Gambit on CRM

GAMBIT MEETING November FORUM RECAP
VENUE: CASS BUSINESS SCHOOL, LONDON - 6 November 2008

The impressive panel above (left to right), Simon Prodger, Marketing Director (PKR.com), Darran Snatchfold, Snr. Strategic Planner (Digital Tullo Marshall Warren) , Gareth Wong (Gambit & GamBond® Founder) and Ian Welch, Head of Sportsbook Marketing (Ladbrokes eGaming).

- Report compiled by Sergii Portnov and James Bagley, independent reporters for Gambit

"A customer centric approach to how a company interacts with its consumers...how you communicate with customers at every touch point",
(Ian Welch, Head of Sportsbook Marketing, Ladbrokes eGaming ).

In such a fiercely competitive industry as iGaming, the key factors for success is a clearly defined and integrated model of CRM, which encompasses acquiring , retaining and maximising the potential of customers, along with enhancing a customers experience. Online gaming companies have done well in respect of their ability to satisfy their clients at high standards; the Gambit on CRM has focused on revealing some of those successful practices implemented in the industry and the ways in which they could be improved.

The event started with the usual humorous and welcoming interlude by Gareth Wong to all attendees and speakers. The first speaker to present his thoughts on CRM was Darran Snatchfold, unsurprisingly introduced as solely "Darran", from Tullo Marshall Warren, a multi-channel communications agency, focusing on building valuable lasting relationships. Without being influenced by specialised gambling theorem he provided a fresh insight and overview into general CRM concept; with experience working alongside such retail giants as T-mobile, Ebay, Nissan and Infinity, his reputation is clear.

According to Snatchfold, it is nine times as expensive to acquire a customer as to retain one; facts like this simply highlight why 50% of internet companies plan to focus more on CRM, with 40% of them allocating significantly more funds to this marketing activity. Why is maintaining customer loyalty so hard in the digital age? Over reliance on CRM through broadcast emails have led to the negative image of this form of promotion, along with new technology making it harder to compete for customer attention; "consumers confidence in email has become shaken by irrelevant communications and high message frequency".

Ebay is the perfect example of a company who is truly attempting to achieve perfection in their CRM; 3000 permutations of a potential email were researched, with 16 being tested in terms of success before they decided on which to send out to their consumers. To summarise, he empathised the importance on personalising emails rather than send out bulk broadcasts, with Digital Nomad being his shining recommendation of this superbly applied. He finished by stressing that all customers are not born equal, and that segmentation is clearly vital to focus on those that need a company's attention the most.

The event was followed by a big player from the industry, Ian Welch, the Head of Sportsbook Marketing at Ladbrokes, who chose to focus on the betting side of bookmaking giant. Right at the outset he stated that it would be impossible to fully and broadly investigate the phenomenon of CRM as it is an immensely vast area to be covered in relation to Gambling business.

Instead, he decided to concentrate on a particular example of effective practice of CRM which has been successfully implemented by his company, with his production of "Close Up", a magazine to be distributed amongst Ladbrokes punters.

The main objectives of this publication was to engage and excite his consumers, to provide the interaction for telephone betters that is lacking from their disassociation with the online betting site, and to cross-sell other gambling opportunities covered in the magazine. Ian clarified first and foremost that successful CRM should address the complications associated with management of the customer/data bases."It is crucial to have relevant data which is constantly updated, measurable and handled thoroughly in order to achieve better segmented groups". Finally he asserted that the goals of a company's CRM department must be realistic, that they must understand what they can achieve in terms of their revenue; do not over expect. Start small and grow big with CRM development. All in all it can be summarised in one simple word;" KISS. Keep it simple stupid. Blunt yet accurate.

The third speaker was Simon Podger, the marketing director of PKR.com, who empathised the importance of CRM due to;

" Increasing the conversion rate of customers
" Increasing lifetime value
" Increasing play frequency
" Increasing average stakes
" Potential to cross-sell additional product
" Reducing churning
" The ability to drive liquidity
" Competing for a greater share of a consumers disposable income (wallet)

Simon went on to stress the importance of making promotions engaging and immersive as well as lucrative, and that segmentation should be based on behavioural based data (frequency, amount of deposits and average stake) as opposed to demographics. Multi-tiered loyalty programs with escalating benefits are keys to the promotion of PKR and must be offered to all customers, not just to low stakes players, with bet frequency and overall loyalty being the key to the juicier bonuses.

The under researched damage of level degradation is mentioned too, as this could prove destructive to a customer's relationship and image of your brand. With the increase in popularity online of social networking (facebook predominantly), it makes intuitive sense that this can be harnessed for iGaming; the development of personal profiles, forums and direct social facilitation via a chatbox should be utilised; familiar faces and a sense of community can only improve a players player retention to your product.

Furthermore in the development of brand community, a quarterly reward based magazine is used, focusing on the community of the brand, highlighting players success and covering the major PKR tournament results.

Simon also gave some figures to demonstrate PKR's CRM management;
" The churn rate of PKR is 13.5%
" 90% of high rakers logged in during last 7 days
" 17% of emails gets opened each month
" 20% of active players participate in the quarterly magazine, watch PKR.TV or post in PKR forums

CRM has the greatest scope for development in these areas, specifically new ways of segmentation and targeting; localisation will determine the success of customer relationship management.

Gambit Q&A, key part of the evening:

Following Simon's talk was the regular question and answer section of the evening, allowing the audience a chance to interrogate the panel with questions arising from the discussion.

The first question was from the head of CRM at Unibet, questioning whether the change from 70% failure to 70% success rate of CRM was due to a change in the perception from the public of CRM or a greater insight into the nature of CRM practices. The panel agreed that it was certainly a mix of the two, with the advancement in technology leading to emerging channels that companies can utilise and map.

Head of CRM at Pokerheaven.com questioned if magazines and TV are the most successful or whether there are other more effective forms of communication. In game messaging can be an effective form of communication in promoting upcoming tournaments or bonuses available on a poker network. An overreliance on email forces companies to look for alternate forms of communication, with email being associated with spam due to the mass neglect of companies in the past for this form of communication. The advances in software allows us to adapt and utilise the email once again if the negative connotations can be dispelled.

The crossover between bricks and mortar and online was examined, with the success of conversion being inquired about. Ladbrokes realises the potential of this revenue stream, being the only bookmaker to offer a customer the chance to withdraw money from his online site via a betting shop in the form of hard cash.
It was questioned whether the fact that sportsbook turnover does not directly relate to profit complicated evaluation of the success of advertising campaigns or not; it should be clear that simply inducing customers to bet on any outcome where the odds favours the house will yield a long term profit for your company, even if a singular outcome results in a loss. Amount staked should be examined when looking at the success of a campaign, not overall profit.

Discussion of the success of Ladbrokes followed, with the familiarity, trust loyalty being key. Ian stressed that not only this, but a reliability in service is vital; call answer time, up time of the site and seamless betting opportunities are aspects Ladbrokes prides itself on.

Networking throughout:

Facebook link for more photos.

Speakers on the night:

• Ian Welch, Head of Sportsbook Marketing, Ladbrokes eGaming [Download Presentation]

KISS - Keep It Simple Stupid ! (I hope this is suitable for the audience?)

I will use a case study to show how we use our database as an effective tool, including data segmentation, profiling and predictive modelling. We produce a truly excellent quarterly magazine in the Spring, Summer and Autumn and this will be the subject of the case study. But this will only be used to demonstrate the costs involved (although clearly I can't be specific) and the objectives we set out to achieve every time we sit down to plan every next issue. My main focus will be on the how and who we send the magazine to - how we cut the data. And how important it is to keep plans simple to ensure full delivery of any project and to ensure that it is measurable in terms of success or otherwise.

• Darran Snatchfold, Snr. Strategic Planner, Digital Tullo Marshall Warren [download Presentation]
• Simon Prodger, Marketing Director, PKR.com [Download presentation]
  

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Speaker Profile:

1.) Ian Welch, Head of Sportsbook Marketing, Ladbrokes eGaming

Ian has been the Head of Sportsbook Marketing since January 2007 and has worked at Ladbrokes for four years in total. He started in a CRM role and it was during this time that he launched the customer magazine 'Close Up' which is the subject of his presentation. He now sees himself as the voice of the consumer to ensure that all sportsbook activity, including product development, new markets, new media etc. is driven by the consumer to be efficient, effective and most importantly to deliver profit.

Prior to Ladbrokes he worked at Ascot Racecourse for over 5 years so has nearly ten years experience in racing and gaming.

2.) Simon Prodger, Marketing Director, PKR

Simon has been the Marketing Director at PKR Technologies Ltd since October 2005 and was responsible for the launch campaign that helped establish PKR as a serious player in the online poker market.

As marketing director, Simon manages the marketing team and oversees all marketing and CRM activity for PKR’s expanding range of products.

An industry veteran of more than five years, Simon’s previous role saw him head up the marketing team for VC Poker.

3.) Darran Snatchfold, Senior Strategic Planner, Tullo Marshall Warren

Darran is Senior Strategic Planner at TMW and leads the agency's strategic (e)CRM work for T-Mobile, Diageo, FT and Royal Mail. He first moved into the realms of digital at Microsoft where he championed the online channel to the international advertising community, speaking at industry events across EMEA. His formative years were spent in the offline world of Print, heading up strategic research divisions of both IPC, the UK's largest magazine publisher, and MGN, the UK's largest newspaper publisher.

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