How to build a successful brand for your Forex brokerage

The 3 pillars your Forex branding should be based on.

The Forex industry has grown dramatically over the past 10 years, resulting in an abundance of brokerages for traders to choose from. For example, the latest statistics released (31/12/2019) from the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) show that the number of regulated Cyprus Investment Firms (CIF’s) has almost doubled in 6 years, with the number of Regulated CIF’s reaching 248 on the 31/12/18. 

Naturally the increase in brokerages has led to higher competition and a rush to catch the trader’s eye, with brokers focusing their attention on how to find their Niche as a Forex broker.

But how do we build a Forex brand that can stand out?

The answer is simple and consists of one word: branding.

Branding can be quite a complicated term to understand as the definition can vary depending on a person’s perspective. A brand can mean different things, at different times for different people. 

Branding is a series of activities that marketing teams undertake with the ultimate goal of creating an association between a product and the customer. Marketing teams at brokerages are essentially attempting to establish a visual and emotional relationship between the trader and the brokerage. Additionally, by building a strong brand identity, your teams ensure that your product/company differentiates itself from competitor products and services.

However keep in mind that:

BRANDING = EXPECTATIONS

It’s a representation of who and what you are as a brokerage, and how you are perceived. That’s why a marketing team is only the front wheel of building the brand. There are several different departments within a company which need to work in sync for the brand to be solidified. Including, but not limited to, customer support, compliance and sales. All the elements work together creating an attention grabbing, unique personality for your brand.

Why is branding important for Forex brokers?

Above we have touched on the importance of branding, but let’s take a deeper look into the different elements that you’ll need to address to build a successful brand for your brokerage.

1) Identity

Just like people have an identity, brands should too. Think of your brand as a living and breathing organism with a character, personality, image, likes, dislikes and core values. To make a memorable identity try to create a story behind why your brand is how it is, and then work on communicating all the above clearly and consistently.

In an attempt to define ‘company identity’ more clearly, identity is made of different brand assets coming together to form one coherent representation. Some common brand assets include:

• Brand name
• Logo
• Fonts 
• Brand tone of voice
• Brand colors
• Core values

2) Awareness

Awareness is quite a simple term which refers to how familiar people are with your brand. Do your potential clients know and clearly identify your colors, logo or services? If the answer is no, you’ll need to build messaging campaigns into your yearly marketing plan that will improve potential customers association and attention to your brand.

You can build awareness a few ways, but two conventional approaches are by taking a thought leadership stance and also creating shareable content. Just ensure that your messaging is frequently positioning your business in front of your key audiences, so you build exposure. Some potential shareable elements could be videos, branded infographics and the use of industry influencers that will act as brand ambassadors.

3) Equity

Building on your brand equity is something that can primarily be achieved by coherent and consistent branding, but it takes time and is difficult to measure. Forex brokerage marketers mention that one of their biggest frustrations is reporting on the ROI (Return on Investment) of branding focused activities.

In many new brokerages, we often see the management teams focus purely on lead generation and acquisition tactics, as the metrics are easier to track. However, converting this traffic usually proves difficult for their sales teams when there is little affinity for the brand in the market.

Many successful brokers choose to invest in building brand awareness as a foundation, prior to targeting an acquisition campaign to that audience. They effectively prime prospects for the more conversion focused messaging by building trust, before asking for deposits.

We suggest that you patiently invest the time and funds necessary to build on your brand equity in the marketplace. By increasing the value of your brand and building a clear positioning in the eyes of your customers, your lead generation/conversion efforts become easier.

Now that you have your three key elements in place, you need to consider how to integrate your branding into your marketing activities.

Over the past weeks and months, we have built an extensive list of resources for brokers. All you need to do is search our site for the latest articles regarding:

• Defined target markets
• Branding locations
• Brand narrative 
• Trust & credibility
• Inspiring loyalty
• Differentiation
• Lead Generation

If you’re interested in the aspects of paid lead generation vs organic search, check out our post on SEO Vs PPC It’s perfect for adding an extra insight on these two channels.

Do you have a question or want to chat about growing your brokerage business? Ask us on the live chat tool.