Football fans are living, enjoying or suffering alternatives of the matches of this fantastic FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022. While, up to now, 12 National teams have advanced to round of 16, others have been eliminated from the tournament. It makes sense and is quite intuitive to assume that sports bettors worldwide will support their own country and bet on their own team at higher rates during the World Cup.
Actually, this phenomenon is perhaps stronger with some nationalities than others. According to historical Optimove data, Italian bettors tend not to bet on any other team except their own. But who do they bet on when their country is eliminated from the competition? And what about all those whose own country has never qualified for the finals in the first place? Who are they betting on?
For operators that are offering sports betting, it is essential to develop plans to keep these types of users engaged. It would be best to analyze past betting behavior to gain insight into favored teams among online bettors from different countries.
IMPLEMENT ALTERNATIVE BETTING STRATEGIES
The probability of a bettor placing a bet on a match that their own National team plays in is 40% higher than an average match played during the group stage. However, operators can pick up on other trends and play with them in their marketing plan. For instance, Belgians like to bet on England. They placed 23% of bets on England’s national team during the 2018 World Cup. They’ll probably follow this path now that their National team has surprisingly out of the championship.
Companies can also look at geographical elements and how culture has an intrinsic role here. For instance, Spanish and Portuguese bettors like to place bets on each other when it comes to their betting trends.
BUILD A MARKETING PLAN
For the first two weeks of the World Cup, operators may want to anchor their complete marketing plan around their sports bettors’ National teams, as all the teams will play throughout the entire group stage.
After the group stages, they should run different campaigns for diverse segments of bettors based on each country playing in the group stages on a given day. So, if France is playing, they can create a campaign for French bettors, but also one for bettors who bet on France, but aren’t from France. An excellent way to visualize it is in calendar format, where they have the different countries playing and the segments they create.
What about countries whose teams are not in the competition? While Greece didn’t qualify for the World Cup, Greek bettors are definitely “all in” the competition. They lead all nations with a huge spike in First Time Depositors (FTD), also known as New Players.
Now, let’s consider two main approaches to take when a National team has been knocked out of the tournament, either after the group stage or during the knockout stages:
a) Substitute/adoptive team
Also known as the bandwagon approach, it comprises of bettors who aren’t 100% loyal (tribal), but rather shift their loyalty. Once their team is out of the competition, bettors are happy to choose another team to follow, perhaps from a neighboring country or one from the same region. They may go for one where there is a large immigrant population or just one of the favorites. For example, Turkish bettors like to bet on Germany if Turkey is no longer present, as there is a strong presence of Turkish people living in Germany. In this particular case, now, they’ll have to find another team, since Germany is out of the World Cup.
This approach also considers natural affinity. Though it’s less data-backed, companies should try to create interest in a team by offering promotions on its matches. A sweepstakes promotion, in this case, is classic. For instance, they can send a campaign that says something along the lines of “Hey, Sorry to see your team was knocked out of the competition, but you can still turn the World Cup into a ‘personal victory’. Who do you think will take the championship?”
b) Sponsored games/festival atmosphere
Optimove created a game ranking based on the teams’ initial seeding when the groups were drawn, using FIFA stats. So operators can mark the big games and promote them. Every group stage has a team from groups 1, 2, 3 and 4, which means the best teams aren’t playing each other until the knockout stages, but there are still some exciting games and, as things turn out, some big surprises. Who would have bet on Saudi Arabia beating Argentina or Japan beating Germany?
One strategy could be to pick out exciting matches and look for potential “Cinderella” stories. Everyone loves an underdog! Operators can also adopt their strategy as teams emerge and become more interesting during the competition. Star players and their teams could also prove attractive. Here are some of picks:
Finally, if their team has been knocked out, companies can use gamification marketing in their promotions to keep bettors invested and engaged in the finals. Leaderboards, Bet and Get offers like “Bet on multiple games now, get a free bet on the final,” are known to keep bettors emotionally invested even if their teams have been eliminated.