GPWA Times Magazine - Issue 3 - January 2008

Scaling new heights | GPWA TIMES for each market we’re in,” says Land, 36, who has been with Everest for two years. “We don’t want our players to think of us as an international poker room. It’s really been a grass- roots-type of effort for us to get there.” Attaining the “local poker room” goal has not been an easy task. And it’s also a procedure that has not been perfected. But make no mistake about it, Everest has made huge gains in its quest to become the world’s “premiere global destination” for online gam- bling. For proof, look no further than the increased third-quarter revenues released by its parent company, Giga- Media, in November. Powered in part by Everest Poker’s increased revenue of 163% from a year earlier, Giga- Media saw its revenue increase 76% from a year earlier with net profits climbing 49%. What’s more, Everest Poker got 2008 off to an auspicious start when it hit a record-high for traffic on Jan. 7. “The strategy is working,” adds Land. “But it’s only going to get better.” Land says that he is always dumb- founded when he travels to the dif- ferent trade conferences around the world and hears the subject of “inter- nationalization” come up. To Land’s amazement, it’s a conversation that is typically quite brief and abrupt. “You hear people talk about transla- tion, but it really doesn’t get beyond that,” he says. Except at Everest. While many sites will make the effort to translate their home page with software, Everest, which is licensed and regulated un- der the Kahnawake Gaming Commis- sion in Canada, goes well beyond that step. “You have to shoot for total immer- sion,” Land explains. “We put up a grid that shows how deep our com- petitors are translated and it surprises me that a lot of sites have the home page translated, but not the software. “Our philosophy is that if we have a player who only speaks one language and that player all of a sudden gets to a page on the site that doesn’t of- fer that language, we’re going to lose him,” he continues. “It’s that simple. And we don’t want to be in the business of losing play- ers that are already at our site. “The main benefit is that [our affiliates’] conversion rates are much higher, and therefore they make more commission, because the text links and banners are targeted so well to the local market.” In addition to translating each of its sites to a specific market, Everest has also hired a team of employees for each market. “People will ask me, ‘Who is your af- filiate manager in Italy?’” Land says. “And I’ll say, ‘What do you mean, who?’ The question should be, ‘How many people do we have in that market?’ Because it’s not just one person.” The hiring of these market-specific teams is a painstaking process be- cause the list of requirements is de- tailed. Everest is continually search- ing for people who are from the country it needs marketers for, but prefers hirees who haven’t already lived in the U.S. for any more than three years. “We want to make sure they still have an idea of what the market is like in Everest Affiliates Brand Manager Rebecca Liggero and Marketing Manger Dorrit Borensztajn at their Boston-area office (above). It’s the people who work here who are so committed. That’s what has made us a success. — Dorrit Borensztajn Everest Affiliates Marketing Manager ’’ “