It is important for bookmakers to keep trying to push new boundaries in order to attract new customers. The latest to find a unique way of reaching potential new customers is online betting exchange Betfair, who are going to try and exploit an opportunity presented to them by social media.
Paddy Power have the biggest link with a social media platform at the moment, as they are teamed up with the most famous and biggest social media platform of them all, namely Facebook. But betting exchange Betfair have seen an opportunity elsewhere and they are trialing it this weekend.
Betfair are credited as being the innovators of exchange betting, where customers engage in peer to peer betting against each other, the benefit being more control over price. There is also the opportunity create green books, where you can’t lose, whatever the outcome of an event. Betfair also offer a standard sportsbook fixed odds service.
They are now going to be linking up with the Snapchat photo messaging mobile application this weekend.
Trials of the new marketing push will happen during the Chelsea v Everton and Crystal Palace v Manchester United Premier League matches this weekend. Betfair will be using their official profile on the platform to push out live odds and and offer for the two matches. It sort of resembles how they used Twitter in the early days to push out odds.
Snapchat is still a growing app, and it allows user to takes photos and videos and then edit them by adding text and graphics. The picture can then be sent out of a recipient list. It may all sound a bit too familiar, but the twist is that the recipients will only be able to see the image for ten seconds. After that, it will be deleted forever off the Snapchat servers.
How Betfair are going to use it, is that they will send a unique url and information about odds and offers during the two aforementioned game. The first user to actually play a bet through the link will actually get enhanced odds at double the price.
Betfair will expand the project if the trial proves to be a success.
“Snapchat is a relatively new, yet rapidly growing social media platform, which I’m certain will play a huge role in the marketing mix of companies going forward,” Betfair brand director Mark Ody said. “To be one of the first brands, and the first betting company, to make use of the platform is very exciting. It has huge potential for us as a business.”
