Player Engagement Programs in Balance

The lottery landscape, along with the broader consumer market, introduces further challenges that amplify those already faced by today's lotteries:

1. The player base for most lotteries is both shrinking and aging due to demographic trends and various competitive forces.
   What’s needed: Strategies to reverse this decline, starting with better understanding the largely anonymous players.
2. Placing too much reliance on high spenders is not sustainable.
   What’s needed: Shifting focus to expand the player base through the attraction of more players who spend modestly and regularly, rather than a reliance on a small number who spend heavily.
3. Consumers expect personalized marketing, exclusive perks, and rewards, and they expect the same level of engagement from lotteries.
   What’s needed: Align with player expectations by offering convenience (mobile apps), ease of use (cross-channel deposits), high-value returns for engagement (additional chances to win, player points), and ensuring that proper security and responsible communication measures are in place.

As the lottery industry navigates new considerations with its player base – alongside rising consumer expectations and the need to strike a balance between various player segments – understanding players has become more critical than ever. The anonymity of player behavior, especially at retail, complicates efforts to gain clear insights into player groups and preferences, often leading to fragmented or ineffective mass marketing strategies and, ultimately, lower retention rates. The right Player Engagement Program offers a sustainable and effective solution by helping build, maintain, and strengthen a healthy player base for both the present and future. However, communication remains a delicate balance – it's about fostering engagement in a responsible and healthy way while still providing opportunities for revenue growth. To achieve this, lotteries must first find a way to remove player anonymity so they can understand both their retail as well as iLottery customer behaviors.  This will allow lotteries to transition from mass marketing to a more personalized approach, tailoring segmented messages to engage with players according to their unique journeys all while promoting responsible play and well-being.

While a lottery’s online platform allows them to understand a player’s behavior, lotteries could still be missing important information about that player’s retail behavior. A Player Engagement Program establishes a mutually beneficial relationship between lotteries and players, offering a value exchange through membership in a lottery club. This club provides value to both online and retail players, convenience, and support for player well-being in return for player information. The relationship between players and the lottery creates a comprehensive, 360-degree understanding of the player base, enabling lotteries to gain deep insights by integrating player behavior across retail and online channels. Player information can also be gathered through the use of polls, surveys, and quizzes to further the build of a player’s detailed profile.  Utilizing this information, lotteries can then enable educational and promotional efforts to specific segments, while also implementing tailored engagement programs that are uniquely suited to each player.

In a market overcrowded with entertainment options, lotteries understand that if they build something fresh, exciting, attention-grabbing, and engaging, players will come. But here's the simple truth: it’s not enough to just attract them. To make players stay, lotteries must offer real value and consistent support.

CREATE MEANINGFUL ENGAGEMENT

To provide meaningful engagement, a lottery must build a 360-degree view of players, which requires a fusion of strategic data management, sophisticated technology, and analytics.

Knowing who your players are is at the core of any Player Engagement Program, and for Pollard Banknote, that program is PlayOn. PlayOn provides an interactive platform where players can engage with content like surveys, polls, quizzes, games, and videos, with each interaction enriching their 360-degree profile. The program captures data on preferences, behaviors, spending, and engagement, thusly building comprehensive profiles that reflect both online and retail activities. Designed to accommodate all levels of participation and not just limited to a lottery’s highest-value players, PlayOn ensures that all players benefit from the program through tailored opportunities for engagement. This broad reach allows for a deeper understanding of player behaviors and spending dynamics across a wide range of participants.

Distilling player data is essential for understanding and interacting with players in real-time. To achieve this, PlayOn leverages Bloomreach technology to craft player-focused engagement strategies, offering valuable insights into player behavior and campaign performance. A key aspect of Bloomreach is that it can also process data from external channels such as digital paid media ads, thereby enriching player profiles with additional layers of information. Bloomreach provides critical data and analytics on both players and campaign outcomes. This is a critical component – progress can’t be measured if you’re not tracking it.

ALLOW FOR A MUTUAL VALUE EXCHANGE

Player insight is only achievable when players register with a lottery and remain active, and this requires them to find value in being known. The value for players includes opportunities to earn rewards from purchases, participating in surveys, engaging in online activities, and prize drawings. Since players prioritize convenience, features like ticket validation are also valuable to them. Value is also provided to a player through personalized and meaningful messages and offers. In exchange, a lottery benefits from improved player retention and information about the player's play behavior and spend patterns so they can continue to enhance and build responsible programs for their players.

The Arizona Lottery developed a personalized campaign around player activity – A Level Up Campaign which introduced a new Crossword Scratchers ticket to existing Arizona Lottery crossword players registered on their Player Engagement Program. The lottery defined a specific segment that included players who had previously submitted a Crossword ticket and players who submitted the new ticket during a specified month.  Players that entered at least one new Crossword ticket on the Player Engagement Program throughout the duration of the campaign received one free draw entry for a little bundle of scratch tickets. Thousands of players entered during the campaign period, solidifying the value. Additionally, the low threshold to participate further emphasizes how a lottery can reward players in a responsible manner.

NURTURE PLAYER WELLNESS & ENCOURAGE RESPONSIBLE BEHAVIOR

To know a player is to care for them. Using the tools offered by a Player Engagement Program, lotteries can define segments that both align with their growth objectives and encourage responsible player behavior and overall wellness. By uncovering specific player preferences and activity, these programs can be used to empower personalized and responsible engagement with players. This means encouraging less-engaged players to participate more frequently in a responsible way through tailored promotions, while limiting or adapting messaging to highly engaged players to ensure responsible gaming practices. Take, for example, a segment of highly engaged players - the objective could be to maintain their participation without encouraging excessive play.  This segment could be engaged with non-play-related opportunities and communications, like an opinion survey. With moderately engaged players, the objective could be to stimulate increased engagement but offered through balanced play opportunities.  In this case, this segment could be offered a limited-time promotion encouraging players to engage with small draws that contribute to community causes.

Supporting players can also mean finding different ways to engage with players without offering rewards for purchase but rather engaging with players about topics unrelated to game promotion. West Virginia’s Player Engagement Program creates engagement activities centered around educating and informing players on the good causes the lottery supports. West Virginia’s “Where the Money Goes” engagement activity, for example, directs players to watch videos to learn how lottery proceeds go to community projects, education, and healthcare.  Drawing inspiration from this approach, lotteries could leverage their Player Engagement Program to create a player segment focused on socially conscious players. These players, based on behaviors like watching specific videos or entering specific draws, would demonstrate an interest in purpose-driven initiatives and a preference for supporting organizations dedicated to societal welfare.  A personalized 1:1 message sent to this segment would then share relevant information about these initiatives and the meaningful causes championed by the lottery.

As technology rapidly transforms society and reshapes consumer expectations, it’s essential for lotteries to adapt and stay relevant. Moving from broad, impersonal marketing strategies to personalized communications not only strengthens player engagement but also promotes responsible play and player well-being. This approach builds trust and integrity, benefiting both players and the lottery. By prioritizing personalization and balance in a Player Engagement Program, lotteries can cultivate long-lasting connections with players.

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