Katya Yun, Head of Marketing at MT4 technologies provider Takeprofit Technology, takes a look at what Retail Forex brokers can and should do to build trust in their brands.
Takeprofit’s products include A and B-book risk management solutions, the Klondike liquidity bridge, and the Ashira automated dealer anti-cheating defense. Takeprofit’s clients have included Forex brokerages and white-label solution providers such as Darwinex, FXPIG, FXSTAT, BTFX, FinFX.
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Katya Yun, Takeprofit Technology
One of the basic statements in Sales is that the first thing a sales person should do is to set a trusting relationship between her and a client. Some companies in the Forex sector mistakenly think that the sales process starts from a call, email or meeting. No, the first point of a company’s communication with people is usually a website, at least regarding the Forex brokerage business. So if you want to widen your sales funnel, start to set trust right there.
Help your client to understand
To make your potential clients read all 45 pages of your site and then make them write a list of questions to your support email is not a good idea. It means that site visitors don’t understand which information is important for them and which is not. They don’t know on which pages they can find answers for the questions. So, only the most patient ones will go this way to the end.
If you want to help your clients to find necessary information start from these first steps:
- Write in language that your clients speak. Of course, explaining something for the experienced stock exchange traders is absolutely different to speaking to housewives and retired people. Ask several clients to take part in the experiment. Give them an assignment to explain what is written on your site to another trader in the most understandable way. Believe me that the value of this information is even higher than it looks like in the beginning.
- Describe a workflow of the most important processes in the most detailed way. It may be evident for you that to open an account it is enough to create a login and password in the top right corner of the main page. But it may be not so obvious for a beginner. Show all steps in screenshots, write short comments and propose to call a specialist via a toll-free phone number. It doesn’t matter that this number is also given on the “Contacts” page.
- Explain how your business earns money. What a beginner trader sees on any brokerage site: “Tiny spreads, 5000:1 leverage, $100 bonus, invest $10 and get $10,000…” Looks a little bit exaggerated. Explain that it is not a fraud by opening some brokerage business mechanisms.
- Make headings to clients testimonials. Put a main message into a heading. This way, readers don’t need to scan all text, it will help them save time for reading feedbacks that contain the most interesting information for a certain person. Also let people rate feedbacks. That way it will be clear which aspects are more important for your clients. I’ve never seen something like this on a broker’s site, but there is a good example from the tourist business. Look at the Booking.com feedbacks:
Surround with care
A lot of brokers think that they have an excellent customer care system, as their support specialists are highly skilled and all replies are worked individually. But how should a new site visitor find it out and trust you?
- Pay attention to your “About” page. Try to make it more human-like. A reader should imagine a person after reading this text. It should be a person with a certain character, principles and attitude. If it is a pleasant image, it means that this site visitor already likes your company and trusts you.
- Make them feel safe. Use all means to assure that visitors are safe working with you. Write that you won’t use their private information in an improper way. Write about your regulation. Also your site visitors will feel themselves in safety if they see an expert in you. It is long and hard work to build an expert status (write articles, educational courses), but it will make a great contribution in making people trust you.
- Start to collect statistics about questions that are asked more frequently. You can get such information from your call center and customer service email. Then put the answers on site. I don’t recommend to put all the questions to a “FAQ” page. Make a logical chain to understand where the answers for these questions should be placed on site and put them there. You may think that there is no sense to put all this information on site, because it is better to have private contact with a potential client when he asks you these questions via email or phone. You may be right in case that a number of people who applied to you is bigger than those who went to your competitor’s site after not finding the necessary information. Are you sure that most of them will call you?
Create a sense of over-delivering
Don’t give too many ‘fairy promises’, it will raise doubts. When too high expectations face an imperfect reality, a negative effect will be strong. On the other hand, imagine a feedback where your client writes that he was given better service, better conditions and a bigger income that was promised. I’m really sure that your potential clients will want to be over-delivered in the same way. You can read more on creating a WOW effect in Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh.
For bringing all these recommendations to life you need to study your clients.There is no need to order a big marketing research study from a special agency, just do it in a way you can. Ask your sales managers to make a list of clients’ values according to their own notices. Invite several clients for an interview. The information you get this way will help you understand how to make people trust you from the first site visit.