Welcome to our 11th Brand Prix, where instead of only investigating the companies’ CRM, we check out the customer experience in a more wholesome way – as we compare two leading online gaming companies.
You can check out past editions to get into the groove: Adidas vs. Nike, Target vs. Walmart, Banana Republic vs. J.Crew,Gap vs. Zara, Groupon vs. Living Social, Kiehl’s vs. Liz Earle, Sunglass Hut vs. Warby Parker, Brooklinen vs. Parachute and Blue Apron vs. Sun Basket
Introduction
In this series, PostFunnel follows two competing brands to thoroughly assess their customer marketing execution – stress testing their CRM efforts.
For each case study, we enact a customer journey with the respective brands, documenting every user interaction that was sent to our testers.
Then we give professional inputs and insights from our experience with the two platforms for you.
And score them – so let the games begin!
The Companies
This time, we went full-gaming mode, with two leading platforms in the gambling industry – 888 and Betway.
888
Established in 1997, this popular brand offers players several different gambling platforms to bet on. As a publicly traded company, 888 is not only a large, well-known real-money gaming provider – it has a reputation for being the market leader in the global online gaming industry.
Betway
The Betway Group is a global online gambling company with a number of brands including Betway Sportsbook, Betway Casino, Betway Vegas, Betway Bingo and Betway Poker. Since 2006, this brand has been a leading provider of first-class entertainment across sports betting, casino, bingo, and poker games.
Methodology
We split the analysis into 5 pillars:
- Conversion Funnel
- On-Boarding Funnel (Welcome Journey)
- Emotional Communications (Trigger-Base)
- Personalized Communications
- and the General Feeling we had with the brand throughout our user journey.
At the end, we give each brand an average final score according to the above categories.
Conversion Funnel
For the purpose of this experiment, we split the conversion funnel into 2 parts:
- 7 days from the first-ever visit to registration – we visited the websites a couple of times, browsed different pages, and filled some uncompleted bets during this period.
- The following week, when we made our first deposit, gave our consent to receive communication from the brand, and waited to receive any kind of direct messaging without completing “know your client” verification forms (KYC).
888
When first entering the 888sport website, we accepted cookies and agreed to receive notifications from the brand. During the following few days, we visited the site, browsed different pages, and filled our betting slip. All this and no communications were sent from 888sport.
The brand did not remember our bets from one visit to the other and each visit felt like our first time entering the site. Too bad 888 didn’t try to understand our behavior before registration.
Furthermore, before registering and depositing, we chose to receive a £30 bet promotion. No direct communication during the following week was sent to encourage us to make that first deposit or to complete our verification process.
Few points were given here as we were retargeted, though, with a too-soon cross-sell campaign by 888casino – we saw a video ad on YouTube and an 888poker ad on Instagram. Score 4/10
Betway
After accepting cookies on our first website visit, and then entering the site for additional visits, we received no retargeting communication from Betway. The brand didn’t remember our bets at any given time before registration and our browsing activities resulted in no personalized comms.
After registration, we received our first transactional-registration email, calling for us to make our first deposit in order to receive a free bet. The email also included a verification reminder.
Together with a website banner reminder to complete our verification, we received another email mentioning that we haven’t completed the process.
While we received no retargeting communication and both emails shared the exact same templates – at least Betway is trying to form some sort of relationship with its customers by staying in touch at the beginning. Score 6/10
On-Boarding Funnel (Welcome Journey)
The welcome journey is one of the most important marketing journeys in a player’s cycle as the marketer has the opportunity to communicate with the player and introduce them to the product features and platforms, increase brand awareness, present the company’s bonus capabilities and make sure they’re having a great experience.
To test the onboarding funnel of both brands we made a deposit of £30, placed a bet of £10, and waited.
888
While we expected to get several communications from 888sport following our first deposit and bet, the only communication we received was an email reminding us to use our remaining £20 balance (as we lost the bet).
The email tried to push us to play on mobile, but it wasn’t anything near convincing. While balance reminders could be a good practice, we expected 888 to welcome us after our first deposit/bet by sharing more content about the platform and products. Or they could have at least tried harder with the current mobile-cross promotion.
Either way, receiving just one email in the initial seven days, was indeed a disappointment. Score 3/10
Betway
Betway communicated with us two days after we made our first deposit by means of a generic email that requested our feedback on the verification process.
Five days later and still no interaction with Betway. FYI- In the meanwhile we played and lost our first-ever bet and received nothing from the brand!
Perhaps a few words on our loss to keep us motivated and entice us to continue playing would have been nice… or just any form of personal communication, really. Score 4/10
Emotional Communications (Trigger-Base)
One of the most successful ways to make sure you’re communicating with your customers at the right time would be to reach out to them after an emotional experience. In the online gaming world, the most common triggers for these emotional activities relate to wins and losses. Think about it, you just had a great win- wouldn’t you like to get a pat on the back? Or if you just had your first-ever loss, wouldn’t you like to be compensated with just a little something?
After receiving no emotional communications from both brands in the first 7 days, we deposited again and placed another £30 bet, which had settled that evening. And then check examined our contestant response.
888
Luckily, we won the bet.
More than £150 was added to our account. 0 recognition was added to our hearts. 888 missed the perfect opportunity to congratulate us on our first win.
Four days after placing the bet, we received our second ever marketing email (11 days since our first deposit) with 3 different horse racing promotions, which does seem to be a proper cross sell technique as it is a more profitable discipline now that we have a higher balance.
While we expected immediate recognition for our win – even a website popup, the late and maybe unintended cross-sell campaign was definitely a save by the bell. Score 6/10
Betway
Sadly, we lost the bet.
As a best practice, we don’t recommend compensating players immediately with a bonus or sending an email on every losing ticket. However, in this case, we experienced two consecutive losses and had an overall bad gaming experience throughout the first 14 days of our onboarding journey.
With just 1 general satisfaction email, and 0 personal messages to show they care – we want to ask Betway one simple question, what are you waiting for? Score 0/10
Personalized Communications
After a few weeks of playing and showing interest in specific products on each site, we thought it would have been communicated with us accordingly via any marketing channel.
So, we waited another 10 days to see if we got any personalized communication.
888
During this testing period, we received 3 different emails. The first included a free bet refund offer. The second asked us to take a survey on online poker. The third email offered several incentives/ promotions as well as a fixtures guide at the bottom for upcoming football matches.
Based on these 3 communications, we do believe 888sport did well in sending us personalized messages. The poker questionnaire is a nice way to learn about our personal preferences and we did find the cadence of the emails suitable to our current position. Score 9/10
Betway
Unfortunately, no communications were sent to us during this testing period. After having two consecutive losing football tickets, we hoped Betway would have found the right way to compensate us or at least, appreciate us trying.
Looking back at the previous communications sent, we feel Betway missed the opportunity to learn more about our personal preferences and product interests in order to communicate with us accordingly. Score 2/10
General Feelings
888
The overall look and feel of 888’s website is much slicker, upmarket, and sophisticated in comparison to Betway’s. Their choice of colors are eye-catching, which made us feel more excited to log on and play on their website.
Their communication frequency was more consistent via email and we felt like they paid more attention and cared for us as a customer. Score 6/10
Betway
Although Betway’s website is effective, well laid out, and easy to read, it lacked the overall slick feel that 888 had. It felt more as if it was functional rather than emotionally exciting to use.
Betway’s communication were lacking, no doubt about it as we received just 5 emails since registering with them, a period of almost 2 months. Score 5/10
The Final Verdict
We expected a lot more from both of these 2 gaming giants. These days, even small companies understand the importance of steady communication with clients, based on preferences and personal traits.
Both brands have much to learn when it comes to customer behavior, personalization, and nurturing customer relationships.
Especially since it’s also a way to make more money…
Think we got it right? Or should we have picked another winner? Leave your comments below and tell us what you think, or join the discussion on Twitter and Facebook by using the #BrandPrix hashtag.
Contributor: Alex Dodge