PokerStrategy has set up Tradimo.com, a new training site devoted to teaching online financial trading. The company expects to draw customers from its existing poker playing client base on the rationale that trading and poker are very similar skills.
The new site offers an online training course in how to trade and claims to get students capable of making their first currency trade in just one hour. The site has a comprehensive glossary of trading information, a forum, news and videos, very much in line with the existing PokerStrategy website.
PokerStrategy has signed up six financial brokers, each with their own distinctive characteristics. On completing the online trading training course, potential traders are channeled towards one of these brokers to start their trading career.
Regulations are generally much tougher in the financial world than for online poker. PokerStrategy’s disclaimer attempts to avoid the regulatory burden by asserting that it is a training site and that subsequent trading done at any of the brokers advertising on the site is done at “your own risk.”
The multimedia training plus online community affiliate model has worked well for PokerStrategy. It claims six million members and is the most popular online poker content site in the world. Growth has been driven by offering free deposits on affiliated poker sites following successful completion of an online poker training course.
PokerStrategy’s strategic move comes in a post-Black Friday environment where the affiliate marketing business model continues to come under increasing pressure. Many smaller sites have closed down or merged and the network system is seeing substantial consolidation.
The largest poker companies are now multi-billion dollar business that can afford their own global direct marketing campaigns. bwin.Party’s Chris Welch, Group Director Head of Poker announced that their new strategy is trying to shift from the affiliate model towards reaching potential customers directly. Most affiliate deals are no longer exclusive, nor do they offer bigger bonuses than are available direct from the poker site.
Affiliate marketing companies are having to change the way they do business and offer more non-financial value to their customers. Many have increased their own news coverage, or set up forums and strategy advice sections.
PokerStrategy has decided to meet the challenge by taking its core skills and mathematically literate client base and opening up a new affiliate marketing operation in an entirely different but closely related industry.
