How to bring new users to your fantasy sports platform?

You want to be a leading fantasy sports brand. We get it! But there are, in fact, hundreds and thousands of fantasy sports website and mobile apps across the world. What would make you stand out amongst those? Simply speaking, the biggest challenge that almost every fantasy sports operator face is to bring new users and retain the existing user base on their platform.

We at GammaStack, talk to a lot of the fantasy sports business owners, some of them are even start-ups. Often growing businesses ask us the following set of questions:

• “How to start a fantasy sports website?” or “How to set up a fantasy sports business?”
• Where do I get Data feeds from?
• Which payment gateway supports fantasy businesses?
• What is the cost & time-frame of launching a website?

Even after getting answers to all of these, many times they forget to ask the biggest question i.e.-

“Where and how will I find users for my fantasy sports application? Or What can be done during and after fantasy sports product development to ensure new and engaged users?”

As responsible IT partners, we feel that it is our top priority and duty to ensure that our clients have an answer to these questions before we start developing their product. Let us run you through some of the key points that answer these unattended questions.

Keep it simple and short

No matter if it’s a DFS or a season-long platform. Always ensure that your fantasy sports product is simple and easy to use. For example, users in your geography are used to a certain way of drafting players.

Don’t change everything in the draft completely but make changes in a way that drafting becomes easier than what your users were doing in past. Have a clear and precise ‘how to play’ video or slideshow. Have tooltip texts and what-next buttons, at least for the first time users.

Be Unique! Offer variations in gameplay

A fantasy sports operator should always have a clear answer to “what is my product’s USP?”. Offer your users with unique and free gameplay apart from your main paid game types. Associating these new, unique and twisted gameplays with non-cash rewards makes more sense.

For example, users are given an option to make a line-up which is a combination of 8 players and 1 team and users play against the house and not with each other.

Keep users informed and Involved (Notifications)

•  Use in-app notifications, emails and SMS.
• Share live updates with them during gameplay
• Notify about the current status and next step. By doing this you bring in a sense of personalization which is very important for user retention.
• Be relevant to the notification.
•  Allow them to customized the communication (notification settings). Do not spam users with everything happening on the fantasy sports software. Let them decide what they want to see.

Make them Loyal towards your brand

This is an important and tricky element of a user retention strategy. There are various options available. You can either go for a 3rd part loyalty system or can develop one based on your retention strategy.

Having the right loyalty program is very important. Something that aligns with your business objective and ensures your users are coming back again. Some of the most effective loyalty modules include.

• Achievement badges
• Referral systems
• Cash backs
• Bankroll builders
• Reward points and loyalty store

As fantasy sports developers and business consultants, we recommend our clients to keep these points in mind during their planning stage and plan product features accordingly. Targeted geography and sports you are offering also plays an important role in these decisions. If you have any questions or concerns around these do contact us for a detailed discussion. We would love to answer them and work with you on your fantasy sports product development and maintenance initiatives.