By Erin Murphy, Interactive Product Director, Georgia Lottery Corporation
We have exciting enhancements planned on our 2023 roadmap: Our iLottery program has opportunities to grow our customer base, game portfolio, and feature set. The challenge is prioritizing initiatives to pursue, taking into consideration our revenue goals, our players’ needs and expectations, the competitive landscape and staffing/technology resources.
Our 2023 calendar includes a new category of games set to launch simultaneously on iLottery and at retail, a significant increase in second-chance promotions with both automatic entry for iLottery purchases and scan entry via our mobile app for retail tickets, new Diggi (eInstant) games with a Georgia flavor, and a focus on building out infrastructure to enable our omnichannel strategy.
“Omnichannel” is one of those buzzwords that may mean different things to different people—or be a complete mystery to others. In general, it’s a system in which the player can take almost any action related to lottery play in any environment in which the lottery operates: at retail (whether interacting with a clerk or at a vending machine), on a website, or via a mobile app if the lottery has one. An omnichannel strategy may include, for example, something as simple as offering a scratcher at retail with text directing the player to use the website or app to play a sister game, enter a second-chance promotion and/or enter a code to receive iLottery bonus credit. With the proper infrastructure in place, omnichannel can also include allowing the player to use a digital wallet linked to an iLottery account to buy tickets, deposit funds, and redeem prizes at retail.
An omnichannel strategy yields multiple benefits: encouraging retail players to also play iLottery boosts revenue, provides a wealth of data on player behavior and preferences, and enables the introduction of loyalty programs that can reward players for engaging with the lottery both at retail and digitally. It also fulfills the expectations of our players, who already see their digital and “real” worlds meshing seamlessly: They use digital payment apps at their favorite restaurant, return items bought from online merchants to brick-and-mortar stores, and decide whether to watch a new movie in a theater or on a streaming service. With an omnichannel infrastructure and strategy, our customers can play at a time and place that is convenient for them.