Betfair turns to gamification to increase customer value
Betfair is set to roll out an achievements-led incentives programme to encourage users to explore more of its website and make bets on different games and sports.
The site is adopting gaming strategies such as achievements – similar to LinkedIn’s progress bar that indicates how complete a user’s profile is, or Foursquare’s badges – to incentivise users.
It will also reward users with virtual goods and cash rewards when they discover and make bets on different areas of the website.
Jeremy Sulzmann, global head of customer engagement at Betfair, says: “We’re taking a page from some social networks’ achievement-led ideas. I’ve always found propositions [like LinkedIn’s progress bar] quite powerful, it’s innate to want to get to 100%.”
Betfair hopes to drive users to areas of the site that increase customer value such as the help and learning section and forums and editorial content, which tend to result in visitors placing higher value deposits and completing their registration, according to Betfair’s recent user testing data.
The pilot programme is due to launch over the coming months and will sit either in the “my account” section or separately like a trophy page. The scheme is set to be supported by e-mail and text communications to customers.
Once tested, the idea could includes a “bonus bar” appearing across the site to encourage users to earn more achievements.
As well as increasing revenue, Betfair hopes the new programme will help the business to become more unified internally when running marketing or editorial campaigns on and for the website.
Sulzmann says: “Users view Betfair as a portfolio experience, but we haven’t been thinking in that way from a business sense. We already do incentivisation in pockets, in the arcade section and the Betfair points programme, but it’s a bit disconnected at the moment so we’re trying to pull this together.”
