Program marketing updates - How often is TOO often?

[Louis - Income Access]

Following on the heels of this thread, https://www.gpwa.org/forum/programs-...es-206718.html, I thought it would be relevant to ask how often programs should send marketing updates.

Is twice a week too much email to receive from an affiliate program with updates about new player offers, new games, etc..?

What is the ideal frequency of these types of emails?

[baldidiot]

Honestly I'd like it if it were only when there was something important, like a change in bonus - and it should have a subject along the lines of 'New bonus offer'.

I don't even look at the the weekly emails from various programs unless the subject is important.

[iGamingWriter]

Personally i feel if you've got something new going on, i'm happy to hear about it whenever. Whether it's new promotions, tournaments, new games or big winners it give me the opertunity to make a post and keep your review up to date. Fresh content is always a good thing.

[F-L-C]

I agree, as long as you have something valuable to say send it!

[universal4]

Tough call really....

Not sure if you currently run more than one list or not Louis but I am wondering if it's better for programs to do so.

The main list would be for the monthly update or any earth shattering info that everyone just had to have...the other being the list that gets every single update each week or two or any marketing specials etc...this would allow affiliates to opt-in/opt-out of additional mailings....

From our side you guys always need to keep in mind that if each program sends out 3 mailings per month and we only belong to 40 programs that is only 120 mailings that each manager thinks is more important than the other 117 mailings sitting in our inboxes each month.

I expect the monthly mailing, and updates on games and promos etc....but much more than 3 or 4 a month is starting to border on too many....except at such times when major changes need to be put out, or we need to be reminded of stuff.

Take my above scenario and change it to 5 mailings per month multiplied by 40 programs and now we have an average of 50 mailings each week all containing the latest greatest earth shattering information we can not live without as an affiliate.

So yes Louis, I agree it's a difficult balancing act.....you got it figured out yet?


Rick
Universal4

[Louis - Income Access]

Good points, Rick.

My current theory is that an affiliate program needs to maintain a couple of levels of unsubscribe. Affiliates should be able to unsubscribe to the daily/weekly updates and just get a monthly update. For programs with multiple products, affiliates should also be able to unsubscribe to updates from verticals they don't promote (example, if you promote poker, but not casino, unsubscribe to casino promotions but not poker). Finally, there should be an unsubscribe to all non-essential updates. Affiliates should not be able to completely unsubscribe because there are certain updates and communications that have to go out (change in terms and conditions, pulling out of a market, etc).

I work on the unsubscribe theory because I believe you should assume people want the max information unless told otherwise, as affiliates might not know to subscribe to a particular update, but be happy when they get it. Unsubscribing is not such a big hassle.

[universal4]

Yep sounds like you have been thinking about this a bit......

As an example, with some of the Rivals they have 6 or 7 things too subscribe or unsubscribe to like:
Getting an email when commission is paid
Getting an email when a player deposits
Getting an email with a weekly signup summary
Getting an email with a monthly revenue summary
Getting the affiliate program newsletter
Getting the affiliate program marketing news
Getting the casino news

Now with those any time we want to change a subscription to any of them all we need to do is log in and set the subscription for that particular one to yes or no.

I'd be happy to drop you a link if you wanna sign up to the one I mentioned so you can see it since a few of them offer a few less choices...

I agree that it likely makes more sense to set them to yes as a default but allowing the affiliate to say yay or nay to some of the mailings allows the program to seem less intrusive to the mailbox.

Personally, you could just stop sending me any email and fly me over every once in a while to give me my earth shattering marketing news in person....don't worry I'd be happy to pass along most of the news to others....

Rick
Universal4

<....psst....> Did it work? Is he booking me a flight?

[Crazyrewards-Morten]

I agree, as long as you have something valuable to say send it!

A bit like this really...

Looking at the issue from the perspective of doing it the optimal way, IMO you shouldn't really have scheduled newletters or update mail. What you should be looking at is whether the information is important for the sender, and if you catch yourself thinking whether an update should be send, it probably isn't important enough to send.

There's of course different degrees of important but Ricks example with the 120 newsletters a month is a really good example. Hand on your heart - how often do you really believe that your news letter is the most important information the recipient receives that particular day?

Now leaving the bubble of the perfect world there's obviously a lot of things to consider and particularly the different level of information that the affiliates might like, so Louis solution with the afiliate defining different interest areas might be really good

[iGamingWriter]

For programs with multiple products, affiliates should also be able to unsubscribe to updates from verticals they don't promote (example, if you promote poker, but not casino, unsubscribe to casino promotions but not poker).

That's something i'd forgotten - running a casino only site, my inbox seems awash with sportsbook/poker news and promotions that i really couldn't care less about. Perhaps it would be an idea to have an option in the sign-up process to select the products that you wish to receive mail for?

[Anthony-Coral]

Thanks for all the useful posts - really good reading...

At Coral we're currently defining what our communication strategy will be, ahead of a (re)launch in the coming months. I wonder if any of you have a preference about 'the way' that you are contacted?

For example, I always worry as Rick helpfully pointed out; how my email will compete in the inbox of a busy affiliate. Do you think there are any useful ways to get useful and relevant messages out to you guys buy using an affiliate-focussed Facebook/Twitter stream for the Coral Programme?

[baldidiot]

I think a great strategy would be to have emails sent out only when there is something important to say - new bonus, special promotion, change of links etc.. and then put the day to day info such as new games, winners and such on to facebook or twitter. That way those who want constant updates can subscribe to the twitter feeds and the rest of us don't get our inboxes cluttered.

Something else to be aware of is the more often a program sends an email, the less likely it is I'm going to read it. For example, there's one program that sends out am email like clockwork on a friday and I haven't even looked at one in months. If any important information were given out at some point via this newsletter, I would almost certainly miss it.

Also if it's a mass email, don't try and trick affiliates into thinking that it's directed at them personally. Theres one program that, for a short while, started sending out emails with the subject of 'Hows business?' or 'Good work last month' and then just had the usual crap inside.