The importance of lead generation is still one of the major aspects of business with which most retail FX firms concern themselves on an ongoing basis, itself a mainstay of maintaining the flow of new clients which is becoming increasingly difficult.
For firms which offer binary options alongside FX, lead generation is even more critical, as binary options customers often have a much shorter lifetime value than retail FX traders.
The omnipresent methodology of conducting media advertising campaigns which encourage potential investors to register their details with the broker before being able to activate a demo binary options account, thus generating a lead for the sales team to immediately contact with a view to converting the demo account user into a customer with a live account is thus far practised by the majority of firms.
Alpari’s Russian operation has taken an interesting diversion from this, in which it has made binary options demo accounts available without requiring any form of registration, therefore allowing potential clients to familiarize themselves with the platform and conduct demo trades, without any means of the sales team being able to contact them.
Whether this symbolizes Alpari’s confidence in its product to the extent that it sells itself is perhaps a moot point, however in today’s highly competitive binary options sector which is well represented by many sales-led companies, it is unlikely that any company would take a decision to rest on its laurels and allow potential clients to pass them by.
Industry professionals with substantial experience relating to client acquisition have detailed the current dynamics surrounding electronic trading firms, with Media Group London’s Bart Burggraaf having detailed in a LeapRate editorial in May that strategy is of greater importance than advertisement content. This move by Alpari appears to allude to this line of thinking, with the strategy here being that perhaps customers are less pressurized if they are able to trade demo accounts without the constant concern that a persuasive telephone call may arise at any moment, especially given that most binary options customers are entirely new to any form of online trading.
Mr. Burggraaf had explained that despite the highly competitive environment that the online trading industry operates in, “there is room for a differentiated brand for a long term competitive advantage.”
An important factor to bear in mind is that many unwanted ‘dead leads’ are generated by demo account holders, which uses resources within the sales teams of companies. By ensuring that only live customers with funded accounts appear on customer databases, Alpari is able to streamline its sales operations considerably, and only contact clients who have already used the Alpari Option Trader, without the unnecessary and expensive procedure of assigning sales resources to conversion.
Alpari is no stranger to innovative methodology, therefore maybe this is the dawn of passive acquisition within the once fierce binary options sector.
