Improving the lives of young people right across Scotland
In 2016, I was delighted to be asked to support in the launch of The Scottish Children's Lottery.
The Scottish Children's Lottery was established to fund key projects relating to the health and welfare of children across Scotland, with a particular focus on alleviating child poverty.
The Challenge, to build a lottery product to drive £1 million pounds to support disadvantaged children across Scotland.
In 2021, the opportunity arose for me to buy-into The Scottish Children's Lottery. The lottery was losing money due to excessive spend on TV advertising and external suppliers. For this reason, our first objective was to drive cost down whilst retaining subscriptions.
Actions taken year 1-2.
Reduce third party dependancy. The lottery site was built and hosted by a third party. I purchased a secondary URL and then set about rebuilding the site. Once completed, I hosted the new site and added the redirects.
End result; a more streamlined, faster and more responsive site., owned by MBC ELM. Costs driven down from £30,000 per month to a £200 hosting fee.
Renegotiate TV ad spend. Post negotiations, TV spend was halved with more than double the TV exposure, and, more advantageous TV slots. This reduced our CPA from circa £150 to less than £30.
Develop social & email marketing strategy. Using some of the costs savings from TV ad spend, I develop and implement a social media yearly plan.
Create and launch a new brand. I created the brand ‘The Scotto’. Once the branding was created, I then set about building the site’s front and back-end.
£30k hosting cost reduction (£)
2500
TV advertising CPA (£)
150
Scottish Children's subscriptions
0
Actions taken year 3-4.
Reduce third party dependancy. Our sites take considerable amount of personal data, including bank details. For this reason I needed to establish a secure partner to maximize security. I engaged with our banking partners ‘Barclays’ and together we established best practice processes.
End result; With the approval of our banking partner, a briefing document was created. The subsequent tender process identified a more reliable, more cost effective, Gambling Commission compliant supplier. This move made us not only “bullet proof” but reduced commission from 14p in the pound to 2p in the pound.
TV ad spend. We identified which TVR slots drove the highest volume of clicks. We identified TVR’s of 20+ and focussed our spend accordingly.
Email marketing. Email data was purchased and proved relatively successful. Email data is cheap and as long as the mix of Brand v Promotion is right, can be an effective sales tool. CPA circa £12.
The Scotto. TV ads were created and aired to increase brand awareness “Tommy Tucker” was identified ads a typically Scottish character who would appeal of our target audience (Gen X 45+ women, midlife or mature consumers).
14p backend commission reduction (p)
14
Email marketing CPA (£)
0
The Scotto subscriptions
2500
Actions taken year 5-6.
Gambling Commission review. Running a lottery site comes under the Gambling Commission. The GC are legally bound to complete a thorough review of our processes. The review is ‘forensic’ in nature. Every aspect of our business was required to be presented to the GC over a 3 day period. All external links were reviewed and interrigated. Our servers were tested, our people interviewed and the Board, including myself, were required to present themselves to prove we are financially ‘reliable’.
End result; 100% pass rate. We look forward to our next review in 3 years time.
TV ad spend. Continue to identify what type of TV ad works best to drive subscriptions. Continue to identify which TV slots are the most advantageous. Re-negotiate TV spend to continue a presence whilst maximizing ‘bang-for-buck’ spend.
Email marketing. What works best by click-rate by customer journey; Brand v Promotion. What message drives the most cut through. Track customer journey to make it simpler to subscribe.
Create and launch a new third brand. I created the brand ‘What a Lotto‘. The inspiration was ’80’s gameshow host’. The creative is designed to appeal to Gen X customers. Once the branding was created, I then set about building the site’s front and back-end.
Gambling Commission Success (%)
0
Email marketing CPA (£)
0
The What a Lotto subscriptions
0