Does input really equal output? And, what should you put in to generate sufficient output for your forex business? Is it all about hype or results? Marketing or the bottom line?

Well, there’s no question that if people don’t know about your company, you could be the best broker in the world and you will go bankrupt. You have to get the word out somehow to the general public.

If you are a smaller broker, you might not have the $10+ million dollar budgets that the large brokerages enjoy, so you need maximum ROI for anything that you do. Can you spread the word free of charge? To some extent—once clients start recommending you—but what should you do if you are just starting out and have minimal funds for publicity?

Here are a few tips on making the most out of your marketing budget:

• Make sure that you are ready to deliver an exceptional product. That way, when you do get leads, they will not only stay, they will recommend you to others.
• The product is one thing, but you also need to establish a target market. The trick here is to go after a niche audience that is well defined, large enough to sustain your company income yet underserved (or not served at all) by existing companies.
• Once you have the right combination of market and product, you can then promote the virtues of the product category rather than your company, dispensing with the hard sell and instead focusing on educating would-be consumers on your product.
• If you have identified a target market and find that it is already very competitive, you will need to offer a product so superior that traders will recognize you even with the many alternatives. Research the buying decision process to find those product features that can sway a decision to your side and then offer a better product accordingly.
• If the steps above do not yield a breakthrough for a reasonable amount of money, you might need to break down your target market even further. Consumer behavior in the 21st Century is highly segmented, across all industries. You can make a living by zeroing in on a super-defined corner of the market. For a broker, that could be stay-at-home mothers or retired schoolteachers who have saved scrupulously over the years (just random examples). Once you have decided on your sub-niche market, you build all of your advertising around what will appeal to that target audience.
• Then when it comes to advertising, whatever approach you decide to use in your marketing, go for the channels that tend to have a higher ROI, such as: mobile marketing, long tail PPC marketing, content marketing, SEO and RTB display marketing. These tend to yield higher ROI’s then other channels such as broader online marketing, print and TV advertising.