliverability features and functions that ensure those emails that you meticulously crafted are not just going into a blackhole.
Ask yourself: where does your business stand on marketing technologies? If you are a Mid-Tier broker using Small Business tools, why haven’t you invested in this yet? Are you not interested in lead nurturing? Does client retention and cutting down churn rate not keep you up at night?
Let’s take another example: lead and client generation. What tools are you utilizing? Are you only using the freely available Google Ads? Did you ever wonder why FXCM, IG, Plus500 are consistently ranked top 3 on Google? Maybe they place very high bids. Or maybe- they’re invested in Google’s enterprise technologies for Search, such as Search Advertising 360 (SA360) which has a ‘position bid strategy’ feature that allows them to adjust bids to win position.
Have you ever visited a broker website, and suddenly you see their ads everywhere, at home on your laptop, then later on your commute on your phone, and again at the office on your desktop. How does this happen? It’s Programmatic Marketing allowing cross-device targeting. The Programmatic strategy has deemed your online behavior as a qualified potential candidate for account opening – and hopes to interest you in their product. But if you didn’t know this and were just running Google Display Network (GDN) blindly and never heard of Programmatic or Google’s DoubleClick Video 360, then you are missing out on the full potential of modern day display advertising / marketing.
We know. All these enterprise technologies will come at a high price. Not only in costs, but in time and effort- as they are technical to learn and often require dedicated teams to manage. But this is what it takes to become a leading broker in 2020. You need to invest in the people who manage the technology, train teams and keep up to date on the latest industry trends and tools. The Forex and CFD industry is a very niche market, and its marketing approach is unique. To be successful you will have to adapt and capitalize on your brand, messaging and advantages to drive interest to your broker.