Crossover Markets

THE EXECUTION-ONLY CRYPTO ECN

CLIENT TYPE:

Fintech

Categories:

Brand/Website, Marketing, PR, Content, Outsourced Marketing Department

ONLINE:

crossovermarkets.com

Fueling the launch, acceleration and growth of the market’s first – and fastest – crypto ECN

THE CHALLENGE

As the builder of CROSSx, the industry’s first cryptocurrency ECN (electronic communications network), Crossover Markets was faced with the task of differentiating itself from a sea of conventional crypto exchanges inundating the market in mid-2022.

The company had decoupled trade execution from custody and brokerage services, with an exclusive focus on providing a venue for institutional players to reach their preferred counterparties. But with a virtually nonexistent web and social presence, it had yet to adequately communicate this message to its target audience.

In the months leading up to our engagement, Crossover announced several strategic investors and added a new advisor to support its executive leadership team. As the firm prepared for the formal launch of CROSSx, it identified a need for a brand and website that would portray the uniqueness of this offering, highlighting its innovative business model and emphasizing its work to solve for the conflicts of interest inherent to all-in-one crypto exchanges.

Forefront has been instrumental in Crossover’s launch efforts, laying the groundwork for our brand identity and delivering a stellar website that speaks to our unique offering and targets an institutional audience.

Anthony Mazzarese, Co-Founder & Chief Commercial Officer

Forefront’s deep knowledge of crypto and capital markets more broadly, paired with their talented creative and design team, enabled them to deliver high-quality work on a condensed timeline.

Anthony Mazzarese, Co-Founder & Chief Commercial Officer

THE STRATEGY

With institutions wary of the counterparty risk inherent with conventional “bundled” crypto exchanges offering custody, trading and brokerage under a single roof, our most important priority was ensuring that Crossover would be seen in a different light. Its new website, therefore, would need to highlight that CROSSx was “execution-only.”

The process began with a robust messaging exercise, laying the groundwork for the rest of the brand build. The result was a set of messages highlighting Crossover’s conflict-free model, the unrivalled execution speed of the CROSSx ECN and the ability for both market makers and liquidity takers to create custom dark and lit liquidity pools.

Faced with a compressed timeline of just over two months to launch, the Forefront team got to work on the website copy and design using the newly established key messages as our roadmap.

EXECUTION

PHASE 1: BRAND LAUNCH

In response to Crossover’s urgent need for an on-brand website that accurately reflected its core differentiators, we decided on a simple, clean one-page design divided into seven essential sections: Platform, Fees, FAQs, Team, Blog, Careers and Contact.

The design itself included a heavy focus on the technical elements of CROSSx, with key features represented in the form of code-style animations to symbolize Crossover’s low-latency, high-performance technology. Meanwhile, the copy encapsulated the value of the CROSSx ECN in a succinct, informative manner. We selected a primarily black-and-white color scheme to convey both power and simplicity. We also designed and developed LinkedIn and Twitter profiles, complete with refreshed headers and bios.

PHASE 2: ECN LAUNCH

The launch of Crossover’s brand was a success, with the new messaging, website and social channels all contributing to a consistent identity that illustrated the firm’s unique offering and institution-friendly approach.

With the initial phase complete, our ongoing work with Crossover kicked off with a formal announcement of the funding and launch of the CROSSx ECN. Working with all ten of the firm’s strategic investors, we leveraged key media relationships and secured coverage in Bloomberg, CoinDesk and Traders Magazine.

We complemented these PR efforts with a flurry of activity across other program areas. We added a dedicated Insights page to Crossover’s website to house all press releases, media coverage and thought leadership pieces. Our digital team worked on the firm’s sales database management and segmentation for email marketing campaigns and custom HubSpot reports. Co-Founders Brandon Mulvihill and Anthony Mazzarese appeared on our At the Forefront: Fintech Conversations podcast to discuss the ECN launch and their future plans, and followed it up with a number of additional live interviews and podcast appearances. Finally, our design and content teams developed a range of company collateral, from one-pagers to pitch decks and a branded CROSSx venue Rulebook, to standardize and streamline sales and client management processes.

RESULTS

Forefront now serves as Crossover’s outsourced marketing and communications department, delivering a full spectrum of services including thought leadership content, social media management, ongoing website maintenance and marketing automation via HubSpot. Further PR efforts, particularly around Crossover’s partnership with Hidden Road, have landed the firm spots in CoinDesk and The TRADE News. Additional announcements have driven further coverage: a partnership with Cboe, CROSSx’s selection as the execution venue for retail trading apps Tradu and Ouinex, and more.

THE EXECUTION-ONLY CRYPTO ECN