GPWA Times Magazine - Issue 12 - April 2010

a lotofaffiliateprograms, soas topreserve relationshipswithnon-rakebackaffiliates. 6 CommunityAffiliates (Forums) Community affiliates are those who use social tactics to engage players and drive traffic to a given program or product. Chat roomsandonline forumsareamong the most common places community af- filiatespromoteonlinecasinos toplayers. In the iGaming industry, these online fo- rumshavebecomewidelyknownasplay- er forums, because they cater to gaming players. Benefit ofCommunityAffiliates: Clearbenefitsofmaintaininga chat room or online forum that caters to gaming players are (a) building a relationship withusers inthecommunity,which leaves userswith a sense of loyalty; and (b)mo- tivating players to come back to your site because they are genuinely interested in the content, discussions with peers, etc. In the case of (a) or (b) the benefit for community affiliates is that the players that they attractwill stickwith them, and keeponplaying. Disadvantage of Community Af- filiates: If you’reopeningup the floor to commentary, prepare to receive it— and know that it’s not always pretty. Chat rooms and forums need to bemonitored closely, and as such, can be quite time consuming. 7 BlogAffiliates Blog affiliates are similar to community affiliates in the sense that the comment areas on blogs give players a place to ex- press themselves and interact with each other. Aswith a forum, content is key to becoming a successful blog affiliate and to attracting readers who keep coming back formore. Benefit of Blog Affiliates: Much like the community affiliate, the benefit for the blog affiliate is (a) being able to create a relationship with a reader and then (b) having the opportunity to turn those readers into consumers by taste- fully incorporating a brand name or link to a product or service that they think is cool, different or resourceful. Disadvantage of Blog Affiliates: In order to have a successful blog, you’re going tohave todomore thanstringacou- ple ofwords together. Youhave tobe able towrite inacompellingandclearmanner, andkeepup thiswriting style consistently in regular blogpostings.Much to the con- trary of the thought that this avenue is cheap, it can actually be very expensive since blogging tends tobe fairly time con- suming, especially for thenovicewriter. 8 MobileAffiliates Mobile affiliatemarketing is an emerging promotion method with potential. Cell phone use has expanded to include pic- tures, music, detailed agendas and even theability toplaceonlinebets. Researchshows thatbetsplacedovermo- bilephoneswill rise fromunder$2billion currently to$23billionby2011. Benefit of Mobile Affiliate Mar- keting: Definite advantages of getting into mobile affiliate marketing are (a) having the ability to reach a large audi- ence—on the go; and (b) leveraging that mobile accessibility to earn more rev- enue. Disadvantage of Mobile Affili- ate Marketing: When someone’s on the go, they don’t always have the same time frame or concentration to allocate to you that theymight havewhen they’re stationary. They’re busy getting on and off a bus, or buying groceries… and can sometimes only really give you snippets of their time. 9 SocialMediaAffiliates One of the fastest-growing tactics in on- linemarketing is socialmediamarketing. Social mediamarketing is about creating interactiveuser experiences. Benefit of Social MediaMarket- ing: Like bloggers and forum-ers, social media affiliates are creating an environ- ment that allows users to interact with one another. This canbebeneficial to the affiliate because (a) users feel more like they’re getting something and (b) users feel less like something is being asked of them. 26 Top 12Ways iGaming Affiliates Can EarnMoney