A major focus – and expense – of most brokerage firms is acquiring new traders in order to continue to grow their business. In this interview on Dukascopy TV, Andrew Saks-McLeod (CEO of Finance Feeds) and Bart Burggraaf (Partner at MediaGroup Worldwide) discuss the range of branding approaches that brokerages take.

On one end of the spectrum, a small firm is a major sponsor of a relatively unknown football team, which raises the question of how much of a return on investment this can provide. This attempt by the brokerage to legitimize itself in the eyes of potential traders is far more appropriate for a large company. Live events are a more traditional and high touch approach that can be very effective in markets that place a premium on the personal touch, such as Singapore, Switzerland, and Israel, especially when directed at an older clientele.

Widespread low touch marketing – often highly automated – aimed at bringing in a large number of smaller customers is the opposite end of the spectrum, and results in less risk to profitability from the loss of a single trader. While every firm would love to have only the 20% of traders that bring in 80% of the revenue, attempts to accomplish that usually result in simply a smaller number of the less profitable accounts rather than a larger number of the very profitable ones.

The interview concludes with a look at the controversial subject of geo-marketing, which presents privacy concerns but is likely here to stay on at least a limited basis.