Episode four of the second season of Footprints in the Market | Influencing iGaming is live! On this week’s episode, we’re delighted to welcome Yaspa CMO Kate Marsden. Kate sat down for a chat with Digital Footprints Managing Director Sharon McFarlane to talk about marketing in the iGaming space, award submissions, fostering creativity as a marketing leader and more.
Marketing in the iGaming Space
Gambling and iGaming are unique industry sectors that demand a specialised approach to marketing. This is, in part, driven by the strict rules and regulations the industry operates under, but also by a particular industry culture that prioritises networking, events and personal relationships.
Kate explains:
“We found our customer base in the iGaming and the gambling space. That was completely new but also very old-fashioned. In one respect, you’re working in payments, which is very much at the forefront of technology, and yet you’re selling into an industry that has been around for thousands of years.
“It’s an industry that’s very dependent on networks and personal relationships. The types of marketing that typically we would have been doing for online businesses, simply weren’t applying. It was all about events and networking and building relationships and building trust. And actually that’s been a really, really lovely space to be marketing in. Very hard to attribute success to, but very nice to work in.”
The iGaming industry is driven by technology and, as such, is constantly evolving. However, as Kate explains, it’s still very much reliant on interpersonal relationships and face-to-face interaction, and that’s not likely to change any time soon.
Awards as Opportunities for Smaller Brands
In the crowded iGaming market landscape, it can be difficult for newer or smaller brands to stand out from the crowd. One potential solution to this can be through awards; an opportunity which Kate and Yaspa have taken full advantage of:
“When we first started we had a negligible marketing budget and we had very few customers, but it turned out that we were very good at award submissions and award wins, even when we had very few active customers on the ground. We made a deliberate effort to look as big as we could and to shout about our successes as loudly as we could.”
It can be easy to feel a bit of ‘awards fatigue’ in iGaming. It seems like there’s a new awards ceremony every other week. However, these can be extremely valuable opportunities, especially for smaller brands that are trying to cut through the noise and establish themselves in an increasingly competitive market.
Fostering Creativity as a Marketing Leader
Succeeding as an iGaming marketer requires a broad range of skills. While technical abilities are undoubtedly essential, perhaps the most important skill of all is creativity.
Kate explains how she fosters and nurtures creativity as a marketer leader in the iGaming space:
“As you scale you obviously bring in more specialists in different areas. We’ve just hired a graphic designer, so the creative side is absolutely her baby but actually she was a fabulous hire because she’s also interested in the business. It’s all about trying to make sure that people we bring into the team understand the expectations and can see the benefit of working for a really fast-growing company.
“You have to be very fast, very adaptable, very agile, and able to think on your feet. The point is being able to relish it when new things happen, or new stuff gets thrown at you.”
iGaming is a fast-moving space and, as Kate highlights, success requires a particular set of attributes, including adaptability and quick-thinking. Roles often have lots of overlap and marketers, in particular, need to be willing to wear many different hats.
Kate and Sharon also discussed:
Positioning in a Competitive Market (jump to 5.03)
Rebranding Yaspa (jump to 6.50)
Working as a Woman in iGaming (jump to 19.15)
A massive thanks to Kate for taking the time to share her insights and experience. Watch this space for episode five of Footprints in the Market | Influencing iGaming!
