First things first, what is a Mobile Lottery?

Before we cover how a Mobile Lottery can complement your existing lottery, it would probably be helpful to know what a Mobile Lottery is!

A Mobile Lottery is a society lottery that a supporter can enter using just their mobile phone. The supporter pays for their ticket through their mobile phone, so they just need their mobile phone number - no need for them to find their purse or remember what their sort code is!

On average, a Mobile Lottery is four times easier to enter than a Direct Debit based lottery. This is based on the number of times a supporter has to touch their phone screen or computer keyboard during the entry process.

So, how can a Mobile Lottery complement my existing lottery?

If your charity already has a lottery, there are two main ways that Mobile Lotteries can help you:

1. Improve sign up rates for certain marketing methods

2. Reach new audiences that won't consider your current lottery

Let's explore how this works in practice.

How can a Mobile Lottery improve sign up rates?

As we discovered earlier, a Mobile Lottery is four times easier to enter than a Direct Debit based lottery. Ease of entry is a particularly important consideration with certain marketing methods.

Let's take social media as an example. Attention spans on social media are notoriously short. In fact, some researchers have even claimed that the average attention span on social media is less than that of a goldfish!

With this in mind, the entry method used when promoting your lottery on social media needs to be as quick and easy as possible. Through Mobile Lotteries, a supporter can quickly and easily enter before their attention drifts away onto other things.

How can a Mobile Lottery reach new audiences?

Did you know that young people between 18 and 24 are more likely to donate to charity than any other age group?

You would therefore expect that charity lotteries would be very popular with this demographic. However, if you look at players of your current lottery, you will probably won't find too many 18 to 24 year olds in there.

So what is the reason for this disconnect? Here's three main reasons:

1. Most lotteries are primarily Direct Debit based and younger audiences are far less likely to sign up to a Direct Debit. For example, 18 to 24 year olds are half as likely to set up a charity Direct Debit compared to over 65's.

2. Having to complete a lengthy form to play a lottery will cause drop off across all age groups. However, it will cause the highest drop off amongst younger audiences who expect to be able to do things quickly.

3. As younger audiences are less likely to sign up, there can be a perception that they aren't interested, so marketing is targeted elsewhere. This, in turn, leads to fewer sign ups from younger audiences.

For the first time, Mobile Lotteries allows younger audiences to enter a lottery on their terms. It uses a payment method that they are comfortable with and has a quick and simple entry method which prevents drop off. As a result, younger audiences are signing up and playing lotteries to raise funds for charities.

Great, so how do I add a Mobile Lottery to my existing lottery?

The quickest way to get started is to set up a Mobile Lottery as a standalone lottery by joining our umbrella lottery. Most charities using Mobile Lotteries already have a Direct Debit based lottery. As Mobile Lotteries will generally be targeted at different audiences and use different marketing methods, charities have been able to run both of their lotteries alongside each other without any issues.

In the longer term, we're chatting with other ELM's about integrating Mobile Lotteries into existing lotteries. However, there is still a little way to go before any integrations will be rolled out.

If you are interested in finding out more about Mobile Lotteries, you can book a call with one of our team here.