We are delighted to have an inspiring interview with Mascot Gaming Head of Marketing, Margarita Malysheva.
In this interview, Margarita will share the story behind the formation of the company’s marketing team and the key qualities she prioritizes in the candidates, the significant challenges they have faced in shaping the marketing team, and much more interesting.
TheGamblest: Margarita, first of all thank you for joining us in the frame of iGaming Talks. As the Head of Marketing at Mascot Gaming, we would like to know more about the story behind the formation of the company’s marketing team and the key qualities you look for in the candidates.
Margarita: Hi, community! Thanks for inviting me, I’m very excited to join iGaming talks and tell you about my dearest Mascot Gaming Marketing Department.
The brand Mascot Gaming was founded 7 years ago and that’s when I got the Marketing position at the company…
Since the foundation of the Mascot Gaming, for a long period of time, I have been the only person in charge of all marketing tasks, like:
- coordinating the creation of a company logo and brand style;
- Mascot Gaming website development from scratch;
- SEO;
- SMM;
- PR;
- Worldwide events participation, etc.
Being full of courage and enthusiasm, I was proud (and nervous as a cat, of course) to take on such significant duties.
Using my experience in marketing, gained from totally different from online gambling spheres, as long as academic knowledge, given by Bachelor Marketing and Finance Degrees (oftenly replaced by my intuition), I did the following:
- At first, I turned off any shyness (still remains off);
- Secondly, I turned on my well-done communicative skills, irrepressible creativity and trustworthy intuition;
- And finally, I started doing my best to organize all this borderless sea of urgent and volumetric marketing tasks by myself.
To be honest, at the very beginning, all primary marketing processes that I was eager to launch and manage, were pretty chaotic, because I was a newcomer in the digital gambling industry and game development in particular. Moreover, it was my first job C-level position and a total freedom of decision making to boot. Wasn’t that a lucky chance for my career, huh?
I was kind of a startup inside the startup, my first unpretentious working activities consisted of:
- my own vigorous enthusiasm;
- unregular, rare and priceless support of the development lead;
- modest budget for working with junior level freelancers: feel free to use any of the convenient freelance exchange platforms! But only when it’s REALLY necessary.
Affordable candidates for extremely needed SEO, content making and graphic design freelancers seemed to have less relevant experience than me. Most of it, in most cases their level of personal fairness, enthusiasm and responsibility were not far from their level of relevant experience.
Nevertheless, having permanently wasted time on searching for dreamlike optimum performers among freelancers, I managed to establish some significant working relationships, which still lasted fruitfully. Looking ahead, I will say that one of those two successful performers, a brilliant girl (and good friend of mine), Angela, impressively rose to the position of The Head of Mascot Gaming Art Department and now is in charge of total visual representation of Mascot Gaming products. She started her career as a junior level freelance graphic designer with zero experience. She turned out to be a talented, flexible, responsible, initiative and fair young girl with an exceptional will to create outstanding games. Nowadays Angela is not only the trusted lead of the creative gamedev art team, but is also a loyal advocate of our beloved Mascot Gaming brand. That case is an example of perfectly released employee hiring at Mascot Gaming Marketing Department. In my opinion, relevant experience is significantly less important than soft skills, which I’ll mention below soon. My way of team development is to recruit for growing brand advocates.
Let’s sum up the key qualities of genuine Mascot Marketing team members. There are:
- strong desire to create outstanding products
- strong desire to improve own skills and knowledge permanently
- strong desire to see the growing results of mutual teamwork in monetary terms
- loyalty to the brand and the team that once has believed in you
- exactitude
- responsibility
- fairness
- initiativeness
- irresistible addiction to balance and beauty
TheGamblest: At the moment, how can you evaluate your team’s performance and how do you make sure your work preferences align with the company culture?
Margarita: My team is now perfectly completed and consists of 5 full-time employees, 2 part-time team members and me. No intuitive marketing anymore (although, sometimes it can still make sense).
We have our annual budget plan, dependent on net profit;
We have a marketing strategy based on actively growing wideness of our geo presence; We constantly test a great variety of promo campaigns (for example, at the moment we are eager to start a massive mutual promo with a third-party traffic team);
We develop all kind of mutual promotion with casino operators;
We provide a great bunch of interesting content, full of case studies, insights and funny memes, of course;
We take part in all major events worldwide with an outstanding concept for each performance;
We help homeless animal shelters and we are the official sponsor of Murcielagos football team based in Valencia, Spain.
Our work preferences are totally based on the company’s culture: we do our best to bring new partners and earn money for the company in the atmosphere of creativity, mutual respect and a thoughtful approach to work.
TheGamblest: We would like to know what the significant challenges you’ve faced in shaping the marketing team, and what your strategy is to overcome them. Any interesting stories to share with us? 🙂
Margarita: I consider my team members as a main resource of the Mascot Gaming Marketing department, so shaping the team has always been crucial and a bit nervous for me. We had had several iterations before I finally felt that the Marketing team was completed. As a team lead, I had to learn to make serious decisions and, most complicated, fire people who did not fit into our team. But I consider such experience pretty useful and thanks to it I now have the coolest team in the world!
As for interesting stories, our content manager told me about her young talented friend and now he is our media manager and my right-hand man; my designer told me about his wife and now she is our second designer (such a nice girl and a hardworking team member), then they informed me about their fellow, motion designer and … guess where he works now? Isn’t it incredible that I find the right people just in my inner circle and in the inner circle of our best employees? That’s how we shape our team and I like it so much.
TheGamblest: It may be difficult to create and maintain a healthy atmosphere for a team, how do you manage to quickly solve problems and move on?
Margarita: My strategy is to be honest, friendly and always act only in the best interests of the company and team.
It may seem that I am very kind, and yes it is, but if I am not satisfied with the work of someone from the team or the result of the work done, I can be quite tough. I have already mentioned that I have fired unsuitable people. If interests of the team and the company
require it, I will take any measures. But I always try to be fair and tell only the truth. And for achievements and competent initiative, Mascot Gaming’s Marketing team employees are always fairly rewarded. We all try to work in such a way as to provide more rewards than penalties
TheGamblest: Can you give us an idea of a typical brainstorming session in your department? How does creativity flow within the team?
Margarita: Ah, this is my most beloved part of a job! I always ask for creative help from my team and we always discuss each issue together. Two heads are better than one, just imagine what happens when there are 8 heads more!
Each Monday we have a team meeting for both reporting and brainstorming purposes as well as a cozy chat in Telegram. This chat is where all the best ideas are born and discussed and only photos of our pets can stop this never-ending process for a while 😉
TheGamblest: Which marketing-related products/services do you currently find the most demanded in Mascot Gaming?
Margarita: I would highlight mutual promotion and tournaments with casino operators as the best way to attract new players. Participation in gambling events also works – networking is still a king in our sphere.
TheGamblest: What upcoming trends or innovations in marketing are you particularly interested in exploring with your team to leverage for Mascot Gaming?
Margarita: I tend to associate innovations with effectiveness. For example, we are actively exploring the field of AI, where there are already some useful analytical tools that allow you to make more precise decisions. This is because you have broader access to all data and a variety of services to compare information, create a comprehensive picture of market trends, and estimate performance of different campaigns. By leveraging these AI-driven insights, we can stay ahead of the competition and continuously refine our strategies to achieve better outcomes.
TheGamblest: How do you think the role of the marketing department is changing as the iGaming industry evolves?
Margarita: As the iGaming industry evolves, the role of marketing is shifting to be more of a true partner with casino operators. It’s no longer just about promoting products—it’s about collaborating closely with operators to understand their unique needs and help them connect with their players in meaningful ways.
We’re focused on providing tailored marketing solutions that fit each operator’s audience, offering support which helps them navigate through new technologies and regulations, and work together on joint promotions and loyalty programs.
In short, marketing is now all about partnership and making sure that both we and operators succeed together in this ever-changing landscape.
TheGamblest: Margarita, we are eager to know about your hobbies when you are outside of the iGaming industry, what makes you happy?
Margarita: Thanks for asking, I like to share my impressive list of hobbies (no shyness, do you remember?)
Well, I like to play tennis, to workout, I’m crazy about mountain skiing. I can’t imagine my life without good books, music and dancing; also I play the violin and write poetry.
All of this is good of course, but none of this would make me happy if I didn’t have a wonderful family and friends.
Thanks for the interview, I had a great pleasure answering your questions!
