Copycats Never Steal the Show

As I look around at a lot of brokers’ websites, do you know what I see? I see pretty much the same thing. Whether it’s messaging that tells the reader just how ‘great’ that broker is, and ‘how low its spreads’ are, to loads of ‘free education’, and ‘segregated bank accounts’. You know what guys? I’m simply not buying it!

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Let’s look at the cold hard facts, which is contrary to how I’m feeling as I write this piece in my Limassol office, where the sun with its thirty degrees Celsius rays battles it out with my overloaded air conditioner. The facts are that the majority of forex brokers have a white-labeled version of MT4 (and MT5 – got to get that in there somewhere or the MetaQuotes team will hunt me down), and they’re offering financial products in the shape of forex and CFDs. Those, ladies and gentlemen, are the cold, hard facts. This brings me onto my next question; why do so many brokers copy one other?

Doing the conga

Being a marketer myself, I’ve had my fair share of discussions with directors and shareholders who have blatantly told me to ‘take a look at broker X’, and “copy what they’re doing”! It’s something I won’t do, and I know there are many talented, up-and-coming heads of marketing that don’t want to copy their competitors either, but as the pressure increases, before you know it, we’ve got a conga line of brokers that look and act like each other.

Brokers: think about your clients  

One of the first rules I learnt in marketing many moons ago was to think like your clients. If I were a client of a forex broker, what would I want to see? Something different, surely! For starters, I would want to be surprised. Show me something I’ve not seen before, and you know what, there’s a chance you’ll inspire me. Give me something powerful to think about, and you’ll probably see me getting my wallet out.

For the marketers reading this now, I’m talking directly to you. I want to hear your thoughts on how you personally think you can change this great industry we’re a part of – I promise to answer every comment. That being said I want to tell you how you can be different. Okay, I’ve already said that ‘thinking like your clients’ is the way to go, but there’s a lot more that can be done, and in fact, should be done to break away from the norm, which is boring. There, I’ve said it.

Direct response marketing copy

If you’re not sure what DRMC (direct response marketing copy) is, let me break it down for you. As a forex broker, you’ve got to make sales. Heck, all businesses do. To make sales, you entice the client in by offering him/ her a great product or service. You’re with me so far, right?

You can either bore them to death with the standard indirect response approach, which is where you metaphorically go on a mission to build up your brand and product and pray to gods (the old and the new) that passersby remember your brand when they’re ready to get their wallets out. Or you can do something different. Make no mistake here guys, the indirect response is the norm in thecforex industry. Direct response, however, is a different beast.

DRMC takes the client directly to a buying decision right then and there. And before you start writing in and telling me that ‘compliance will eat me alive if I try this approach’, take a breather and let me enlighten you. Don’t mix ‘spammy content’ with ‘direct response marketing copy’. Stay away from the spam, people!

DRMC, if done properly, will trigger super powerful emotions in your potential clients, and the real beauty is that it’s easily testable too. When you produce a new landing page, you’re going to know if your potentials are responding to it or not. A/ B test it with option A housing your zombie indirect response copy, and arm option B with DRMC that Rick, Carol and Daryl would be proud of.

So if DRMC isn’t spam, what is it?

DRMC isn’t content marketing. You’re not simply providing the reader with information. No, no, no! What you’re doing is providing your potential clients with an arsenal of reasons as to why they need to open a live account with your firm.

That’s all for today, but I do promise that in my next article, I’m going to show you some examples of DRMC that work, so watch this space!