The Importance of Data Visualization Tools for Marketing to Players
Steve Valentine, Director of Interactive discusses the importance of data visualisation tools when marketing to players.
Read about it at GI Friday, Week 3 2019.
Digital marketing in the iGaming vertical is becoming not only a complex multi-faceted discipline and model in regards to how marketing teams collect personal data; use that data to better understand the customer journey for both player acquisition and retention. Factor in the headwinds strengthening across many regulated markets in regards to responsible gambling it is highly likely that first deposit bonus, free spins, cash-back could become like the dinosaurs extinct or the fundamentals of the new player sign-up incentive will change out of all current recognition.
Data and data visualization could be part of the digital marketer’s toolkit to acquire today’s digital natives in the attention economy and differentiate the brand in a socially responsible manner while reducing the reliance of free bet financial based incentives to attract new players.
Data visualisation is all around, portrayed in multiple interactive formats across all our digital screen-based daily interactions such a mobile, outdoor media, TV screens, digital projections and so forth. Furthermore, our brain is hard-wired to visual information, 90% of all information sent to the mind is visual, and 93% of all human communication is visual, look at Instagram and Pinterest to see how brands engage consumers with visual content based marketing.
So why could the expansion of data visualisation of sports betting game statistics pre-match and live betting within a marketing context become more critical?
Well aside from our brains being hard-wired to a visual stimulus, today’s digital natives that play sports betting, esports or fantasy sports are very much tuned to games of skill, and the ability to improve their skills to attain self-satisfaction, reward, social peer praise or monetary gain. Therefore similar to traditional marketing segmentation models, data visualisation content can be designed to the players’ hierarchy of needs based on gambling behaviour and psychology and whether the bet is placed pre-match or during live-betting.
Visualisation of data could assist with general industry’s challenges when it comes to the preponderance of the betting choice as for whether to place the bet slip or not! Betslip abandonment is a huge problem, and perhaps presenting visual data to the successful outcome of Team A vs. Team B or why the odds have changed, may allow the player to have some reasonable thinking time. Perhaps data visualisation of statistics throughout the player journey could increase the players betting confidence and the decision making behind that process to one of a more informed based, rational and not impulsive one and would potentially meet the responsible gambling dictums.
Who knows, but we are all stakeholders in this industry, and we are obligated to ensure responsible gambling measures are adhered and perhaps more fact-based data-driven visualisation of iGaming marketing content could be a step in the right direction.