Private Tournaments

[Edvamp]

Hello, new member here. I was curious how many of you use Private Tournaments to bring new players to your affiliate sites?

My day job involves working in the music industry and we are looking at setting up online tournaments for musicians as a way for them to play with fans, record label executives, etc. I have been speaking with Spin32 who seem very nice and their affiliate program seems to be what we are looking for as it allows us to set up private tournaments.

Are private tournaments a good way to get new players to sign up for a site, and do you find players continue playing after the tournament is over? Thanks.

Ed

[Zilla]

I think the answer widely varies on this issue.

Personally I have never had any success with private tournaments and find that not many people continue to play on your trackers after the tournament.

However I think if you have a heavily community based site then they could work very well in bringing the community together and attracting more members to build your community further.

[Viriatu]

Welcome aboard m8!

I think you should really take some time out to think this, i also have used tournaments in the start and did not get much results. Most times people will register for you, but from playing the tourney until they convert in RMP and make you a buck its a long way to go... Of course once they sign up under you its a good thing but that will not necessarily says they will be worthy. You will probably need other tools to convert later on.

[OPC]

Ed,

Results vary based on what your target market looks like. You hinted you already have some sort of community via your day job. Are you looking to set this tournament up for them exclusively or are you looking to target them in hopes of also grabbing up other customers along the way with these tournaments?

Scratch the above - I re-read your post. With the re-read in mind, I think you will have a high success rate in getting musicians and fans to come together in the tournaments, however - unless you offer further incentives (i.e. - rake x number of hands and win so and so's autographed CD), you may not be successful in converting them into cash game players.

Typically, freeroll players download, but rarely deposit and play after - without the proper incentives. With that in mind, use your centers of influence to design a promotion to entice them to play further, which if you're using the musicians as a draw - also use them as incentive to stay and play.

[Edvamp]

Ed,

Results vary based on what your target market looks like. You hinted you already have some sort of community via your day job. Are you looking to set this tournament up for them exclusively or are you looking to target them in hopes of also grabbing up other customers along the way with these tournaments?

Scratch the above - I re-read your post. With the re-read in mind, I think you will have a high success rate in getting musicians and fans to come together in the tournaments, however - unless you offer further incentives (i.e. - rake x number of hands and win so and so's autographed CD), you may not be successful in converting them into cash game players.

Typically, freeroll players download, but rarely deposit and play after - without the proper incentives. With that in mind, use your centers of influence to design a promotion to entice them to play further, which if you're using the musicians as a draw - also use them as incentive to stay and play.

Thank you for the reply. I guess a little more information is in order. The company I work for deals mostly with unsigned bands. In the past we have done in person tournaments at bars where players got to sit and play with record label executives and the prize pool was stuff like recording time, instruments, etc.

The online tournaments we want to plan are three separate types: Just like the above, musicians and executives playing together; bigger name bands (we manage the metal band Suffocation) playing with their fans; offering smaller bands the option to set up tournaments through us to play with their fans as long as they can make the minimum number of players the site requires.

All tournaments will be cash buy ins and prize pools, not freerolls. We absolutely plan on offering additional prizes such as signed merchandise, instruments, recording time, and whatever else we can get from companies that we work with.

So right from the beginning the players will be cash players just to participate in the tournaments, and we plan on having recurring tournaments to encourage players to keep playing regularly (we might even offer a points system on our website for bigger prizes, like a recording system worth over $10,000).

Sorry I left out pertinent info in the first post, it seems most people replying are assuming I was talking about freeroll tournaments.

Ed

[Edvamp]

Welcome aboard m8!

I think you should really take some time out to think this, i also have used tournaments in the start and did not get much results. Most times people will register for you, but from playing the tourney until they convert in RMP and make you a buck its a long way to go... Of course once they sign up under you its a good thing but that will not necessarily says they will be worthy. You will probably need other tools to convert later on.

One thing we plan on doing is making the tournaments recurring, so not just a one off, to encourage people to keep playing.

Also, we are thinking of instituting a points policy on our main website like a reward program to encourage people to play more of our tournaments. Our members get points just for playing in a tournament, more points for the winner and then some for the person that comes in last as a consolation prize. Points can be redeemed for prizes that we generate from sponsors like guitars and other non-cash prizes.

What kinds of tools do you mean to keep players playing once they have signed up?

Ed

[Carmela]

Hi Ed,

What is your site URL? I'm looking for new affiliates to join our program.

Cheers,
Carmela.

[Edvamp]

Hi Ed,

What is your site URL? I'm looking for new affiliates to join our program.

Cheers,
Carmela.

Sure, just keep in mind these are not poker specific sites, we are looking to offer poker as an extra thing for our members/fans.

I can't post specific URL's as my post count isn't high enough, so bear with me.

Our main music site for independent bands is anr-unlimited [dot] com.

Our management company doesn't have a specific website, but our main client is the metal band Suffocation. suffocation [dot] us

I am also thinking of offering poker tournaments to World of Warcraft guilds and other fantasy gaming clients as well, so have registered the domain fantasypokeronline [dot] com but there is nothing there yet. I have been a gamer all my life and we are very very competitive. At several science fiction conventions I see poker games so it seems like a good match.

Ed