Any aspiring casino marketer would do well to ask the question, What is casino marketing?
What are the main functions of casino marketing? Who are the people in charge of making sure casinos attract the attention it needs? What are the winning casino marketing strategies?
By answering these questions and more, you can gain a solid grasp on how to best advertise your gambling establishment in order to attract both high-rollers and casual gamblers alike.
What is Casino Marketing?
One of many things that must be kept in mind when you’re exploring casino marketing strategies is what exactly should you market. The easy answer to that question would be everything, but let’s dig a little deeper and take a closer look at what makes up casino marketing and how it works.
The first and most important thing to remember when conducting any form of casino marketing strategy is that casinos are businesses; they must treat their marketing like they do all other business expenses.
That means having clear goals, understanding where your money will go, and measuring ROI on all activities (that sounds like something you learned in fifth grade, but it’s important). Gambling brings in billions of dollars every year worldwide. Effective marketing will help ensure that your business sees a good portion of those gambling dollars spent.
Marketing materials must promote a positive image that reinforces its industry position as an entertainment center for both locals and tourists alike. The goal should be to differentiate themselves from competitors and convey their unique value proposition—what makes them different from their competitors.
There are many approaches to marketing within casinos so we can’t really say there is one correct strategy or anything else that would apply universally across all resorts and casinos, but we can lay out some general principles that apply to most casino marketing efforts.
5 Principles that Apply to Most Casino Marketing Efforts
To get started with your casino marketing plan, follow these principles. They apply to virtually any form of casino marketing, so you can use them as a way to evaluate current campaigns and create new ones.
Here are five of those principles:
1) Consider data-driven insights
It’s important to consider data-driven insights when creating and executing a casino marketing campaign. Doing so allows you to track how well your investment works—and see if adjustments need to be made in order for it to continue working. That type of insight will also help inform future decisions; marketers who pay attention to data will develop better strategies because they learn what works (and what doesn’t).
When thinking about ways to improve your current campaign or launch a new one, look at analytics from past endeavors first. From there, start brainstorming ways you can continue doing things that have proven effective—and figure out how other strategies could be implemented successfully in future endeavors.
2) Incorporate traditional forms of marketing into your plans
Traditional forms of marketing like direct mailing, radio ads and billboards don’t work as well on their own anymore, but many casinos still rely on them too heavily. If you want more scalable success, try infusing social media into your efforts.
Traditional techniques work best when combined with modern digital efforts like social media and email marketing; using both traditional methods with newer methods has been shown to boost engagement rates significantly.
Be sure to include these 3 Types of Emails EVERY Casino Needs.
3) Make sure copy supports branding initiatives
A lot of casinos just focus on graphic design without really considering content creation. The fact is that most people don’t care what an ad looks like unless its message resonates with them emotionally—and without great content, even great design may not attract consumers effectively enough to impact revenue gains significantly.
4) Make sure your communications reflect consumer needs
Consumers aren’t always receptive to new ideas and products, which means that clever messaging isn’t always enough to push them towards spending money. One technique that does work well is helping customers understand why they should buy something. Don’t just tell customers what you offer—tell them why it benefits them and how it relates to their lives.
Research what words resonate with each demographic group you market to and make sure each advertising element reflects those groups’ interests.
5) Experiment with multiple channels
Not every channel proves successful for every casino marketer, so experiment with several different techniques before investing the bulk of your budget into one medium or another. You might find your audience prefers seeing your message via Facebook, while others prefer SMS text messages or email.
Reach out to potential customers with several different types of marketing before you decide where to put all of your resources. Whatever you do, don’t overspend by putting all of your budget into one area; if one medium doesn’t prove successful, cut back and look elsewhere for opportunities.
Marketers have all been there, relying solely on one platform can cause a huge business disruption if all is well one year, month, or quarter and then that success goes away. You never know what’s going to work until you test it!
A Quick History of Casino Marketing
Despite being a well-known concept, casino marketing actually has its roots in sports betting. After over a century of legislative battles against state-sponsored gambling, sports betting took off in 1992.
This, coupled with Nevada’s development of non-smoking casinos, brought much more public attention to slot machines and other casino games. As revenue continues to rise, so does casino marketing—with millions spent on promotions meant to attract new players every year.
But what are these promotions? And why do casinos spend so much money on them?
To Market, To Market!
A historical look at casino advertising activities that have proven successful for casinos reveals some very interesting trends. Activities that have been around since or before 1962 include direct mail, newspapers ads, billboards, street posters, consumer shows (like trade shows) and word-of-mouth campaigns.
Additional promotion techniques came along later on including direct response television (DRTV), contests or sweepstakes, video arcades/race track machines/billboards/in-store displays/visits by spokesperson(s) at malls/recruitment of high profile endorsers like retired professional athletes or actors etc., loyalty programs etc.
How Casino Marketing Has Evolved Over Time
Modern casino marketing is relatively new outside the jurisdictions of Atlantic City and Nevada. Still, there are many advances that have allowed modern-day marketers to take their efforts to a whole new level.
One of these shifts happened in 1992 when New Jersey voted in favor of casino gaming. Prior to that vote, most professional marketing efforts were being conducted on behalf of large corporate entities. Since small businesses couldn’t compete with these titans of industry, they didn’t waste time trying. After New Jersey passed its laws permitting gambling operations in Atlantic City, however, smaller companies started making headway toward harnessing successful casino marketing techniques for their own use.
They saw what was working for their larger counterparts and modified it to fit better into their needs. Eventually, virtually every state enacted some form of legalized casino gaming—and that made business easier for everyone involved.
Now the focus has shifted to data. According to Global Gaming Business Magazine, the most successful properties will be those that excel in demonstrating the following seven capabilities:
- Mass personalization
- Understand promotional elasticity
- Master the yield equation
- Execute in real time
- Player development
- Manage leakage
- Big data
Looking Ahead at the Global Gambling Market
The Global Gambling Market was worth $449 billion in 2018, and it looks like that number will only rise over time. The industry will hit an estimated $565 billion by 2022.
It’s quite possible to be part of that growth and to help gambling marketers grow their brands and expand their reach with winning casino marketing strategies.
If you missed it, there are 7 Tactics The Gambling And Casino Industry Needs to Implement for 2022.
These tactics include:
- Digital Marketing
- Email Marketing
- Player Nurturing
- Loyalty Marketing
- Analytics & ROI Measurement
- Creative Data Mining
- Marketing Plan
Conclusion
There are benefits and challenges to developing a marketing plan for casinos. This article from UNLV Gaming Research & Review Journal does a good job diving deep into the benefits and challenges.
There is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to marketing plans, however, there are five principles that apply to virtually any form of casino marketing. Those principles include: consider data-driven insights, Incorporate traditional forms of marketing into your plans, make sure copy supports branding initiatives, make sure your communications reflect consumer needs and experiment with multiple channels.
Modern casino marketing is relatively new outside the jurisdictions of Atlantic City and Nevada. Still, there are many advances that have allowed modern-day marketers to take their efforts to a whole new level.
