Step 1: Free-to-Play Games and Analytics Set-Up
Hey readers, welcome to my new blog. The intent of this blog is to show the process of taking a digital media company and transforming it into a ready-to-accept bets sportsbook through digital marketing. I say ready-to-accept since it is possible that U.S. legislation is still not fully fledged out by the time that the sportsbook is ready to go. I will refer to multiple examples of companies throughout this process, but I will mainly use BetChicago.
A news outlet focused on the Midwest region, BetChicago posts articles with insights on upcoming sporting events from a betting perspective. One day, BetChicago hopes to be able to accept bets through their site. My work at Chalkline Sports, a marketing firm focused on sportsbook operators, affiliates, and related digital media companies, will contribute to BetChicago’s mission. This is a step-by-step strategy, and I plan to outline each step through a blog post.
Without further adieu, Step 1:
In order to operate a sportsbook, one must have a loyal following. To get there, the operator must acquire customers and familiarize them with the platform and layout. Free-to-play games offer followers of the site to begin playing games without actually risking anything. Even better, the site could offer small prizes to the winners of these games, which is well worth the amount of information being collected from the customers. But I’ll get back to information collecting later in the post. Overall, free-to-play games allow companies to start building their sports betting database. The games only take the user a minute to complete, while collecting their email or phone number instantly. They are also completely customizable, with the capabilities for any sport, region, and bet type.
I’ve learned that it’s important to separate the free-to-play game platform from the actual media site, since one day real wagers will need to be collected on a different site or tab. A game page can promote different games and keep the user involved in many games during a single page visit. Below is the games page I set up for BetChicago.
Now that the page is set up, it is incredibly important to track the customer information for the client. Marketing companies are their core are data companies, collecting consumer data for the client in order to make better informed business decisions. Thus, we set up Google Analytics accounts for each client in order to track clicks, users, page visits, and behavior. This allows the client to know who is playing their games, what games are more popular, and other certain important analytics. In the next edition I will explore some of this data and how it can be used.