We sat down with bookmakers, StarSports, for an insight into what makes them tick and what makes their affiliate marketing program so attractive to UK customers.
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Tell us a bit about StarSports as a brand and what you offer to customers that sets you apart from other UK-based operators.
Star Sports is the UK’s largest independent bookmaker, with a proud history of maintaining the traditions of bookmaking. Where other brands limit their customers, we continue to lay the biggest bets in the industry, while ensuring that we adhere to our Social Responsible Gambling commitments.
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Why have you chosen to segment your targeting to offer a proposition that’s best suited to high-value players?
The choice to tailor our proposition has been taken for a number of reasons. One of the main ones is that our customers can expect a high quality of customer service with us, rather than being a faceless betting experience. Our customers have the ability to speak directly to our trading team to place their bets, we’re also one of the few bookmakers still running a telephone betting service, something that allows us to form relationships with our high-value players who may have specific needs.
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How do your partners segment their promotions to ensure they are reaching the right kinds of customers in the HNW marketplace?
Our partners can segment their promotions by ensuring they’re pushing the offers we have available that are most appropriate to HNW individuals. Whilst we do have offers that appeal more to the mass market, many of our promotions are there for HNW individuals to enjoy – if affiliates make themselves familiar with those promotions, then they’ll be able to best choose which are most attractive to the kind of customers we’re looking to acquire.
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What are the top things you look for in a partner before inviting them to join your affiliate program, and what can they expect vs other high street operators?
The key things we look for in a partner before they join our program are reliability: can the partner be trusted to push the correct offers? Flexibility: is the partner able to adapt to when offers are at their most relevant? Compliant: are they meeting our standards of compliance when it comes to things like our Social Responsible Gambling commitments?
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Why do you think it’s important for affiliates to segment their marketing and focus on this high-value niche?
Whilst it’s important to an extent, we always want to make it clear that StarSports is welcoming to all potential clients, we have promotions on offer that can suit both the high-value players and the more recreational punter.
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What are some of the challenges you see in the UK and EU as a whole for brands and partners to overcome in the year ahead?
The standout issue on the horizon is the government white paper which is still in the offing, which will likely dictate a lot of what we’re able to do in terms of advertising going forward, strong relationships with affiliates where we have lines of communication open will be key.
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What’s the one thing you want partners to remember about Star Sports and the proposition you offer to referred players?
That whilst we do have a host of promotions on-site for referred players to enjoy, the thing we pride ourselves on is the unique betting experience we provide our customers. Having the ability to speak directly to a highly knowledgeable trading team is a rarity, and will always be at the front and centre of what we do.
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Why are affiliates an important part of your business marketing strategy? Where do you see them adding value long term?
We at StarSports see affiliates as an important part of our marketing strategy because they’ve managed to establish themselves as a key way of acquiring new customers – partnering with affiliates means we have the ability to put our brand and promotions on a bigger stage while ensuring that the customers we pick up are what we’re looking for.
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