SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
Will Hansen, New Business Account Executive at omnichannel customer engagement platform Xtremepush, drives home the crucial message that when it comes to getting players on board, timing is of the essence. Get it right and you’ll deliver a seamless, rewarding and engaging experience.
The purpose of this article is to identify when to engage players. The obvious question, we suppose, would be: is there a right time and a wrong time? And can you expand on why?
There are some unquestioned right times to be talking to your players, arguably the most important time is as they begin their onboarding journey with you as an operator. You have to spend considerable time and money talking to them through your branding and acquisition (on TV, radio, at games and grounds, in pubs, on social media and more) to get them to decide to play with you.
Making sure you make that journey seamless – but also rewarding and engaging – is so important. Talking to your existing players is all about knowing what their interests are, where and why they are betting with you and the value and entertainment they are seeking. It is also 100% the right time to be talking when you can see a player’s interest is waning and you need to win them back. Getting the correct offer in front of these players is so important.
The wrong time is when a player is looking for a regular or quick action they take all the time. Don’t get in their way.
What’s the Xtremepush approach to player engagement and timing, and what technological solutions does it have in its arsenal to facilitate the process?
Xtremepush allows brands to take a data first approach to the way they talk to their players. It is all about the right time, right channel and right content/offer. By using technology to understand core player preferences by a) directly asking for their input and b) looking at the way they behave in app or online is vital. Having real time capability is also a core feature of the Xtremepush platform, allowing brands to ingest and action data in real time. This opens up some great opportunities to talk to players as they are watching a match and offering live sports updates and betting opportunities.
Channels also have to be considered. Having a full channel stack in one platform is so important for a cost and time saving for marketing teams, but also relevant for the player. Some players like email or SMS others are in-app all the time while some place a bet at work on their desktop during that horrible friday meeting. Being able to engage on these channels in the way the customer prefers is so important.
They say timing is everything – if companies do get it right on player engagement how does that benefit their business?
We have seen uplifts in revenue on certain channels of 5X as well as 20% higher GGR and player LTV. As mentioned above, getting that onboarding part right can increase not only deposits but bet frequency and average bet size immediately. This has a direct impact on making a player valuable for their full lifecycle rather than the sugar hit of high churn and high acquisition driven only by bonusing for new accounts.
And what are the consequences if their approach is mistimed?
Talking to the player at the wrong time can greatly affect their experience and impact whether they will go to the competition. Marrying a great communications experience with a slick UI and brand story is a natural winner.
Brands that struggle are stuck in the old ways of marketing and talking to their players. Batch and blast, no personalisation, no real time data ingestion – all of these things hinder the player experience and they will go to a competitor that does this better. And if they do you wont be getting them back regardless of offer.
What are the common mistakes made by companies in timing player engagement and how should they avoid such pitfalls?
As above, not being able to engage in the right channel in real-time is a huge hindrance. How many times have we received a welcome email from a brand days too late? That’s a data problem. We get into a new app and spend ages trying to figure it out, adding bets and deleting, jumping from page to page and back again and we don’t receive an in-app message with a tutorial?
We have great opportunities across the player lifecycle to engage at the right time with players. And brands that have a handle on their behavioural as well as attribute data are the ones that are succeeding and best in class. Brands like that are deploying technology like Xtremepush to make this the standard reality rather than a ‘nice to have’.
