Martin Signer of SmartMoneyMatch tells us about a platform that connects the global investment community.
First of all, how are you and your family doing?
Martin Signer: Thanks for asking. We are lucky and doing well. I hope yours, too.
Tell us about you, your career, and how you founded SmartMoneyMatch.
Martin Signer: I studied at the University of Zurich and was the first student to graduate with a master’s degree in quantitative finance. Afterward, I joined Clariden Bank – now part of Credit Suisse Group – as the market risk manager, but I was not happy with some unethical practices in Credit Suisse. One of the many issues you can also see disclosed in the Panama Papers.
So, I thought about what I could do well and co-founded with Barbara Burtscher the company 4Finance AG for independent consulting.
Besides, I have also worked as a lecturer at the universities of applied science in Lucerne and Zurich and published some articles. I also bought out the company 4Finance AG.
Because many investors, service providers, and asset managers brought them together, the idea came up to digitalize it. So we built the industry ecosystem SmartMoneyMatch.
How does SmartMoneyMatch market its product/services online?
Martin Signer: We are lucky and have a network of more than 75k companies in the business directory, more than a million newsletter subscribers, and many event partnerships. I guess it was just at the right time, the right thing to do, and now the who is who in the investment industry is part of it.
Also, everyone can register for free.
As a social media company ourselves, we also use other social media channels such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Xing for the German-speaking market. We try to apply an omni-channel marketing approach.
How the coronavirus pandemic affects your business, and how did you get through it?
Martin Signer: It was like a wake-up call for many marketers to use digital channels. In the last two years, we grew around 10 fold, and we also built an event platform that was very well received. Event organizers also use it for ticketing, as we provide it for free.
What specific tools, software, and management skills are you using to manage your online marketing?
Martin Signer: We use our newsletter and also offer partner mails and newly also roadshows as 3rd party marketing services in Zurich, London, Amsterdam, Berlin, and New York (and more cities to be added), where we offer companies on their roadshows to present in front of the right audience.
Who are your competitors? And how do you plan to stay in the game?
Martin Signer: For certain areas, e.g., the job board, we have local competitors or less specific online networks such as LinkedIn for networking. As a global industry solution, there’s no comparable network, as we are by far the biggest one, and in the networking space, it seems that a network grows by itself.
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