Exclusive Interview: Oren Laurent, Founder of Banc de Binary

We recently spoke with Oren Laurent, founder of Banc de Binary, regarding how the brand came into existence, why it’s a major opportunity for binary options affiliates and why the industry is going mobile.
Oren, what brought you to this industry? What has been your main personal accomplishment so far?
Hi Frank, that’s a great place to start. We need to look back to 2008 and the financial crisis in which investors lost significant sums due to the bank failures and the unforeseen levels of market volatility. As a broker, I couldn’t provide answers for my clients. None of us in the industry saw a recession of that scale coming. And I wanted to do something. It became clear that disheartened investors needed a product they could understand, a product that would put them in the driving seat and restore their confidence in trading.
Three colleagues and I founded Banc De Binary in January 2009 with the mission to simplify online trading for the 21^st century and that same mission has driven us to this day. We made binary options accessible to the retail investor and taught our clients how to take advantage of the market conditions and profit from simply determining the direction of an asset.
As for a personal achievement – when we were admitted to the World Finance 100 list of companies and I was interviewed at the London Stock Exchange, that was a very proud moment. Day to day work is so busy that when you have a moment like that to reflect on the growth of Banc De Binary and the binary options industry as a whole, it really hits home how much we’ve accomplished.

Can you tell us more about Banc De Binary? What has been, so far, its approach to social media, affiliate marketing, and internet marketing in general?
I’m a perfectionist and I think that comes across in the service and products we offer. I wanted Banc De Binary to be the best, to be reliable industry leaders, for our clients and affiliates alike. So we’ve put a huge amount of effort into offering an innovative trading platform with top-quality service and the highest possible levels of financial security. From that, it naturally follows that we can offer affiliates the best deals. Our clients are loyal and have a long-term value, so we can pass that value back to our business partners. The fact that we were the first binary options brokerage to receive a license has also really added to the reputation we’ve been building and lead-to-customer conversion rates have jumped.
Most of our marketing is done online, which came very naturally given that we operate an online platform. We work with a combination of PPC, social media, media buying, and affiliation. A key focus in these marketing efforts has always been education. This is a relatively new industry so it’s vital that we can inform traders about the attractiveness of binary options and the strategies that they can employ with this trading tool. One of the most successful web banners we used simply stated that we offer free 50k demo accounts and encouraged traders to give it a go.
What are the main opportunities, and challenges, you foresee with technological changes (mobile, etc.) in the forex and binary options world?

Without a doubt, gone are the days when a main website was enough and a mobile application was a bonus. Mobile is huge. We are currently working on a new version of Banc De Binary’s mobile application for smartphones and tablets, taking into account the customer feedback from our previous app so that the updated version will be as user friendly as possible.
An increasingly high proportion of new leads come through mobile marketing and even customers who sign up on their desktop want to be able to trade on the go. At the end of the day, that’s one of the great advantages of binary trading – the second investors hear a news item, for example that Apple are launching a new product or that tensions are increasing in the Middle East, they can place a trade on Apple stock or the price of oil to go up.
Within the online world, there are so many constant updates and innovations that it is a challenge for any company to keep up. But we love a challenge! I’m very proud of our IT department which has developed the technical infrastructures that allow us to adapt quickly and stay ahead of the game.
What are your future plans, or wishes, in leveraging affiliate marketing to grow your business, while contributing to the success of your affiliates?
We know that affiliates play an important role in our success so we try to find new ways to thank our partners for their ongoing support. Last month for example we gave out Galaxy tablets to those who brought 10 FTDs in a month and Macbooks to affiliates who brought 20. And in turn, we encourage and support affiliates with their own creative ideas. We can write unique content in any of our website languages and advise on web design, video production and so on. This is of course in addition to the most professional standards, and top CPA deals and conversions.
If affiliates have any questions at all about binary options, Banc De Binary, or our affiliate program, I urge them to visit our website www.bbinary.com or contact us directly at [email protected].