What can Businesses Learn from the iGaming Marketplace?

Posted by Harry Kane on Saturday, October 14, 2023

The UK’s online gambling market remains the very embodiment of big business, achieving a cumulative market value of £6.17 billion (7.80 billion) at the end of 2022. What’s more, the industry is poised to grow at a CAGR of 5.4% over the course of the next five years, before peaking at a staggering £8.71 billion ($11 billion) in 2028.

Due to the incredible and seemingly relentless growth of this market (which has continued despite an uncertain and constantly changing regulatory backdrop), it stands to reason that the iGaming space should provide a viable area of study for ambitious businesses in other sectors. This is especially true for digitally oriented firms that are focused on leisure products or services.

But what the most important lesson that businesses can learn from iGaming, and how can they be applied in alternative marketplaces? We’ll explore three particular lessons in the article below while exploring these in a little more detail.

#1. The Offering of Constant Rewards

Whenever you sign up at an online casino, you’ll see that gambling brands tend to compete for custom by providing generous welcome offers. These are increasingly structured and often spread over your first three or more deposits too, while they commonly take the form of 100% deposit matches or maybe free spins.

However, even once you’ve registered for an account and cashed in your welcome offer, you’ll continue to receive a slew of reload bonuses and promotions that are designed for existing players. These can include daily free bets and cashback bonuses, while they may also be personalised based on your weekly spending level and the frequency with which you wager.

Regardless, they provide a constant stream of incentives, which actively encourage you to spend more time playing your favourite games and potentially increase your spending volumes over time. However, such bonuses aren’t overly promotional, as they’re customised to offer optimal value based on your preferred games and typical stake values.

The latter point is key here, as it contributes to an ongoing but organic form of marketing that’s easily customisable. This approach subsequently keeps customers engaged while encouraging them to spend more on a daily and weekly basis, while it also forms the basis of tiered rewards programs and loyalty schemes.

We’ve already seen a number of prominent businesses adopt a similar ethos, with Amazon in particular offering frequent cashback offers and discounted product prices through its Prime membership. EBay has done something very similar (albeit on slightly smaller scale) over the course of its trading life.

Of course, this requires a significant outlay for smaller or independent brands, who may feel that they lack the resources to offer incentives on such a broad scale. However, this is made more attainable by creating a tiered loyalty scheme based on each customer’s spending volumes, as any cost associated with proffering frequent rewards can be justified and largely offset over time.

#2. Creating a Diverse Array of Different Payment Methods

In terms of accessibility and optimising conversion rates online, it’s crucial that any business offers their customers a broad range of payment methods. This is certainly something that’s observed at online casino platforms, which often combine traditional banking options (such as bank transfer and debit card) with e-wallets like PayPal, Skrill, Razorpay and Neteller.

You can even execute deposits and fund bets using a growing array of first- and second-generation cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Ripple and even Bitcoin Cash. Not only is this range of payment options incredibly diverse, but it’s also constantly expanding to incorporate new methods and technologies as they evolve.

As we’ve already touched on, maximising the number of payment methods you are offered has a highly positive impact on online conversion rates, while it also delights individual customers and actively improves their experience and journey online. By offering a customer’s preferred payment options, you can also encourage them to spend more and access their cash as flexibly as possible.

Of course, you’ll need to offer such payment solutions securely and in a way that’s scalable, so strive to offer as many options as possible within the confines of your existing tech stack. Remember, all online payments and transactions should be safeguarded by 128-bit SSL encryption where possible, while you may want to utilise two or multifactor account access when processing mobile payments.

You should also discover the precise needs of your consumers and different demographics and strive to meet these by creating a relevant range of payment options online. This can also help to inform your decisions and ensure that you prioritise individual banking methods as and when required!

#3. Providing Constantly Accessible Customer Support

Last, but not least, we come to the issue of customer support, which is central to any successful business and has become a key focal point for online gambling brands over the years. More specifically, casino brands have focused on creating interactive and constantly accessible customer service, across a number of different channels too.

Such channels include interactive live chat (which may be available 24/7 in many instances), email (which should provide viable responses within 24 hours at least) and telephone. In the case of the latter, the market leading brands provide a toll-free number, while this should also be accessible for as many business hours as possible.

The benefit of this is that customers can resolve their technical account queries much quicker and enjoy an optimal experience online, while this also creates an opportunity for corporeal customer service agents to upsell VIP or bonus packages. The latter point is key, as highly evolved and immersive customer service should always open up lucrative marketing opportunities.

When managing your own business’s customer service, it’s crucial that you offer the best possible level of support within your means, while ensuring that your agents are well-trained, empathetic and able to identify opportunities for upselling when customers are at their most engaged with the brand.

Businesses would also do well to ensure that they make the relevant customer service contact details easy to see and access online. These should also be inputted accurately and consistently across the site, while the live chat feature should be made accessible on every landing page and highly responsive wherever possible.