How do you develop a successful VIP program? Gali Hartuv, the CEO of Warrior Lab, shares invaluable insights on developing a successful VIP program in the iGaming industry. He emphasises that there is no one-size-fits-all approach, and VIP segments can range from 1% to 15% of a company's player base.
He shares his 7-step process for building a VIP program, including research, defining segments, branding, team training, personalization, communication, and continuous monitoring. Gali also discusses the evolution of VIP CRM strategies, highlighting the importance of engagement, retention, and user journeys. He stressed the need for bespoke technology solutions tailored to VIPs, rather than simply copying existing models.
Gali Hartuv's expertise and forward-thinking approach to VIP programs provide a valuable roadmap for gaming companies looking to enhance their VIP offerings and drive long-term player loyalty.
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0:00 Crafting a Winning VIP Program: Gali Hartuv's 7-Step Approach
1:36 Understanding the Evolving Landscape of VIP Segments in Gaming
3:03 Branding, Personalization, and Engagement: The Keys to VIP Success
4:42 Investing in a Dedicated VIP Team: The Foundation for Growth
6:12 Leveraging Data and Analytics to Drive VIP Program Optimization
7:04 Harnessing AI, Automation, and Innovation to Elevate the VIP Experience
Welcome to “15 Minute Mastery,” the ultimate show for iGaming professionals, hosted by industry veteran Dmitry Belianin. With over 17 years of experience, Dmitry brings unparalleled insights and wisdom from top industry experts in just 15 minutes. Each episode delivers actionable strategies from all iGaming verticals to improve your personal and business performance. As the founder of Belianin, Dmitry also shares his expertise in nurturing high-potential iGaming startups. Subscribe to “15 Minute Mastery” for concise, high-value content and stay ahead in the competitive world of iGaming.
We're still far behind where we need to be and there's a lot of opportunity to develop these tools that companies can utilize because in reality a lot of VIP programs are just taking it as it comes. There is no innovation and technology right now is trying to break the mold that is comfortable and the comfort that we find in VIP especially around technology is we utilize human insight we utilizing old outdated models that are no longer competitive because everyone is utilizing them so to stand out or to be something unique it is incredibly difficult. You're listening to 15 minute mastering a show that empowers you with insights from leading i-gaming experts to enhance your personal or business performance the show is brought to you by the ei-powered data analytics platform Blask and supported by Ted driven affiliate and media company already media well as stars the leading casino partnership program and next.io two worlds i-gaming community everyone and welcome to 15 minute mastery we got someone who may call the goat of VIP CRM and retention he's the CEO at warrior lab a global management consultant and the good friend of mine galley hartoff galley it's so nice to have you here thank you so much for having me it's really a pleasure to be a demetri i'm very excited for today's conversation so let's start with the most hardcore topics for most of the operators out there i think this is like vap one of the most undiscovered but at the same time the most precious topic because if you talk about vap sometimes you know this 20 or even less percent of players essentially drive you 80 plus of your revenues so let's talk about the vap program especially developing the vap program so i think first and foremost it's important to understand that there is no set model there's no one size fits all there's no template to creating a vip program there is no right and wrong to help big a vip segment is you know in marketing we always look at the 80/20 rule and the reality is when it comes to vip vip ranges it could be 1% all the way up to generally 15% with extended segmentation like potential vip's or early detected vip's that can extend further up to 20% but it's very seldom that we have a vip segment that is so extensive and often that comes down to how healthy that program is so when we start looking at vip programs and developing programs the objective needs to move away from this old mentality of quick money we need to move outside of the mentality of we utilize vip as a cash flow we are reliant on vip to sustain the business because the reality is you can over rely on vip programs so building a vip program the way that i've broken it down is i look at it from seven steps research and analysis is always number one understanding your data understanding your target audience understanding the geography that you're working in step number two is defining the vip segment and with defining those vip segments the benefits that your vip program is going to offer once we've understood and we've researched who our vip's are and what we're prepared to offer them then it comes down to creating your vip brand now vip program is the focal point but the vip program needs to present and look in a particular way and that's where vip branding is so important it's not a one brand that you can just throw out and put gold colors and the word vip and that's good enough vip's are spoiled for choice and therefore you really need something that stands out you have to be conscious of vip psychology localized cultural elements there's a personalization factor that goes into branding it's no longer just a creative exercise it's something that has a lot of thought and planning behind it once step one two and three are now out of the way step four is about the team vip needs to be managed and the program needs people to manage it so training and investing in a vip team in my opinion is the fourth stage to the seven steps of building and developing your vip program the fifth one is personalization and customization so personalization is absolutely crucial with getting that loyalty and trust factor established and customization and tailoring that experience at a player level as opposed to just a segment level is what will ultimately lead to successful buy-in by your players or rejection of the program due to it being perceived as generic or I would say not authentic in the way that it's presenting vip and that once we have gotten personalization and customization understood and structured communication and engagement becomes the next focal point and that's where your either CRM strategies come into it your vip engagement strategies come into it and also how you service and manage those accounts through account managers or vip dedicated support and the final step which is technically the when the work actually begins is step one to step six is now the program has been developed step seven is monitoring and refinement monitoring your program refining and tweaking things that aren't necessarily working ab testing various strategies approaches methodologies and that's when the actual work begins because now we've outlined how we want to I would say run this now it's a case of monitoring and observing whether our efforts are actually paying off and so in a nutshell I'll summarize those seven points research and analysis is number one defining your vip segment and the benefits number two creating your vip brand number three train and invest in a vip team that is ready to manage this program number four personalization and customization number five and communication and engagement number six with number seven being continuous monitoring and refinement of your vip program I really like the way you summarized it and I think one of the points you mentioned was the the engagement and retention because if you think about the a gaming I think one of the one of the scenes a gaming got is taking care of the acquisition side of the business more than about the retention and engagement side of the business so I think you know this has been you know a pain point of the industry for ages so if you can like talk about the the CRM strategies especially the most effective ones once you have your segments defined once you start trying to strategize the engagement component retention and part of those user journeys fall into place so when we're looking at CRM objectives you need to understand that vip is not CRM and CRM is not VIP there are of course intersecting skills and focus areas but VIP CRM has now started to become more of an isolated focus and skill within the VIP department so CRM methodology has now elevated itself into VIP and when we look at these strategies it's breaking down to single user views we're looking at this from a value focus where less is more where VIPs want value propositions not spam we're looking towards consistency methodology and organization a lot of planning we are trying to approach CRM strategy as incremental increases rather than volatile and extreme changes where through the definition of our segmentation we can plan and promote specific campaigns to targeted audiences we can then define what would be public or website specific promotions versus targeted individualized calendar promotions and we started to find those processes internally and externally based on the dependencies that we have within our teams so when it comes down to actually breaking this down and anyone who works in CRM will understand that this goes both outside of VIP and within VIP we're looking at player lifecycle management the segmentation and categorization of how we categorize players into their journeys effectively you can look at it like an upside-down pyramid where if you look from a business perspective you're looking at new registrations at the top depositors and converted FDDs at the next level then you have your pre VIP segment that have started to present value followed up by the smaller tip at the bottom which is VIP and that's your actual funnel and we always look at it as an upside-down pyramid because you don't know what new registration could convert ultimately to become VIP and that's where having these robust strategies where to automate versus where to manually execute how to be proactive rather than reactive is the opportunity to streamline all communication channels into omni-channel communications where VIPs can communicate across multiple platforms but the team has an overview on all those communication channels to have seamless responses where the SLAs and the response times are managed to a VIP standard we need to look at the strategies from what is our bonus strategy versus what is promotional and it's important to look at VIP by splitting those two that not every bonus strategy is going to result in us offering something sometimes it's about managing the expectation or building up to something bigger and once we execute on these engagement strategies and buy-in strategies we start to then move into the analytical components which is campaign analysis KPI management and what we're trying to achieve in getting players to engage more so we're looking at where the players are coming from the acquisition source we're looking at the process in behavioral attribution from registration to FTD into engaging with the product we are now looking into how the player has presented value not necessarily in the way that they are depositing an extreme amount but they start to behave in a particular way so this could be attributed to VIP in a non-monetary way and this is where the industry is starting to head that we're looking at not only transactional and financial indicators we're now looking at behavioral indicators and this is something that is allowing VIP to take the initiative in engaging players who present as VIP before they even show VIP value look at this as an operator have we got development strategies in place do we even understand the concept of player development or are we only reacting when value presents itself and those are the questions that operators should be asking themselves is what are we doing to grow players incrementally and how does it fall into the bigger VIP picture some of the things you mentioned right now golly were insane the valuable but I think they they won't be possible without the help of technology you know especially the analytics the predictive methodologies the user behavioral part because if you think about the CRM and its state let's say 10 years ago or even you know more I think the very basic information you could have obtained from analytics would have been just you know rich FTD conversions and that's pretty much it so talking about the technology what innovations you see like changing the game and the rules in the CRM and VIP space right now everyone is probably sick of hearing this right now is AI the reality is it's still very early stages for AI being utilized in VIP we're seeing a lot of AI and gamification in strategies that are aimed at optimizing player behavior to spend and engage with products in in a more elevated way I think outside of AI we're looking at data analytics tools that help to facilitate in an automated way things like cashback crediting things like promotional campaigns that VIPs are invited to such as tournaments and prizes and with these types of technology AI automation gamification these are all being created first and foremost for a broader audience and now they're being viewed from a VIP lens how do we make it more bespoke and I think the biggest area where technology plays a massive part in VIP and data is everything in VIP is trying to have visibility and trying to take the relevant data and turning it into dashboards that are simplified where it's beyond just your tableau and power bi's there needs to be a use case on how to use that data not just seeing it but what to do with that data and we are so overwhelmed with data and player information that we sometimes lose track of why we even have these pretty dashboards and jots and we're still far behind where we need to be and there's a lot of opportunity to develop these tools that companies can utilize because in reality a lot of VIP programs are just taking it as it comes there is no innovation and technology right now is trying to break the mold that is comfortable and the comfort that we find in VIP especially around technology is we utilize human insight we utilizing old outdated models that are no longer competitive because everyone is utilizing them so to stand out or to be something unique is incredibly difficult because everyone's just doing the same thing everyone has started copying each other and I'm hoping that this is something that is going to lead into a change in the industry and how VIP actually presents itself and functions you know coming into this conversation I was expecting this to be valuable but I couldn't expect this to be this much of a gold in just you know such a short conversation thank you so much galley I think this has been a pure gold from from the insights and knowledge perspective and I cannot wait for everyone else to hear this thank you so much for spending your time with us thank you so much for having me it's been an absolute pleasure.
