Take control of your content

Martyn Hannah, director of eGaming content marketing agency, ghostfoundry, says operators need to launch content hubs to engage players in line with marketing rules

Online gambling operators in established European markets are coming under increasing pressure from regulators and watchdogs over the way they advertise to players.

In the UK, the Great Britain Gambling Commission and Advertising Standards Authority have come down hard on those considered to have breached the rules.

Over the past 18 months, this has seen some of the largest and most established operators being hit with multi-million-pound fines.

It has also led to a shake-up of the affiliate ecosystem, with the regulator making it clear that operators are ultimately responsible for the content published on their behalf.

For this reason, online casino operators and their marketing teams should look to take greater control over content and ramp up their own publishing efforts.

To do this, they should launch their own content hubs packed full of unique, high-value content that engages, educates and entertains consumers.

By doing this, online gambling operators can deliver increased value to customers, drive new player traffic and significantly boost loyalty.

There are also tremendous SEO benefits to operators running their own content hubs and regularly posting articles, graphics and videos across social media.

There are cost benefits, too.

While operators will have to invest in content – ether via an internal team or by partnering with an agency – it is significantly cheaper than paying affiliates to drive traffic to their sites.

So how do operators set about creating a content hub, what sort of content should they be creating and uploading and how regularly should they be posting?

I explain below.

Conduct an audit and put a strategy in place:

The first thing operators and their in-house marketers should do is conduct a content audit. As part of this, consider what you want to achieve via your content hub.

This might be:

• Driving new player traffic
• Giving current players a reason to keep coming back for more
• Improve SEO and rankings
• Have more content to share on social media

At this stage it is also vital to understand your target audience as this will impact the content you create and the platforms you use to publish it.

Note down your current content creation efforts and distribution methods, and identify how this can be streamlined into a content hub that sits naturally on your online gambling site(s).

The next step is to put a detailed content strategy in place. We always recommend breaking this down into three-month segments.

Your strategy should outline the types of content you wish to create – blogs, guides, features, interviews, videos, podcasts, etc – and where it will be distributed.

The more in-depth you make your strategy the easier it is to deploy consistently, which is key to the success of all content marketing activity.

Become a content generation machine:

With a clear plan in place, it’s time to get to work on creating content for your hub.

Depending on the scale and scope of your plan, this could be publishing one blog post per day or it could be a multi-strand approach that is a full-time job in itself.

As a starting point, we recommend that operators publish at least one post per day to their content hub which is then also shared across social media.

Then, once they get into the swing of things, they can look to increase their output and add different content formats, such as videos and podcasts.

It is important to stress the need to work with expert writers, designers, videographers, etc as poor-quality content will not achieve the results you are seeking.

Consumers are super savvy and know when they are engaging with content that offers genuine insight, value and entertainment.

Some operators are already deploying content hubs and are reaping the rewards and others should follow suit without delay.

Restrictions on marketing and advertising are only going to become more severe, and the only way for operators to overcome this is to take charge and launch their own content hubs.

Those that do will continue to attract new players and give their current players significant added value while also rocketing up the SERPs.

And all of this while being 100% compliant with the rules of engagement set out by regulators and watchdogs in markets across Europe and beyond.