Disclaimer: The opinions expressed herein are strictly those of the author, CT Moore, and interview subject, and in no way reflect those of IGN.
An important part of coping with a recession is to maintain your marketing activities. After all, with fewer consumer dollars in circulation, each one that you capture gives you that much more of a competitive advantage. Maintaining your market presence, then, is paramount.
Of course, with fewer consumer dollars in circulation, it's also that much more important that you maximize the return you get on your marketing spend. Basically, you have to focus on results.
Well, these are lessons that are not lost on Bingo.com. Their VP of Business Development, Jason Williams, recently took the time to answer some of my questions, and it's clear that Bingo.com is focusing on marketing activities that emphasize ROI. They're appealing directly to players, maintaining their presence across channels, and constantly analyzing their user-base so that they can segment and target them accordingly.
CT Moore: What have been some of the most popular and effective promotions that you've run, and what were their outcomes?
Jason Williams: At Bingo.com, one of the most popular promotions we run is our Double Jackpot Day. On this day we double all of the daily jackpots for £3,000.00 in guaranteed prizes throughout the night. Players really enjoy the added pot sizes and it matches our standard 101% deposit bonus as everything is doubled!
CT: What branding techniques have you employed to increase awareness and recognition?
JW: To support the Bingo.com brand we devote substantial resources to ensuring the website and promotions are colourful, entertaining, and above all FUN. Bingo is entertainment and we want our players to enjoy their time on our site and in our games. With our recently acquired Maltese gaming license we plan to push the Bingo.com brand further both online and offline in our marketing activities.
CT: How much does CRM factor into your retention strategy?
JW: We do a ton of CRM at Bingo.com. We analyze betting patterns, visitor patterns, depositing behaviour and a dozen other combinations of player activity. We segment players and traffic into multiple categories for different promotional offers and retention techniques. We have a multi-tier VIP program and win back program. Diligent CRM is at the heart of any sophisticated gaming business and we strive to maximize the most from our players and database.
CT: How often do you measure your traffic conversion from visitors to customers?
JW: We track the percentage of visitors that we secure as free players and the percentage of free players that become paying customers. We also measure home page, registration page, and cashier visitor behaviour and attempt to tweak and A/B test our pages to have the highest retention of visitors and conversion of players.
CT: How often do you update content on your site?
JW: To support our brand identity, SEO efforts, and provide relevant content to our players we update the Bingo.com website with fresh content almost every day. We add editorial features, promotion descriptions, winner profiles, community news and many other types of content on Bingo.com. We also have an extensive Bingo Information section which we expand regularly with updated content, photos, and links all about the great game of bingo.
At the time this was written, CT Moore was a new media strategist for Income Access, a provider of affiliate marketing solutions to Bingo.com.