These past several years ignited a marketing revolution within the gaming industry. In the olden days (circa 2009), operators believed purchasing media amounted to a strong marketing strategy.
But customers became fickler and more hard-won, and we, as marketers, more knowledgeable. Everything from organizational structure, technology, and strategy entered into relationship marketing territory, and the brands that have invested in player-centric approaches have won big time.
In our latest Optimove-sponsored event, we listened intently as leading executives divulged their thoughts, pivots, and ideas about transforming their brand model from strictly acquisition-focused to ultra-personalized relationship marketing.
“Regulation’s Ripple Effect”
Amir Askarov, Co-founder and CEO of BlueRibbon Software, noted that the one-size-fits-all marketing from 20 years ago has no place in today’s market. He also commented on the lack of regulation which had created chaos: “the market was like a jungle, you could have one license in one place, provide services all around the world without any restrictions on marketing, terms and conditions, the product, etc. It was much easier to run one service and do it all. You didn’t need much segmentation or learn the different markets. It was one size fits all. Since then, everything’s changed with how you can build your content, how you can build your products, what kind of features and what kind of marketing the features need.”
When asking how important data and personalization are for operators, Alina Nesu, Head of Retention at Jackpot Joy, enlightened us on their priorities: “Operators take data and personalization very seriously. It’s a huge part of our retention strategy and [we apply those concepts] in a variety of ways. We use Optimove to make sure we’re sending relevant messaging to customers at the right time for a more cohesive approach to gaming. We try and make sure our branding resonates with our audience, that we’re keeping in touch with the evolving market and profiling, personalization, and localizing data is essential for this. Even the best segmentation won’t be as effective if you don’t have an authentic feel to your content.”
Ciara Nic Liam, Director of Product Marketing at Betsson Group, shared her thoughts on how even big companies can still innovate and follow regulations despite evidence to the contrary: “For years, I’ve heard that [there’s no way to] reinvent Roulette, but things like Lightning Roulette can change the game. It’s not a new market, but it changed the rules of how you play and if you can bring those innovative ideas together, execute it really well, and combine marketing and product together, innovation can happen in many different ways.”
Finally, Carl Ejlertsson, Business Development Director at Red Tiger shared this interesting insight: “Something interesting that happened when the entire B2B market began regulation was that all B2C operators were so busy dealing with compliance issues that there wasn’t much time to focus on new integrations, new suppliers, new content, etc. So, I’m sitting here alongside BlueRibbon today because capitalized on the fact that operators don’t have time to innovate anymore, so we win by innovating for them, making their jobs easier.”
We hope to see you at our next PostFunnel Forum
Special thanks to our panelists and CRM experts who made this such a successful event. We’re looking forward to our upcoming PostFunnel Forums and hope to see many familiar and fresh faces. Until our next event, check out our articles and subscribe to our newsletter, to help us spread the gospel of data-based retention marketing.
