Everyone knows that the behemoths in the online poker industry are Party Poker and Poker Stars. These two companies have been around the longest, and are both multi-billion dollar operations with almost limitless advertising budgets. When Full Tilt Poker came along, the question had to be asked: how on earth were they supposed to make a dent in the armor of the two online poker behemoths?
Full Tilt Poker utilized many different weapons in order to gain a sizable (and ever-growing) base of players. In our opinion, Full Tilt Poker has been wildly successful in attracting the casual (and not-so-casual) players who may have already had accounts at one or both of the big rooms. Here is how Full Tilt Poker became our rookie of the year:
1) Aggressive recruitment of stars to promote and play on the site. Ok, if you are an amateur player who watches all of the poker events on television, how cool is it to be able to play on the same site that Phil Ivey, Erick Lindgren and Chris "Jesus" Ferguson play on? This is a marketing ploy that works extremely well. Each well-known player on the site has their own custom avatar, and most will chat with onlookers while they are playing. This is extremely cool.
2) Slick marketing campaigns. Full Tilt Poker obviously expends considerable energy coming up with memorable advertising campaigns. Of all the campaigns you have seen on television recently, which one stands out the most? Probably Full Tilt Poker.
3) Bonuses. Full Tilt Poker offers a 100% deposit bonus up to $600. This is an extremely generous bonus, and I believe one of the highest in the industry.
4) Listening to its players. Recently an online petition was started, asking Full Tilt Poker to offer more daily high-buyin tournaments. Within 24 hours, Full Tilt Poker had responded and added the tournaments to its daily schedule.
5) Support. Getting much better. Emails that I have sent have been responded to within a few hours, much better than they used to be.
6) Players. Always a game going, and the overall players are soft enough that you can do fairly well if you are a solid player.
Full Tilt Poker is our rookie of the year, and I wouldn't be surprised to see them go head to head with the big rooms in a couple of years.
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Filed Under: Poker Room News