Competition in the online casino business is tighter than ever. There are literally thousands of operators running even more casino services for the ever expanding online casino market. With that in mind, it becomes increasingly difficult to know exactly how to compete and what the best ways are to attract customers. Today, we’re going to look at some of the most effective ways that online casinos attract customers in 2023, so let’s get started.
- Bonuses
If you’ve ever looked into using online casinos, then you’ll know that bonuses are always front and centre in online casino marketing. They are probably the single most effective tool that online casinos have for beating out the competition and attracting more customers.
Bonuses work in a variety of ways. Typically, you’ll get a certain amount of money to spend for free on the games when you first sign up, once you make your first deposit. For example, you might get €50 worth of funds to spend on a variety of casino games for your first €10 deposit.
Players might also get a certain amount of free spins as part of a sign up bonus. These can be used on a variety of slots games and are often used as an additional bonus to, say, free bets.
Some bonuses even work as percentages of your first deposit, meaning that you’ll get a higher initial bonus depending on what your first deposit is. These can be highly lucrative, up to 200% of your initial deposit in rare cases.
While there are some ongoing bonuses and promotions for existing customers, the primary function of these bonuses is to attract new customers. Once you’ve set up on a particular site due to the bonus, even simply due to your familiarity with it, you are likely to stay with it.
- Variety of games
On a simpler note, online casinos must also compete and attract customers by having an attractive variety of games. Casinos generally have three broad categories of games: machines, table games, and random number games. Within these categories, the biggest and most successful online slots at casinos can have as many as 500 different games to play.
Veteran online casino players won’t settle for just a couple of games, then. If online casinos want to attract new customers, they need to offer a wide variety of games to play. This means all the traditional favourites, but also new and innovative games.
- Referral programs
Another fairly clever way that online casinos are able to attract new customers is through referral programs. These can work in slightly different ways, but generally the idea is that existing players are rewarded for referring new customers and attracting new players to the casino. The existing player might get some free spins or free bets to play with, and the customer signing up through the referral program may even get a reward, too.
This is a great way to effectively get your customers to attract new players for you. There’s a good incentive in it both parties.
- Efficient services
In the online world, things are moving faster than ever today. This has made people want faster services and more efficient digital platforms. But these still aren’t easy to make. Anyone can cobble together a slow and dysfunctional online casino. The way you attract new players is by having fast and efficient games and services.
The most important aspect of this is doubtless payment speed. Withdrawals can now be done so quickly that most players won’t settle for 3-5 days to wait to have their winnings withdrawn to their account.
Online casinos need to put real care and time into their services to attract new customers.
- VIP programs
Finally, many online casinos offer VIP programs for their most loyal customers. This can be a great way to attract new customers as not all casinos currently offer these. For those who bet a lot, VIP programs are really attractive, offering huge bet bonuses and more free bets. This can be a good way to get veteran players away from casinos they’ve been using for a long time, and attract them to your own casino.
High roller rewards like this can be hugely lucrative to players, and naturally since they are more exclusive, there’s a lot more money involved.
There are a few basic things which, if an operator gets wrong, usually just push them right out of the competition. But even once you’ve gotten those basic things right, there’s still a lot you need to do in order to be in with a chance of attracting a lot of customers. Bonuses are probably the single most effective tool, but they must be used in tandem with other things like VIP programs and a good variety of games.