The Affiliate Marketing Podcast - Tobias Svensen and Kim Hultman (CasinoGrounds)

In June 2020, CasinoGrounds Co-Founder Kim Hultman raised €47,000 to support the fight against COVID-19. 

After this, AffiliateINSIDER CEO Lee-Ann Johnstone caught up with him and fellow CasinoGrounds Co-Founder, Tobias Svensen. 

The three of them talked about how the idea for the 24-hour live charity stream, which raised the funds, came about – plus more. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hi guys and welcome to the Three Questions Podcast with Neely Ann Johnston. I'm joined today with uh Tobias and Kim from Casino Grounds, which is quite a prominent um iGaming affiliate website. Hey guys, thanks very much for uh joining me today. How are you doing?

SPEAKER_01 0:15

Well, all good, all good. All good. Thanks for having us.

SPEAKER_00 0:19

Thank you for being here. So tell us a little bit about your business before we kickstart the three questions, just for viewers that haven't ever come across your um site before or even met you before.

SPEAKER_01 0:28

Yeah, so um casino grounds.com is a um uh casino streaming community, so to say. Uh we are a company that we have these casino streamers like Kim here, uh our co-founder and uh one of the biggest casino streamers in the world. And basically, uh how it started was uh Kim streaming, building a community of players and starting to really see the potential in the community and the friendliness. And he met up with a couple of other uh guys, one streamer called Nick Slots, and another guy with a background in affiliation uh and experience running a community. And sort of it started from there. Uh, I was working at Leo Vegas, I really liked Kim and the whole concept of it. I felt like it was a complete new way of doing marketing affiliation. Uh, and uh yeah, we started working together. Uh sometime later, Leo Vegas acquired 51% of the company, and since then the whole casino streaming scene has really, really grown. It's become a super community, and uh also the last couple of years really being recognized in the industry as an important part of branding, marketing, and also affiliation. That's a bit the history of it.

SPEAKER_00 1:52

Awesome. So you guys work closely together, and um, you're doing something that you love, which is always a good combination for business. And the reason why I wanted to get you guys on a podcast with me today was just to talk about um the charity streaming event that you guys uh raised 47,000 euros on. And I wanted to just talk a little bit about you know what was the thought process behind holding that event because it's it's quite rare that we see affiliates doing things like this, and um, you know, it it was just really nice to see that we're contributing to the bigger picture here. So talk me through the thought process of why you felt compelled to do this and how you sort of came up with the idea.

SPEAKER_02 2:29

Uh so I'm Kim, let's give it a spin. Uh the the streamer who uh who organized it together with uh with the Casino Ralph team. Uh basically I've been wanting to do a big charity stream, 24-hour charity stream for a long time. And uh hasn't really, if I do something like for 24 hours, uh a lot of people do it for their own benefit, but I I just felt I wanted to do it for for something good. And then when uh when the lockdown happened and we were stuck inside all the time, we said, all right, let's do it, let's use this time to do something good. So um that's that's basically how it all started.

SPEAKER_00 3:09

And the nice thing as well is that like your community was involved, right? So it was you know that they were doing something that was making a good impact, um, because a lot of people see our industry as you know negative, it's you know, not in it's not engaging, we're not doing entertainment, but this really must have been an entertaining experience for somebody to sit there.

SPEAKER_02 3:27

Yeah, it was fun, it was exhausting. It was exhaust exhausting, but we did we did some fun things like egg roulettes and uh and people people really came together and donated. So uh and I donate the big big uh part myself as well. Yeah, it was and I I think that it that's been uh and it's understandable people have this negative opinion about casino and many in many cases casino streamers as well. Uh, that's also one of the reasons we started Casino Grounds, because before us the only really net real networks were hardcore affiliates, and when they put a streamer there, it would obviously not be with real money, whilst casino ground streamers always play play with real money and and uh showed the reality of Jamie, the ups and downs.

SPEAKER_00 4:17

And what did you learn from your customers in this experience? Because I mean, surely you know, they interacted with you, and that engagement piece kind of stepped up quite a lot. It wasn't just you know quietly lurking behind the screen, but people must have been really interacting with you over this period.

SPEAKER_02 4:31

It it was uh yeah, it was heartwarming. And some people even sat through 24 hours with us uh and we did some fun things. So I said, All right, if uh uh I shave my hair, it's it's gonna it's gone back out again. But uh I said, All right, if 10 of you shave your hair, then I'll donate more more money, and uh because uh not everyone has money to donate, not everyone has the financial situation, but you can always do something. So in this case, they could indirectly donate by shaving their hair, and they they did. So it was uh it was great to see.

SPEAKER_01 5:07

And even I think there was actually 16 people that posted picture of shaving. Posted a picture, yeah. Uh which for me, this was sort of the the evidence that we sort of knew that our community is really a really great caring community. And I think it's also worth mentioning that on the charity part, this is far from the only thing we've done. Our Kim's co-founder Nick Slot has charity of the month. Uh, and I think over the last couple of years he's he's either closing in or just over 100,000 pounds in uh charity donations, uh, whereas everything from problem gambling, various mental health, or or other things that needs help. Uh, and the community's always been really participant in those projects, and I think this one was really where everything came together, and it was just overall super, super good experience.

SPEAKER_00 6:04

And fun, you know, because that's what we're doing, is we're offering entertainment as well. And I think that's very um, you know, rarely spoken about the fact that people are actually using this as an entertainment for form, and you know, like you would go to the cinema or you would go to them, um, you know, go out with your friends, some people are really just using this as an entertainment experience. I wanted to talk a little bit about online streaming and audience engagement because there's one thing to have an audience that's listening to you, and another thing to have a community that's engaging with you. And I think often the second part is incredibly difficult for affiliates to create, especially content-based affiliates. So, not that I want to talk about COVID so much because I think we've all been there and done that. Um, how should your or how should people's marketing strategies be changing? Um, and from your perspective and within your community and and the sort of content that you've built around that, what pieces of advice can you give to people around this point?

SPEAKER_02 7:00

I think I think the most important is be genuine and and and be yourself when it when it comes to to streaming uh and know if you take the shortcuts, you can probably make a lot of money short term, but people will always see that that you're in it for the money only. Like you have to remember it's thanks to your viewers that you're even able to do this, uh as for streaming. And uh I see all my viewers as friends, that they're my mates, and I come to my mates and I hang out with them. And and if you see that in real life, there's no way you'd sit and lie to your mates on a regular basis. So basically be honest, transparent, and uh treat them, treat them with respect.

SPEAKER_00 7:51

I like to use the word authentic. Like if you're authentic, people can tell, you know, they can tell that you're not putting on a face or you know doing something for a marketing gimmick.

SPEAKER_01 8:00

I I I think also the key is that if if you are an affiliate and want to build a community, don't because Kim didn't start as an affiliate, he started as sort of a passionate gambler that wanted to build a community around it. I think if you're forcing yourself into something that you don't know, understand, you don't spend your spare time there. Like I was watching Kim stream up at 2 a.m. yesterday and the day before, because I genuinely love watching it. But I think if you don't have that, you shouldn't try to build this community. Then you should let somebody that really, really enjoys it and don't see it as a job, they see it as a hobby first.

SPEAKER_00 8:41

So I think you've touched on something that's like really close to my heart at the moment because as business owners, you know, you start out running a business and you think you've got a plan and a strategy. And I think most affiliates, you know, have really struggled with this. COVID, you know, not impacting, but when you start a business, it you know, it starts as one thing and it can very quickly morph into something else. And when you talk about, you know, don't spend your spirit time there, I think that then boils back to the authenticity piece. Because if you're doing something eight, nine, twelve hours a day, you know, however long you're working for, and you're not really passionate about it, and you're not really engaged with what you're doing, it becomes a chore and not um, you know, something that you want to be engaged in. So I think the what you're saying is that the first question is, do I need a community or do I just want to have an audience? And once you've figured out what those two things are and the kind of points that go with it, I think then you you kind of go down the point of okay, now I'm gonna build a community. What's the one piece of advice that you can give to people having gone this journey and having done this yourselves quite successfully? What's the one piece of advice that you can give to people if they are gonna go down the route of building a community? Like what would you suggest that they do?

SPEAKER_02 9:51

Uh in in in general, also getting back to what you uh what you said, like yeah, identify what are your strengths and what you're good at and do more of that. Uh and um my one piece of advice is be yourself.

SPEAKER_00 10:09

Do you think people buy people still, even even now? It's all about like authenticity and and if people resonate with you, they're gonna follow you and they're gonna you know want to see what you're doing next.

SPEAKER_02 10:21

Yeah, it's uh yeah, exactly for sure. And they they will they will feel that you're honest. We we have a lot of meetups in in UK. Uh we have one meetup every year around ICE, where we bring the viewers and we go to a land-based casino, we have some food and drinks, and and and those things are extremely fun as well. You you really get to meet people. And the the fun thing is we've been doing this for years, and never ever have I met someone that I didn't like.

SPEAKER_01 10:47

Yeah. So for my end, I think I think um the key advice is that most people underestimate the amount of invisible work, so to say, when you're doing something like that. Uh, nobody speaks about Kim answering hundreds of messages every day on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. It's it's a full-time job, so to say. So if if you're not prepared to live it, sort of the community uh you're building, if if you're not prepared, if if you're expecting just to do it, you you need to be aware it's a lot more work. And if you don't like it, it's going to be really, really uh boring. Uh it's important that you you're prepared to live it, just not just do it.

SPEAKER_00 11:33

I think you need to in any business, you need to live it because if you don't, then it you know it's just never gonna take off, and especially in our competitive environment, because I mean casino is one of the most competitive verticals that you can create a business in, to be honest. So um, yeah, I think I think that's really good advice, and thank you very much for sharing that with us today. What do you have any kind of last um like thoughts or points that you want to add into the podcast that we can share with our audience and listeners?

SPEAKER_01 12:01

I mean, if you don't really know about us, check our website out, check our YouTube channels out. If you don't really know casino streaming yet, you should. Shame on you. Uh have a look and uh and uh follow us closely. There's going to be a lot of cool stuff coming from us in in 2020. Awesome.

SPEAKER_02 12:20

Yeah, I've had I've had a lot of people saying, uh, how can others watch new gamble? But it is, I watch I watch a lot of casino streamers myself, and I'll I watch a lot of streamers in general, but it's uh it is fun and you don't have to spend your own money.

SPEAKER_00 12:35

Yeah, which is great. It's voyeurism, isn't it, in its purest form.

SPEAKER_02 12:40

Yeah, but it that that and that's what's so beautiful. So when we're arguing, should I cash out, should I keep going? There's like can please cash out. It's like the viewers feel it's it's if I lose, it feels like them losing. Uh and if I win, it feels like them winning, which is should open up some side bets on there.

SPEAKER_00 12:59

You might might create a whole new game genre.

SPEAKER_02 13:03

We've actually done that. You could uh with very beneficial odds, you could bet on if uh how much I was gonna win or lose. Yeah, we did that one thing as a as a fun event.

SPEAKER_00 13:14

I've been looking at like alternative games, and there's this game called Crash. I don't know if you've heard about it or seen it, but literally it's like a line going up on the screen, and people will bet on when the line's gonna stop and crash. And it's simple as that. And it's like there's thousands of people looking at this, and I'm just like, you know, my mind boggles at what people find entertaining online, and especially now in COVID, where you've got way more time on your hands to go and explore all of these like little niche communities. Um, but yeah, I think yeah, I'm really looking forward to seeing what you guys do because you've created a fantastic community. Um, you know, your marketing strategies are great, and I I really do want to like give you praise for the work that you've done and the money that you've raised for um the visualization. So thanks very much for coming on the podcast with me, and we look forward to seeing what happens with Cosina Browns um in 2021.

SPEAKER_01 14:02

Thank you so much. Thank you so much. It was a pleasure to be here. Thank you very much as always, and and great pleasure being here and look forward to the next time.

SPEAKER_00 14:11

Thank you so much.