How Lottoland aims to grow and retain its UK customer base

Lottery betting operator Lottoland is focusing on the acquisition and retention of UK customers in 2020, a strategy being driven by former Camelot marketer Matt Osgood who joined Lottoland in October 2019 in the newly created role of UK marketing director.

In his new position, Osgood is responsible for the management of Lottoland’s marketing budget and works with internal teams as well as external media and creative partners. He is also focused on developing the Lottoland games portfolio due to his prior experience in the lottery sector.

Osgood talks to EGR Marketing about how the first few months have been since he joined Lottoland, the experience he is bringing from his time at Camelot and the challenges of working in a highly competitive sector.

EGR Marketing: How have your first few months at Lottoland been? 

Matt Osgood (MO): Busy and really, really great, I have found the broad reach of people across the different teams friendly and welcoming and the Lottoland culture is a breath of fresh air. I have found there is a real can-do spirit at Lottoland, and I think it stems from being built around a great set of company values, like ‘genuine’, ‘resilience’ and ‘ownership’ for example, which are not just words in a new starter manual but actually applied in ways of working, which is all very motivating to me. The Gib offices are pretty awesome too!

EGR Marketing: What are your priorities as UK marketing director at Lottoland in terms of marketing?

MO: So far it has been about getting to know the folks here, what they do and what they have been doing so I understand how the business works, especially the different product offerings. I hope by now my understanding of lottery is okay, so one of the many aspects that appealed to me about the role was the opportunity to learn about the other side of gaming that I hadn’t experienced at Camelot.

As with any market, the UK brings its own unique challenges, so my other focus is to look at these not as problems but as opportunities. Clearly, Camelot UK has been doing a good job, having recently posted its best ever H1 results after 25 years; this performance should not be underestimated in what is now a maturing category. So, there’s no shortcuts for the team and I, our opportunity is simply to do our utmost to serve the UK 18+ consumer better and engage them in compelling ways, so as to grow consumer mental availability. That’s my priority as we speak.

EGR Marketing: What skills/experience have you brought with you from your time at Camelot?

MO: As I said, I hope by now my understanding of lottery is to a good standard, having been lucky enough to learn from some of the best in the early days, in my time on EuroMillions and then more lately working with lotteries in Arkansas, California, Canada, Illinois, Ireland and New York. I bring this experience of operating in differing markets to grow engagement, participation and profits with me; and I highlight this because, too often in commercial marketing, I’ve seen category ‘know-how’ and experience dismissed by hiring managers, only to then witness it all go badly wrong when well intentioned, experienced in other categories, folk try and tackle the lottery category. I am not saying lottery is rocket science, it is just clever mathematics packaged up well into attractive consumer propositions but as the consumer experience by definition is more often than not a losing one lottery and lottery betting are both categories with nuances and subtleties that are perhaps not as obvious as some may think…

Prior to joining Camelot, I learned my trade working in various London ad agencies developing advertising to sell stuff for clients, so my time at Camelot taught me the flip side of this; commissioning effective marketing strategies, gaming innovation and engaging brand conversations to avoid business plans overly reliant on impulse purchases and high CPAs…to generate consumer advocacy, drive market share and deliver sustained value to shareholders.

EGR Marketing: What are the main challenges and opportunities you face as marketing director of an online gambling firm?

MO: In a battle for attention, the core challenge is cost effectively gaining, maintaining and then growing the consumer’s mental availability in buying situations, in what is widely acknowledged as the most highly competitive market for gambling in the world. Beyond this, operating in a highly regulated category brings its own dynamic but we fully embrace player protection and responsible gaming practice to protect vulnerable and potentially vulnerable consumers. Another one would be GDPR, as I am sure pretty much everyone can vouch for!

EGR Marketing: How has the sportsbook launch gone so far and do you see cross-sell opportunities across all your products?

MO: We only launched sportsbook last month, early days but it’s going well. It’s not on the roadmap for the UK in 2020 so I can’t really comment further.

EGR Marketing: How does the company push out marketing messages about its responsible gambling commitment?

MO: Corporate responsibility is at the heart of everything we do at Lottoland. All our marketing messages are checked and verified by our marketing and compliance teams to ensure they are fully compliant with the UK Advertising Codes issued by the Committees of Advertising Practice and administered by the Advertising Standards Authority and also the UK Code of Broadcast Advertising.

EGR Marketing: What will be the focus of Lottoland’s marketing strategy in 2020?

MO: Simply put, it is to attract more UK customers and retain them through a great portfolio of ever improving choice of games and prizes to bet on. Watch this space…