Why new channels present new opportunities for gaming marketers

‘Omni-channel’ has become much more than an industry buzzword banded about at gambling conferences. Many operators these days are serving up a more unified and consistent user experience for their customers across multiple devices. Indeed, many consumers now flit back and forth between desktop, laptop, smartphone and tablet during a typical working day.

They certainly aren’t shackled to one device and run their daily activities, including gambling, across multiple platforms. To adapt to this new reality, operators must ensure that their marketing is consistent across, and tailored to, the different devices that players now use.

Omni-channel marketing is about delivering relevant, data-driven messages to the right players at the right time. If a particular customer never bets on Champions League football, then it stands to reason that sending him an offer via email an hour before a Tuesday evening round of fixtures is probably going to be ignored, or even worse, upset the customer by displaying no regards to his preferences.

However, omni-channel marketing is now stretching beyond traditional communication channels like SMS, push messaging and good old email to reach those mobile-first Millennials congregating in social apps.

For instance, chatbots are delivering tangible benefits for operators, as well as major corporations across other industries. By integrating a chatbot into an operator’s Facebook page, the company is able to talk to its customers via Facebook Messenger and send personalised offers and promotions direct to their inbox. The player has to approve this, of course, but when you consider Facebook Messenger now has more than a billion monthly users, chatbots will inevitably become an increasingly vital communications tool for companies. In fact, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella confidently declared last year during a keynote speech that “bots are the new apps”.

Ultimately, delivering targeted omni-channel marketing helps with fostering customer loyalty, reactivating those players who have lapsed, and mitigating churn. Loyal players can be worth many multiples of their initial deposit with the correct marketing.

Delivering relevant messaging on the right devices can also smooth out friction points in the user journey, whether that is as they first enter the conversion funnel or at the point where they are about to make their first deposit.

By being armed with a holistic view of conversion and retention journeys, operators can then pinpoint player drop off points and fine-tune these journeys in order to increase retention rates and extract maximum value from customers. These optimisation processes are undergoing a major revolution with the penetration of AI engines into this area. We are only starting to witness the impact of these technologies on the way digital marketing is carried out, and more importantly, how well it performs.

With apps and mobile sites just a few taps away, customers are notoriously promiscuous these days, and can all too easily be enticed away by a rival’s sign-up offer or other incentives chucked about like confetti. Indeed, this is common problem facing most online businesses these days, as consumers become increasingly fickle and disloyal.

The fact that it is up to seven times more expensive to acquire a new customer than retain a current player is a sobering thought for gambling brands operating today in Europe’s increasingly saturated and mature markets.

So, while operators explore ways to provide strong omni-channel offerings in order to provide a seamless user experience and boost revenues, it’s vital not to overlook the role relevant and targeted data-driven marketing plays in smoothing out the customer journey and, more importantly, creating a loyal customer base.

Adi Dagan is CEO and co-founder of Beehive, the market-leading and only dedicated iGaming CRM and business intelligence provider. He started the company in 2010 after running a number of independent consultancies in the industry. He previously worked for Playtech, leading client integrations with large operators including Mansion, Victor Chandler, and iPoker.it.