Bullet Business

FreeBingo.co.uk intends to have 200,000 registered members within the next couple of months.
 
The company, owned by Focus Online Management Ltd, an independent Leeds-based company that specialises in online bingo, currently has over 193,000 registered members, according to Wayne Howe, manager of  www.freebingo.co.uk  
 
Howe, who is scheduled to speak at the 5th Annual Bingo Summit in London (June 8-9), says the credit crunch is of course fuelling the recent growth in free bingo promotions, as the pay-to-play brands are forced to think of new ways of gathering players and converting them into depositors.
 
“Only time will tell if this kind of 'free bingo - win real cash' model can be sustained, or whether it will have dangerous consequences for the industry further down the line,” Howe told Bullet Business’ Ritesh Gupta.
 
Howe spoke about free bingo games and lot more. Excerpts:
 
Can you reflect upon how have the operations of FreeBingo.co.uk progressed of late? Any major milestone or any differential offering which your site has worked on?
 
Wayne Howe: FreeBingo is now into its 5th year of operations and 2010 has brought with it our 193,000th registered member. We’re looking forward to hitting the milestone of 200,000 registered members within the next couple of months.
 
What makes FreeBingo.co.uk different to other sites is that we put a far greater importance on community. This is reflected in the success of our 2009 player meets. We have a talented and inventive team behind the scenes who keep the content engaging for our members with our unique themed bingo rooms and a variety of bingo game styles, such as Dabbers Only and Speed Bingo.
 
What according to you is the driving or differential factor as far as free online bingo offering is concerned? How strong is participation of the players – be it for games or engagement?
 
Wayne Howe: It would be very easy to say that the recession is the major driving factor behind the rise of free online bingo in all its forms, but I believe the main contributing factor has to be the increased level of advertising of bingo sites on TV and other major media. In the last couple of years there has been an explosion in TV advertisements for bingo sites, and everyone has benefitted from this increased awareness of online bingo in general amongst the British public.
 
The credit crunch is of course fuelling the recent growth in free bingo promotions, as the pay-to-play brands are forced to think of new ways of gathering players and converting them into depositors. Only time will tell if this kind of 'free bingo - win real cash' model can be sustained, or whether it will have dangerous consequences for the industry further down the line.
 
We find that our players are extremely appreciative for the free service our site provides and are therefore more inclined to participate and engage with community aspects of the site. They are very loyal, and will play at our advertisers as they know by doing so will "keep free bingo free" and help the site to continue operating.
 
How many members do you have currently and is there any profile or demographic which stands out in your database? How do you engage them overall as far as online bingo is concerned?
 
Wayne Howe: Our database at the moment stands at just over 193,000 members. Our 2009 player's survey revealed our player demographic was 90% female with the core audience being between the age of 25 - 55, which is what you would expect for an online bingo audience. 48% of those surveyed admitted to playing online bingo for cash on a regular basis.
 
These players represent the value to our advertisers, and we utilise banner ads, mailings and sponsored competitions as a way to engage these users to those brands. However, we do not ignore the 52% who have said they do not play online bingo for cash. They are still valuable to the site by contributing to the community, and if conditions change in their personal lives they still have the potential to become depositing players at a later date.
 
From our survey we also discovered that 40% of these non-depositing players didn't play for cash only because they didn't have a bank card or were scared of giving their card details online. Therefore in the past 14 months we have engaged our players with more messages about alternative payment methods, such as paysafecard, who currently sponsor our weekly prize draw.
 
How have the social media features (blogs, UGC) or various content formats (including video) contributed to the increment in the traffic on your site? How would you rate the performance of your site or strategy as far as interactivity is concerned?
 
Wayne Howe: The main user generated content on FreeBingo.co.uk is our player's forum. After our homepage and games page, it is the most visited area of the site, which demonstrates just how important the social side to free online bingo really is. Our other main social media features include the FreeBingo blog (www.freebingoblog.co.uk) and our official Facebook page (www.facebook.com/FreeBingoUK).
 
Although players will read and comment on the blog posts and forum threads, the interactivity of the Facebook page far exceeds everything else in terms of the speed and volume of interactions. Quite often we will make a post on the Facebook page and within seconds someone will have commented with their opinion or thoughts on the subject.
 
On our homepage you will find embedded a video titled "Why play at FreeBingo?" which features interviews we took with our players at a recent player's meet at Blackpool. In my opinion there is nothing better than real people giving their real opinions on why they enjoy your website to encourage new players unfamiliar with FreeBingo.co.uk to trust the site and give it a try.
 
In March last year you had mentioned that FreeBingo has a Facebook page and a Twitter account, but it does get difficult to justify maintaining these networks as you never see a bottom line contribution directly from them. How would you justify such initiatives today?
 
Wayne Howe: We are active on both of these networks but we put our main effort into the Facebook page. Our player's survey found that only 3.4% of players used twitter, compared with 54% who were on Facebook, even though the media informs us every day that twitter is the next big thing.
 
Facebook is far easier to use for our target audience and we can see this by the number of fans we have (and how they are growing) and how many interactions there have been on the page. Our own site analytics also show a healthy number of visits each month coming from Facebook which proves it does work from a player retention and recruitment point of view.
 
Can you elaborate on how FreeBingo.co.uk has capitalised on the traffic on its site or its database as far as advertising or other commercialisation opportunities are concerned?
 
Wayne Howe: I can reveal that we will be launching a brand new non-bingo website that we intend to market to our free bingo players. We are confident that this new site will appeal to our demographic, enhance the FreeBingo brand and create a new and sustainable revenue stream for our business.
 
What do you make of free online bingo offering at this juncture? How do you think it has positively or negatively impact the online bingo sector on the whole?
 
Wayne Howe: I would segment the free online bingo offering into three distinct areas: 
 
1. Free play sites - these are the free sites that play with points, are just for fun, but players can win prizes or exchange points for goodies such as cash vouchers and bingo bucks, offered by sponsors.
 
2. Free play cash sites - these are the cash sites that use their free bingo rooms as the main marketing message to recruit new players. The free bingo draws in the players, but the site only becomes profitable if they can persuade those players to make a deposit and then play in the cash bingo rooms within the same site.
 
3. Cash sites with free play - these are the cash sites that feel they must offer some sort of free bingo to keep themselves competitive. Free bingo is not their sole marketing message, but it is used as part of a wider strategy to attract players. They know free bingo has a strong message amongst players, but do not wish to commit to the 'free play cash site' business model which is expensive and more risky.
 
It is important for the online bingo sector as a whole that there is a healthy balance between the free offering and the pay-to-play offering. If the rise of free play cash sites continues, the industry could soon find itself catering to an audience who have been educated into believing online bingo should always be free.
 
In my opinion, free bingo games make more sense when used as a reward for depositing players or as an incentive to reactivate lapsed players. These tactics are more sustainable in the long term, but only the more established sites would be confident of doing this. New brands launch all the time, and free bingo is the quickest way they can gain a large database in a short space of time, so unfortunately I see no chance of it stopping anytime soon.
 
 
Wayne Howe is scheduled to speak at the 5th Annual Bingo Summit in London (June 8-9).
 
For more information, click here: http://www.bulletbusiness.com/bingo/agenda.shtml
 
Or contact:
 
Ravi Virpal
Bullet Business
+44 (0)20 7375 7162
e. ravi@bulletbusiness.com