The Challenge

TradeKing launched in December of 2005 to give investors a dramatically new choice in discount online stock trading. Its founders saw a landscape full of confusing, double-speak pricing, commoditized tools and poor customer service. They also saw a sector in which, despite the huge boom among online brokers, no-one had yet tapped the Internet to solve a long-standing problem for individual online investors: isolation, uncertainty, difficulties in learning and connecting with other traders. Enter TradeKing: no-catch pricing, ‘break-out’ innovative tools and the industry’s first online brokerage with a suite of social media tools “baked-in” in the form of the TradeKing Trader Network. 

TradeKing turned to Tier One Partners to officially launch its groundbreaking Trader Network and firmly establish the newcomer as the innovator-to-watch among the next-generation of online brokerages.  Tier One Partners devised an aggressive strategy to help build buzz and participation in the Trader Network, strengthen TradeKing’s credibility and relationships with key influencers, and support the firm’s goals for account growth. 

Our Approach

Tier One began its program with an extensive study of the media we needed to reach to gain the kind of credibility and acceptance TradeKing required.  We knew we had to establish early mindshare with some of the country’s most savvy and skeptical group of reporters – financial reporters for institutions such as The Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, Barron’s, Associated Press, USA TODAY and SmartMoney.  We researched each reporter’s special interests to create customized story ideas to fit within their respective coverage areas.  The result was a detailed media roadmap for each reporter and media outlet.  Once we had our pitch and spokespeople prepped, we hit the ground running with a series of one-on-one meetings with our most crucial media targets. This was followed up by a steady stream of newsworthy press releases and pitches.

We also built into the program ongoing quarterly market surveys of TradeKing’s clients to produce primary quantitative data that would add further “meat on the bone” to trends and sentiments the firm was observing through its Trader Network. 

The Results

The strategy paid off as each reporter took an angle looking into this new alternative to online investing – some evaluating it from the point of view of “MySpace Meets Wall Street,” others from the perspective of “Empowering the Individual Investor.”  Positive coverage has appeared again and again in outlets such as Barron’s, The Wall Street Journal, USAToday, BusinessWeek, SmartMoney, Reuters, Associated Press, FoxBusiness and CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”  But best of all, TradeKing has grown its Trader Network participation six-fold, and continues to successfully reach its aggressive annual growth goals for new account openings and total assets under management.