E.Giganova: How to Reach an Audience in the Context of Advertising Restrictions

Malta. – April 16, 2025 www.zonadeazar.com Public relations in iGaming isn’t just about visibility – it’s about overcoming barriers. The industry operates under strict advertising restrictions, making traditional marketing channels unreliable or even inaccessible.

In this environment, PR becomes a key tool for brand awareness, credibility and long-term business growth. But PR in iGaming is not as simple as publishing a few articles and expecting results. It’s an ongoing, strategic effort that requires smart messaging, the right media partnerships and a deep understanding of how to position your brand in a complex and often misunderstood industry.

In this article, I’ll share insights from our experience at EvenBet Gaming on what works, what doesn’t and how to make PR a powerful driver of business success.

Breaking the industry bubble

The iGaming industry has a well-established network of specialized media that focus specifically on gaming as a business. Building relationships with these media outlets is relatively straightforward – they are always open to collaborating with companies that can provide valuable information and interesting news.

However, our sector exists within a self-imposed bubble – not by choice, but by circumstance. The barrier around the game has been built by external forces, not by us. Major business publications tend to cover iGaming only when there is controversy: social issues, regulatory repression or major cybercrime incidents involving online casinos. Positive stories about successful gambling companies rarely make it into the media.

In this respect, iGaming shares similarities with the adult entertainment industry – another highly stigmatized sector. The mainstream media, which protects its reputation, does not publish stories about successful pornographic platforms, nor does it accept advertising from them. However, adult content companies still manage to generate media coverage that is not purely negative. They do this by providing unique data and insights – such as regional viewing preferences – that journalists find interesting enough to cover.

iGaming companies can take a similar approach. Instead of just talking about our products and services, we can act as sources of valuable data and information about the industry, creating stories that appeal to journalists outside the gaming niche. This method not only increases media exposure, but also helps reshape perceptions of our sector.

We experienced this first-hand with our Core iGaming Trends and Challenges report. To our surprise, the report caught the attention of non-gaming media, resulting in coverage from media outlets that don’t normally write about iGaming. Although it wasn’t one of the biggest publications, it was nonetheless a breakthrough – one that proved that it is possible to reach a wider audience with the right approach.

We were presented at Tatler Asia.

In the future, we plan to create more content that is useful to our core audience and relevant beyond the iGaming sector. For example, we have acquired extensive experience in HR management and branding, and we are ready to share our knowledge. By diversifying our content strategy, we aim to expand our reach and contribute valuable knowledge that goes beyond the boundaries of our sector.

What drives PR

PR isn’t a quick win – it’s a long-term commitment that requires a consistent investment of resources. It’s not as simple as publishing an article and expecting an immediate increase in contacts. Nor is PR a numbers game where more articles automatically translate into more clients. Instead, it’s about building brand recognition and ensuring that when someone thinks “I need a poker solution”, our company name comes to mind first.

People trust brands that they often find in industry discussions, expert commentary and leading articles. The goal of PR is to create that familiarity – so that when decision-makers need a reliable poker provider, they instinctively think of us.

More content doesn’t necessarily mean more visibility. Two articles won’t double brand awareness compared to one. What really matters is quality: a well-crafted strategy aligned with key industry events and company milestones. PR works cumulatively and its impact is not linear.

We experienced this first-hand in 2023, a year in which we de-prioritized PR, shifting our resources to social media and events. As a result, our media presence decreased, as did key PR-related metrics. But the real wake-up call was the cascading effect: a decline in brand search queries and a noticeable drop in the quality of contacts. Although the year was financially stable for the company, it wasn’t the strongest.

This experience reinforced a crucial lesson – PR isn’t just an optional extra; it’s a fundamental pillar of long-term brand strength and business growth.

PR as an internal effort

PR is not just a matter of external media coverage – it requires deep internal involvement within the company. This is because PR is, in essence, promotion through people. One of the biggest trends in modern business communication is the human-to-human approach and, in PR, this principle is more relevant than ever.

A brand doesn’t speak for itself – it always speaks through individuals. Audiences don’t want to interact with a faceless company; they want to hear from real people with unique knowledge, opinions and perspectives. A strong PR strategy ensures that when our company communicates, it does so through recognized voices that are trusted by industry professionals.

For this approach to work, everyone involved in external communications must understand the value of PR and its role in shaping a company’s reputation. PR is not just about writing an article, publishing it and moving on. It’s about consistent, long-term involvement.

Our experts, executives and spokespeople have to be actively involved – not just through occasional interviews or a handful of articles a year, but as constant voices in the industry. This includes:

• Regularly sharing ideas on social media – building personal and business credibility.
• Participating in industry discussions – whether through expert commentary, guest articles or talks.
• Maintaining consistency – because PR loses its impact when communication becomes sporadic.

When experts stop getting involved, when media coverage becomes inconsistent and when thought leadership efforts are not sustained, brand visibility weakens. In PR, pace is everything – without it, impact fades quickly.

Building and maintaining a strong presence requires continuous effort, but when done well, it transforms a company from just another name in the industry into a recognized and trusted authority.

B2B vs B2C PR in iGaming

PR in iGaming is not a one-size-fits-all model – it plays very different roles in the B2B and B2C segments. Understanding these differences is key to developing an effective communication strategy.

B2C PR in iGaming

For B2C operators, PR is primarily about reputation management. The gaming industry often faces negative perceptions by default, with concerns around fraud, payments, banking transactions and cybersecurity risks.

In this space, PR efforts focus on positioning the brand as a responsible and trustworthy operator – one that advocates responsible gambling, manages risks effectively and protects players from fraud. The goal is not just visibility but credibility, ensuring that players see the operator as safe and ethical.

B2B PR in iGaming

On the B2B side, PR plays a different role: it’s a long-term strategy for customer acquisition. Unlike operators, who don’t attract players directly through PR, suppliers and aggregators rely on it to create industry recognition.

The aim is not immediate lead generation, but to ensure that when operators need a new solution, they already know which suppliers to trust. A strong PR presence in B2B means being consistently visible in industry discussions, thought leadership content and expert commentary – so that when decision-makers are ready to invest, they instinctively turn to familiar, well-regarded companies.

Measuring PR effectiveness: Key metrics for iGaming

How do you measure the success of PR in iGaming? Unlike performance marketing, where results are often immediate and quantifiable, PR works as a long-term strategy. However, that doesn’t mean that its impact can’t be monitored. Here are three main metrics for evaluating the effectiveness of PR.

1. Potential reach: Who can see your message?

The first step is to assess the size of the potential audience. This means analyzing the social media traffic where your content appears, the distribution of printed materials and other exposure factors. This gives you an estimate of how many people might have seen your message.

However, reach alone is not enough – it’s essential to consider the quality of the audience. Are you appearing in the right regions? If your goal is to strengthen your brand in Brazil, publishing in a European-focused media outlet won’t help. Ensuring alignment between the media’s readership and your target audience is crucial.

Practical approach: we have created an established system of reach coefficients for media publications, taking into account the size of the audience, its quality and the role our brand or spokesperson plays in the published piece. This allows us to simplify regular calculations.

2. Share of voice: how does it compare with your competitors?

Share of voice (SOV) measures the amount of media coverage your brand gets compared to competitors. This involves tracking mentions over a given period and calculating your company’s share of the sector’s total coverage. A higher SOV means greater visibility, making it easier for potential customers and partners to remember your brand.

By regularly monitoring this metric, you can see whether your PR efforts are helping you stand out or whether competitors are dominating the conversation.

Practical approach: the simplest way to calculate SOV is to count the number of news stories and articles published in a month for each of your competitors and then define your share. If you want more precise data, you’ll also have to calculate the reach of each of them, which will require some degree of automation.

3. Brand awareness: Do people recognize your brand?

Brand awareness goes beyond numbers – it’s about perception. Do professionals in the sector recognize your company name? Can they identify your logo? Do they associate your brand with your specific sector in iGaming?

Surveys, industry polls and direct feedback from potential customers can help assess brand recognition. The stronger your brand recognition, the more likely decision-makers are to think of you when they need a solution.

Although the impact of PR is not always immediate, these three metrics provide a solid framework for assessing whether your efforts are generating long-term visibility and credibility in the industry.

Practical approach: the easiest way to start measuring brand awareness is to estimate your listed BA. Create a list of your direct competitors and ask your target audience which brands they recognize. For the result to be reliable, you need to reach at least 1% of your potential audience and keep the survey anonymous.

Brand awareness in B2B iGaming

Brand awareness is undoubtedly the most complex PR metric to measure – especially in B2B iGaming. Unlike website traffic or social media mentions, it can’t be monitored with simple analytics. Instead, it requires extensive research, including surveys and data collection, which makes it very time and resource consuming. That’s why most companies turn to specialized agencies for help.

However, when we set out to measure our brand awareness, we were faced with an unexpected challenge: no one in the industry had done it before – not our media partners, not our industry contacts, not even the research companies we spoke to. While B2C brands in iGaming have made some progress in this area, B2B companies are still at the starting line.

This gap exists partly because the B2B segment of iGaming is still relatively young. Unlike consumer-oriented brands, which can rely on large-scale surveys and analysis of public sentiment, B2B companies operate in a niche market with a smaller, highly specialized audience. We quickly realized that there was no established methodology for measuring brand awareness in our space.

Faced with this fact, we had to build our approach from scratch – developing a methodology, identifying data sources and experimenting with tools to gather information. Our first attempt produced a limited data set, but it gave us a clearer picture of the industry brands that were recognized, the logos that stood out and the degree of awareness of the different companies. It was a starting point.

We are now refining our methodology to improve data collection and accuracy. Although we don’t yet have a perfect system, we have made significant progress. Most importantly, we have proven that measuring B2B brand awareness in iGaming is possible – it just requires a new way of thinking.

Conclusion

PR in iGaming is a long game. It doesn’t produce instant leads or sales, but it does build something even more valuable – brand recognition and trust. To succeed, companies need to think beyond simple media coverage. It’s about creating meaningful narratives, engaging with the right audiences and positioning your company as a leader in the sector.

Most importantly, PR is not a stand-alone effort; it requires internal commitment, expert involvement and consistency. When done well, PR doesn’t just help a company be seen – it ensures that when industry decision-makers think of their next commercial move, they think of you.

Article by Ekaterina Giganova, Marketing Communications Director at EvenBet Gaming.

Edited by: @MaiaDigital www.zonadeazar.com