With the slow and laborious nature of iGaming becoming regulated in the U.S., it’s given affiliates the advantage of having plenty of time to get their ducks in a row in preparation for the regulated market. An email strategy will be an important component to achieving marketing success in what will eventually be the largest regulated iGaming market in the world.
Start Now
Email marketing is a powerful and under-utilized tool. Affiliates who ignore this approach to player acquisition are missing out on value. Plan on using email marketing as a long-term strategy.
If you’re currently not doing any forms of email marketing, it’s good to start started on building your double opt-in list now. Not only will this give you a database of players to market to when the time is right, but it will also help you become acquainted with different approaches to email marketing to figure out what works best for your brand when there is a larger market to advertise to.
It is important to note that many email marketing service providers do not accept business from gambling affiliates due to concerns over spam. Find a gambling-friendly ESP to work with.
Mind Your Ps and Qs
Your U.S. traffic is valuable even if you are not advertising online gaming to them now. Encourage your U.S. visitors to start opting-in to your email marketing list. Growing a database now will have you poised for success.
Let potential subscribers know you will be quoting offers to them when legal sites are up and running in the U.S. In the meantime, dispatching news and information about the state of iGaming legislation in the U.S. will help build brand awareness and loyalty.
Be sure to use a double opt-in format to acquire subscribers. This ensures you are only sending emails to people who have verified they want to receive them. Emailing people unsolicited will result in increased spam complaints and a higher likelihood of delivery rate issues.
Share with your readers a privacy policy at the point of sign-up. Subscription rates will be higher when readers are reassured that you will not share or sell their information for any purpose.
A clear pathway also needs to be made for every subscriber to opt-out if they so choose. Most ESPs will include unsubscribe information automatically in your newsletters, but make sure subscribers always have an clearly marked method for opting-out.
Practice Promoting
There are legal ways to promote online gambling in the U.S. today. Horse racing is a good place to start. Programs like Twinspires and TVG are legal, U.S.-based operators that you can start promoting right now.