In what marks the latest in a series of strategic initiatives aimed at making its site the leading Web “portal” for investors, E*TRADE Group, Inc. today announced a significant marketing campaign to promote its redesigned site and related services.
E*TRADE said it is spending over $100 million on the campaign which is intended to highlight the benefits of the new Web site and promote E*TRADE to individual investors.
The campaign will include television, radio, newspaper and magazine ads, as well as direct mailings aimed at consumers who use the Web for investment research but who do not yet have trading accounts on the Internet.
The company is also relying heavily on online promotions, however, and said it will leverage relationships with many of the Internet’s most visited sites such as Yahoo!, AOL, ZDNet and CBS Sportsline.
The campaign also promotes E*TRADE’s new-look Web site, appropriately labeled “the New E*TRADE.” Free resources available to the public on the site include breaking financial news, real-time stock and option price quotes, company financial information and news announcements, live market commentary, personalized investment portfolios, and investor community areas. Premium services, such as trading, are available for a fee.
According to Jerry Gramaglia, Senior Vice President of Marketing at
E*TRADE, the new campaign represents a strategic break from previous online broker ads: “Until now, the only distinguishing factor in our industry was price. With ‘the new E*TRADE,’ and its innovative and powerful tools and information available free to the public, we are seeking to leap-frog the competition and take online investing to the next level.”
This has been a busy week for E*TRADE; yesterday the company debuted a free Web-based e-mail service, and earlier this week it signed a master licensing agreement to create a branch in Scandinavia.