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Fonbet equals football. Alexey Khobot on how the World Cup helped the betting company

Alexey Khobot, who has been a part of Fonbet almost since the company’s launch, developed the first software for the company and  the pre-match himself, shares what role the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia played in Fonbet's development.

FIFA 2018 in Russia: it all came together

"The  2018 FIFA World Cup was a one-of-a-kind event for Russia. I doubt such a large-scale event  will ever happen in our country  again. Therefore,  I believe it was  one of the most important moments for the company", Alexey Khobot syas. "During the World Cup in Russia, everything came together: firstly, Fonbet was a sponsor of the Russian national team, and secondly, we also sponsored TV broadcasts of all the games. We had ads on Channel One and Russia-1, two leading federal channels”

Alexey Khobot explains how TV advertising was used as one of the most effective tools during the World Cup:  “I can draw a parallel here: for betting companies advertising is also a gamble. Often when it comes to sports broadcasts or something similar to that, you depend on how high the ratings will be. A simple example is that the Russian national team made it out of the group stage even though no one expected them to, and then played two more games. This really helped the ratings to rise dramatically. As a sponsor of the Russian football team, this gave  added value to Fonbet's campaign. Everyone was talking about the national team, making predictions, and really just idolizing Artem Dzyuba”

“FIFA does not allow betting companies to sponsor the World Cup” - Alexey Khobot points out - “However, our partnership with the Russian national football team in combination with advertising on TV and other media worked perfectly. The marketing team of the company did everything to create the most dense association: Fonbet is equal to the Russian national football team, World Cup and football in general. In the polls held after the World Cup, people said that Fonbet was the sponsor of the World Cup, even though this partnership would never have been possible. It was a win-win situation".

“Fonbet Predictions” as a first step towards betting

"During the World Cup, we launched a predictive landing page for beginners", Alexey Khobot recalls. "We were expecting a lot of new customers for the event. However, at the time, the procedure for registering with a betting company was quite complicated due to the legal requirements. In fact, a lot of people believe that betting products are hard to understand in general” - Alexey Khobot says.

“So for the World Cup, Fonbet rolled out a new service called Fonbet Predictions featuring only the simplest odds, like team one wins, the match ends with a draw, or the second team wins. It was easy for people to register, make predictions, and also earn points and exchange them for free bets. However, in order to use the free bets, customers had to complete mandatory verification offline” - Alexey Khobot explains

As far as I know, this landing page really proved its worth, setting records for the number of new registrations in the company's entire history. Then Fonbet continued to communicate with these customers to maintain their loyalty. The majority of them remained loyal to the company and continued placing bets.

As for top events, surprisingly our female audience grew as well. This segment only accounts for about 1%, but at the time the increase was dramatic. Everyone had football fever! This was something impossible to ignore in Russia.

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