One big challenge faced by iGaming and casino gaming operators at the moment is retention. It’s all very well getting customers through the doors, but how can you make sure they stick around?

According to Digital Footprints, although new players may seem like the more exciting prospect for an iGaming business, retention actually “takes the crown” when it comes to cost versus return, so you should be focusing on retention if you’re in the iGaming world.

Successful iGaming businesses like Jackpota utilise social incentives in a savvy way to drive retention and increase profits. They know that social groups make customers more likely to stay with casino sites and iGaming ventures.

Below are some of the most common social strategies iGaming businesses and companies use to drive retention and maximise profits, and we’ve outlined how you can implement those strategies into your own business plan too!

Guilds, factions, and player-led organisations

One effective way to drive retention in the iGaming space is to allow players to form their own guilds or factions.

You might know guilds from MMORPGs, but they’re also a fixture in the Web3 and crypto space, and they can be an excellent way of facilitating retention in the iGaming space as well.

If players can create factions, they’ll be more likely to engage in friendly competition with other factions, and that can serve as an excellent incentive for members of guilds to continue playing games.

Additionally, if guilds give out rewards to their members in the form of titles or achievements, then those players’ sense of being part of a group may be reinforced, leading to stronger retention in the long run.

Of course, you’ll need to draw up a robust set of rules around factions and guilds in your iGaming space to ensure that competition doesn’t get out of hand.

This will have the added benefit of making players within your factions or guilds feel more safe, which will in turn increase the chances that you’ll draw in repeat custom.

Gifts and gifting

Many iGaming ventures and businesses offer incentives to their loyal players in the form of gifts, which can strengthen the relationship between the player and the business.

The world of iGaming is intensely competitive, and it’s not getting any less cutthroat, so finding a way to differentiate yourself from your peers in terms of what kind of gifts you offer is critical.

Sam Vikström, who serves as the business director for gifting and loyalty firm Framme Group, says that gifting creates a “tangible connection with players” and “builds trust and loyalty” by making players feel valued.

More than ever, though, it’s important not to just offer bonuses as a gifting strategy. While these can be effective in the short term, they can also lose your business money over time if you’re not careful.  

Additionally, while bonuses may be appreciated by some players, they won’t be attractive to those who prefer experiential gifts or digitally-focused rewards, as Vikström notes in the above article.

That’s why you need to devise a gifting strategy that revolves around your players. Conduct demographic research to discover what kind of players you’re attracting and research what sort of gifts they would appreciate most.

Social gaming

Obviously, one of the cornerstones of your social retention strategy as an iGaming business operator should be the very act of social gaming itself, which should be at the heart of your business.

To put it simply, you should be ensuring that players can enjoy your games together wherever possible. Any game that supports multiplayer functionality, like poker, blackjack, or roulette, should feature a multiplayer mode.

Games that don’t have multiplayer built into their structure, like slot machines, should come complete with chatrooms or other ways for players to interact with one another.

Ideally, players should be able not only to talk to one another while playing, but also to encourage each other and support one another during bad runs.

Statistics show that in many cases, very low percentages of players can drive revenue for iGaming businesses, and so losing even one or two players could be disastrous for your business.

Implementing social gaming strategies can increase retention by ensuring that players don’t feel abandoned or lost when they’re losing, so they may continue playing since they have a support network around them.

It’s also worth noting that leading thinkers in the iGaming world increasingly believe that nurturing real connections between players and communities is more important than traditional retention statistics and hard figures.

As such, not only will implementing social features in gaming lead to stronger communities, but it’ll also strengthen brand loyalty from customers, who will be more likely to believe that you’ve got their best interests at heart.

Social media

While the internet is always changing, it’s pretty much a constant that social media should serve as one of the pillars of your iGaming strategy.

Social media can help to drive iGaming retention by building brand connections with customers, as well as by reinforcing brand voice. It’s difficult to stand out in the modern world of iGaming, but creating a strong, unique brand voice can help you to do this.

You can also communicate directly with customers in a way that might be difficult through traditional methods; many customers may feel more comfortable talking to you directly via social media messages rather than through your site’s built-in customer service protocols (which you should also have!).

Social media also offers you the chance to create your own content in order to contribute to the wider world of iGaming.

This could involve blog posts detailing certain aspects of the industry, anecdotal stories about things that have happened to customers on your site, or even just sharing memes or jokes.

The important thing is to humanise your brand so that customers know there are real people behind the screen, not just algorithms aiming to drain their wallets.

Conclusion

These are just some of the ways in which iGaming brands can emphasise social strategy in order to drive retention.

Each site is different, of course, and your site may come complete with some bespoke ways you can implement social features to make sure customers stick around for the long haul!