As seen during the Swiss pegxit, marketers know that in times of heavy volatility and brokers going out of business, there is an opportunity for increased acquisition of new accounts for those brokers unaffected themselves. The issue is that the things a broker can do really quickly to put advertising in-market are also the things competitors are doing; witness for instance the explosive increase in Google Adwords cost per click on certain search terms. Speed is of the essence.

So if you don’t have one already, I would recommend you work on an extreme volatility/broker insolvency advertising plan that you can put in-market quickly when the time comes. A couple of items to consider:

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• Budget: If you need to, get budget signoff ahead of time; this is key as you want to be able to move quickly.

• Material: Build a landingpage, search marketing ad text, display banners and email creative reinforcing trust related messages and have it approved and ready to go. Obviously it’s not possible to account for all market situations, but you might want to think about a few scenarios and build appropriate material.

• Mediaplan: Get a mediaplan made that includes placeholders for all relevant media – search campaigns, display advertising on niche and broader finance sites, solo email lists to rent, real-time bidding campaigns, print placements (if volatility is sustained) etc. You can also get your agency to negotiate your first right of refusal during such events, ensuring the placements will be there when you need them.

• Search: Think about the type of keywords that could become relevant and start to add those keywords in your accounts. In addition, think about display network placements targeting specific terms. Have a plan for increasing bids and budgets as required during high competition times.

• Public Relations: You will need to coordinate with the PR team (if there is one) or build a communication plan yourself, transparency and timely communication of strong messages is obviously key and all the advertising is not going to help if your have a PR crisis on your hands.

• Internal Marketing: Set up mailings to your internal lead database; if you have a substantial amount of leads it can be a great source of new business if you can activate them.

With lacklustre volatility in recent periods, we might now finally see many opportunities to get use of such a plan. What’s more, over the long-term, having a reasonably volatile market brings new traders to the industry and increases broker earnings. So, perhaps take this opportunity to think about your action plan and work on it before it’s too late.