Disclaimer: The opinions expressed herein are strictly those of the author, CT Moore, and interview subject, and in no way reflect those of Gaming Industry Media.
As an online gaming vertical, bingo has enjoyed considerable growth in recent years. And for good reason: it appeals to a base of players that many other verticals just don’t appeal to as much. Indeed, the average online bingo player is female, age 18-40.
Well, just as online bingo appeals to a unique set of players, so marketing an online bingo portal takes a bit of different approach. And recently, I had a chance to chat with Shek Pandeya, Senior Acquisition Marketing Manager at Bingos.co.uk about how that brand is leveraging different acquisition channels.
For Bingos.co.uk, it seems that social media is factoring heavily into both their consumer and affiliate marketing strategies. On the retention side of things, company is also focusing quite a bit on customer relationship management. From what Shek said, the overarching mandate at Bingos.co.uk seems to be on building relationships with both it customers and suppliers.
CT Moore: What have been some of the most popular and effective promotions that you've run, and what were their outcomes?
Shek Pandeya: Affiliate incentive promotions have been quite success for us, and our current promotion of a free car for an affiliate is also a good performer. Regarding our general marketing, we generally go with the 100% match bonus which has been working well for a while.
We have also an in-house compliance team which makes sure that we don’t go out there with any promotion which might seem like we are duping the customer. Hence any promotion that we do is legit and you get what you read on the label. This way we might not seem that competitive in the market but we don’t disappoint the user by showering them with Terms & Conditions once they won something through a promotion.
CT: Where has social media fit into your marketing strategy?
SP: Personally, social media plays a big part within our marketing strategy. With all brands moving to social media we certainly need to make the most of it before the consumer gets bored of it and moves onto another channel.
Within our strategy we see two uses for social media: first, for the customers who are loyal to the brand and would like to closely follow any new promotions, presenters and other fellow punters; and second, for our affiliates who will be able to stay updated with any new offerings and happenings within the company.
[Social media] also helps us provide a good ground to get the end user to give us their suggestions as to which way they see our brand going. Social media will provide us a great platform to get maximum involvement from the affiliates and the customer, and will [also] help us cater the product, ads and the user interface as per their needs/wants. Power to the people!
CT: What branding techniques have you employed to increase awareness and recognition?
SP: We have changed our strategy, buying techniques and technologies to enable us to achieve the most efficient result while enabling branding as the underlining effect of the activities. We are using more CPA networks which provide us with the conversion efficiency required while maintaining the overall costs. We have [also] come up with higher impact ads [that feature] dynamic messaging and better use of flash technologies to achieve an eye catching effect. Finally as a company we are ramping up our PR activity, social networking and expanding our marketing channels which should (and we hope to achieve) get our brand awareness out across the board.
CT: Have you applied SEM strategies to increase your site's visibility on key search engines? If so, what were your outcomes?
SP: We are re-looking at the way our tracking works and are re-developing our sites to be SEO sound. This is expected to increase our brand presence on key search engines such as Google and also should be advantageous for our affiliates as the stronger our brand gets, the better the conversion rates they can expect.
CT: How much does CRM factor into your retention strategy?
SP: We have a separate retention department which is 16 people strong and their whole-sole aim is to make sure the CRM is taken care of and that the retention strategy is as concrete as our acquisition strategy. The gambling market is getting highly competitive, and as a business, it’s the returning customers who are of the most value to us. So when it comes to retention, we have a high priority to make sure we don’t lose our current base to any of the competitors. This includes everything from a welcome pack on signups to regular emails, offers, personal chats, studio tours etc.
CT: How often do you measure your traffic conversion from visitors to customers?
SP: As often as possible. Ideally every 3-6 months we have a closer look at the numbers and change our re-targeting strategy, creatives and site’s look and feel to enable a smoother conversion process.
CT: How often do you update content on your site?
SP: Competition within the market space dictates that this is almost done on the go. Regularly we have new offers, better quality games or improved user experiences that help us with keeping a fresh new look on the site
At the time this was written, CT Moore was a new media strategist for Income Access, a provider of affiliate marketing solutions to The 4th Market.