GPWA Times Magazine - Issue 33 - October 2015

Know your audience Whether it’s an online forum, a dedicated social media plan or good old-fashioned traffic to your website, affiliates can be- come an important mouthpiece for opera- tors even after a player has made his first deposit. But it’s important to think about who your target audience is when you’re planning your communications strategy. “Poker and bingo are really much more social products, so you can have a lot more success by running a poker or bin- go social media promotion,” says Enke. “Generally, people don’t want to go on so- cial media and admit ‘I play online craps.’ I think there’s still that stigma where the online world is viewed differently from the brick-and-mortar product.” Regardless of the game vertical, do your best to stay in front of your players. Even if they’re not playing now, there may a promotion coming down the pipeline that will pique their interest again. Do your research Perhaps the most important way affiliates can increase their players’ life cycle is to work with programs that have an estab- lished track record of retaining players. Talk to your affiliate managers to find out what their CRM strategies are, and don’t settle for vague statements that aren’t backed up by data (e.g., “We have the best player retention in the industry!”). Operators should have a sophisticated plan in place to engage the players that affiliates send to their sites. Find out if they use CRM software like Optimizely or Salesforce. Do they segment players in different groups based on what they like to play, how frequently they play, and how long it’s been since the last time they played? An online poker player isn’t going to be likely to respond to a blackjack bonus, but could increase play dramatically if there’s a monthly rake race leaderboard. Find out how the operators you’re work- ing with communicate with players. Are they relying completely on e-mail? Are they sending push notifications to play- ers’ phones? How many followers do they have on Twitter and Facebook? How active are their social media accounts? Are people engaged with those accounts, with comments on Facebook and favor- ites and replies on Twitter? Put yourself in the player’s shoes. Would the commu- nications plan put forward by the opera- tor be successful in keeping you loyal to the brand? The traffic you send to operators has value long after that first deposit is made. Make sure the operators you’re working with are set up to maximize that value, so you can reap the rewards for many months and years to come. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Aaron Todd is the managing editor of the GPWA Times Magazine . He has more than seven years of experience covering major innovations and trends in the online gambling industry. Follow him on Twitter @CasinoCity_AT. If you’re an affiliate and you can figure out some sort of app and be able to send push notifications through that app, you’re going to be miles ahead of everybody else.” — Jeremy Enke 47 Player retention: It’s not just for operators anymore