SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
With less than two months to go until the 14 June kick-off, 10Bet is busy finalising its preparations for this summer’s World Cup. The company’s CMO Oshri Kostiner spoke to SBC News about making plans for the biggest betting event on the planet.
SBC: How separate is the World Cup month within your marketing plans for the whole of 2018?
OK: Considering the incredible global popularity of the tournament, it is essential to integrate the World Cup into regular promotional and marketing activities while also creating separate campaigns around the event itself.
10Bet is a truly international brand that welcomes players from all over the world, and with the national teams from many of our key markets competing in Russia, the World Cup represents a unique acquisition and retention opportunity.
This is especially relevant with the high numbers of casual and first-time bettors expected to get involved during June and July. As such, segmentation is key and the use of BI technology to build targeted player segments allows us to create the most carefully calibrated campaigns.
Our World Cup preparations began in mid-February with the launch of the World Cup Free Bet Bank, where players are given a €/£5 Free Bet to use on any game in the tournament when they bet on selected events.
In the lead-up to the finals, we’ll be launching additional World Cup-related promotions within our regular marketing programme, but once it kicks off, our plans will focus primarily on the 64 World Cup matches.
SBC: How important is it for you to focus on cross-selling opportunities given the huge appeal but short window of game time each day?
OK: While football betting will inevitably be our main focus during World Cup month, we are also aiming to take advantage of cross-selling, both within the sportsbook and across products.
Other major events like Wimbledon and Royal Ascot will be taking place while the World Cup is being played, providing superb opportunities to encourage football fans to explore other sports betting options.
We will also be looking to cross-sell from sports to casino and vice versa, with themed slots promoted to sports bettors and simple football bets marketed to casino players.
SBC: How do you avoid getting sucked into a ‘race to the bottom’ pricing battle to acquire new customers around the tournament?
OK: We are under no illusions – competition for players is set to be fiercer than ever, both in the lead-up to the World Cup and during the tournament itself. However, acquisition and retention are two of our strongest suits.
A range of different factors can contribute to success in sign-ups and enhanced value from existing 10Bet customers. A key element of the equation is maintaining strong relationships with the most professional affiliate partners and offering appealing bonuses, however we are confident that our product offers one of the most engaging betting platforms in the industry, with exciting new live betting features.
These features include Pulse Bet, which allows players to bet on whether a goal will be scored in the next 30 seconds, 1 minute, 5 minutes or 10 minutes of a live game and then watch their potential winnings rise during the selected time period, and Add2Bet, where players can add an unlimited number of selections to an active bet.
SBC: Should you mix the natural acquisition spike with a more focused approach on reactivating unfunded or dormant accounts?
OK: Absolutely. The event is a great opportunity for win-back of former players and for reactivating dormant accounts. While our World Cup campaigns will primarily target new and current players, we will also be utilising our cutting-edge suite of BI tools to attract past customers, for example by offering the chance to bet on selections that delivered wins for them previously.
SBC: Personalisation is an industry buzzword in 2018; how big a conversion tool do you expect the contextual alerts from ‘Action Betting’ to be this summer?
OK: Like all our newest features, Action Betting will be a core part of 10Bet’s marketing plans for the World Cup. We know that many players will have their favourite betting site open on their phone or tablet as they watch the matches on TV, and this is where our unrivalled range of in-play betting features comes into its own.
Our goal is to give players the tools to make in-play bets on their favourite markets quickly and easily, so they can get back to watching the game.
Action Betting, which uses a proprietary machine learning algorithm to display a ‘quickbet’ widget when incidents such as a free kick or a dangerous attack occur during a game, enables the fastest selection-to-settlement flow in the industry.
We’re therefore confident that our in-play offering will provide 10Bet with genuine competitive edge during Russia 2018 and for years to come.
