Drumroll drawings. Tricked-out trucks. Cash tornadoes. Pulling off a successful casino promotion is harder than it may seem. Here are 15 tips, tricks, and ideas to get you there, without breaking the bank. (Unless, of course, Break the Bank is your promotion of choice.)

Some of the creative marketing ideas used by casinos to promote online gambling and draw the interest of gamblers are listed below, Content Marketing. One of the best techniques to promote any business is Content marketing and gambling is no exception. You should develop unique and engaging content to promote your Casino brand which will. Casinos understand this and build calendars of events that use drawings, free spins and tournaments to create multiple chances to win. Winning Casino Marketing Strategy: Value. Anyone with a dollar to spend wants to feel they are getting something of value for that dollar. Casinos understand pricing and value like few other businesses.

1. Start with planning.

Let’s start with the elephant in the room. It’s definitely more fun to think about what kind of game show briefcase you’ll use in that Deal-eo or No Deal-eo promo, or how the balloons will drop on the new car, but if your casino promotion idea is going to be successful, you need to set the fun aside and first ask yourself this: what, exactly, am I trying to do? Acquire new guests? Reward loyal guests? Increase guest spending? Increase visits? Once you settle on your goals, things get much easier.

A good marketing calendar has balance, a mixture of mass and targeted promotions. Sometimes the goal is to see a big bump in revenue; other times the goal is to boost a certain demographic or daypart. Targeted promotions can also elbow their way in front of the competition. (See #4.)

Total global online casino gross win grew from virtually nothing in 1998 to approximately $2 billion in 2003 (Global Betting and Gambling Consultants) - Global online gross win was $5.7 billion in 2003 and is expected to grow by over 20% per year for the next several years (Christiansen Capital Advisors). Casino marketing strategies aren’t just tied to the digital and print world. It actually starts with your staff. Understanding how hospitality, customer service and the key messages your staff are sharing about your casino and brand directly to your customers is an often overlooked but crucial component to a comprehensive plan. Bet365 Casino’s 2013 ad is an all-time favorite. It encompasses everything a casino devotee wants to see. Set in a futuristic, Blade Runner-like environment with cyberpunk motifs and neon lights, the ad is visually stunning. Additionally, all segments of Bet365 Casino are covered, including slot machines, table games and the.

One other thing: Do not start with how much you should — or have to — spend. Expense should be planned in line with potential revenue, and you’re not going to know that until you define what you’re trying to achieve.

2. Determine how you’ll measure success.

You’ll need to know what “success” means in order to achieve it. This may sound like a “duh,” but it can get a bit tricky. Be sure to isolate your base business, as sometimes traffic isn’t driven by promotions. And in addition to traditional ROI calculations, you may want to check in on other less-obvious factors like customer satisfaction or conversion. Be sure to define how you’ll measure those in advance.

3. Know thy audience.

In order to know the right day, the right way to spread the word, the right briefcase for that game show promotion, get to know your audience as well as you possibly can. Because no matter how enticing you may think your promotion is, if your audience hasn’t heard, isn’t interested, or can’t come, you’re in for a flop.

If, for example, drive time is short and your identified target audience isn’t employed full-time, you may be able to bump that 50% slot floor occupancy on a Tuesday. Or, your audience demographics may tell you the smartest day to make the biggest bang for your buck is Friday, even though the slot floor occupancy is already at 60%.

4. Keep your guests close and your competition closer.

The more you know about your competition, the better you can react or — better yet — act proactively. Keep an eye on competitive websites, Facebook pages, newsletters, and mailers. Identify timing and details on promotional events big and small, as well as competitive strengths, weaknesses, and potential impact on your business. And then act.

Say, for example, your competitor has their big monthly giveaway on a Saturday. Knowing your audience has limited discretionary income, you encourage they spend that money on the Friday preceding the giveaway with an enticing offer.

Technology makes competitive tactics crazy easy. Let’s say one of your high-spend customers is entering your competitor’s parking lot, headed to their Big Bucks promotion. You can send a real-time text that says, “Get over to our place in the next half hour and get a GUARANTEED 50 big bucks in FREE play.” Presto, guest-o. (Small Red Circle plug — we can help you get here. See #15.)

5. Know when enough is enough.

A promotional calendar that’s filled to the brim with exciting giveaways, gifts, and games will produce more profits than a calendar that has sporadic promotions, right?

Wrong.

A constant merry-go-round of promotions, and those ponies lose their luster. Guests are no longer excited. And, if you’re always in promo mode, how can you calculate the bump a particular promotion creates? When you spend money you can no longer measure, you stop being able to adjust, react, and improve your bottom line. Plus, if you’re not careful, those happy, excited guests become angry, entitled guests who wonder where their free meal is already.

When it comes to promotions, choose quality over quantity. Go back to the drawing board and remind yourself of your objectives. Evaluate if and when promotions fill those objectives, and get ahead of the game. Or the tournament. Or the drawing. You get the point.

6. Brand it.

If your promo name looks and sounds just like your competitor’s promo name, you just might have spent your money giving them business. Brand colors, typeface, name, tone, personality — make sure that promotion speaks to guests in your voice. And the more unmistakably yours, the better.

7. Limit time.

We are predictable, we humans, and we assign greater value to limited-time offers. From an old-fashioned circus barker’s “hurry, hurry, hurry” to today’s social media flash sales, time — or lack thereof — creates buzz. And buzz creates action.

Choosing the right start and end dates can have a big impact. Don’t run the promotion long enough, and your guests won’t have enough time to enter. Run it too long, and it loses its punch. Two to four weeks is usually the sweet spot, but it’s important to experiment with your particular casino audience.

8. Create a sense of mystery.

We know gamers index high for risk-taking behaviors. So, while many of us love a good mystery, your audience really loves a good mystery. Unlike a typical promotion, use mystery, and you use a lever to create excitement separate from the actual prize. Through an intriguing, mysterious challenge or adventure, your guests are more engaged and more motivated, which leads to higher participation.

Another benefit to using mystery in your promotions? Cost containment. While a guest might not come in if he or she knows, statistically, she’s likely to win a small bit of free play, that same guest may decide to visit if she’s guaranteed a “mystery” prize (that turns out to be that same free play).

9. Use theater.

These days, guests, hosts, staff, they’re all busy. What’s more, they’re bombarded with lots and lots and lots of messages. So if you want to capture attention, generate enthusiasm, and otherwise engage, go a little wild and bring out the theatrics. A stage, an announcer, music, dancing, balloons, game show drama, whatever it takes. Out of the ordinary — and that can include downright wacky — is the name of the memorability game. In addition to kick-butt promotion results, memorable experiences have the added benefits of building a positive brand, getting great word of mouth, and, ultimately, creating a bigger audience for your next promotion.

10. So who’s promoting this promotion?

The stakes are higher than you may think. If your crew buys in, understands, and is genuinely enthusiastic about a promotion, you just got yourself a lot of free PR. If, on the other hand, staff perceives taking part in the promotion as a chore — or they’re in the dark about the specifics — no amount of promotional ad spend will make up for what happens when your guests walk in the door.

Moral: Promote your promotion. Sell your staff. In fact, treat your staff as your customer. If you do a good job, they, in turn, will pass on that enthusiasm, help create buzz, and be walking examples of your brand.

11. Spread the word wisely.

If you’re encouraging participation in a mass promotion, it makes sense, of course, to buy mass media. If it’s a targeted promotion, though, think outside the box for ways to get your message directly to your target.

Or another way to think outside the box: What about turning a big mass promo into an acquisition strategy by taking a winning car — or another prize so cool your target audience just has to check it out — and showing it off outside your casino? State Fair? Local mall? Where are the customers you want to acquire?

12. Check goals against data.

After the promo, it’s time to dig into the data. Did the promotion create incremental revenue? Did you see a lift year over year? What type of players participated? Were expenses in line with revenue, or were they too high? Did the promotion attract new member signup on the day of the promotion? How was slot occupancy? Quickly get to the bottom of what worked and what didn’t, so you can process the whole picture while it’s fresh. If your data analysts are pulling manual reports, and getting your hands on data just isn’t going to happen quickly, it might be time to get some help.

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13. Debrief already.

The numbers are one thing, but there’s always more to the story. Within the week, while everything is still fresh, make sure to gather info from the people closest to the promotion. Ask what worked and what didn’t. How were the lines? The weather? The logistics? How was the wait for the valet? Get the customer experience story that rounds out the numbers.

14. Present findings in a way that engages your audience.

Think about it. You just thoughtfully intrigued a target audience enough that you created a desired response. You now need to turn around and approach your managers, board, or tribal leadership the same way.

We’re guessing you have a small window of time in a room full of busy, sometimes impatient people. So get to what they care about right away: high level findings, recommendations, and an action plan. Keep it short and on-point. Create summary slides. And be prepared for those questions you know are coming.

15. Get help if you need it.

If your data analyst is pulling manual reports, and you’re not getting information for weeks, you can’t possibly gather great insight and react to that promotion in a timely or effective way. And if you have to analyze mail, email, and mobile communications separately, you’re probably sinking fast. How can you check goals against data across platforms, factor in guest experience, and recalibrate when you’re already well on your way with another promotion?

You can say goodbye to the slow going and heavy lifting — without a big cha-ching out of your bottom line — with database marketing software that does the work for you. We happen to know just the one. It’s a database marketing software suite designed for casino marketers, by casino marketers, and it’s called RECON. This little genius projects your profit margin before your promotion even runs. RECON mines, schedules, and replicates across mail, email, and mobile. It’s easy so you save lots of time. And it’s affordable because you’ll be able to create and streamline more and more cost-effective programs. If you’d like more info about RECON, our proprietary database marketing software, click here or call Angel Suarez at 612-875-7131.

I’ve said it on many occasions, one of my favorite things to talk about is strategy, specifically marketing strategy. A solid strategy unveils a path to success because it identifies where you want to end up. It differs from your marketing plan, which is the collection of steps you’ll take on the path and the tools you’ll need to get further.

You may (or may not) know that most of my work history has been in the casino industry. It has been a career that has allowed me to grow in my skills as a marketer. And though I work in other industries now, I often rely on the lessons learned “taking a gamble.” There are five casino marketing strategies any business, large or small, can adopt.

Winning Casino Marketing Strategy: Database Marketing

Like any other businesses, casinos compete for the disposable dollars of adults, specifically disposable dollars that adult may choose to use for entertainment. Casino marketers are asking for a not-so-insignificant part of that entertainment budget. While a trip to the movies with popcorn and soda could easily top $50 for two people, casinos are looking for that spend from one adult. So, how they identify and target is worth a look. In my opinion, few companies leverage a database quite like a casino. They have been collecting information about customers for years and are now able to leverage that information to determine who the most valuable customers are today and will be tomorrow. They have learned to understand the triggers that drive visits during targeted times. And, given the explosion of technology, they continue to use snail mail in successful ways. You can do this too! CRM and sales tools about from free starters great for small businesses to rock star business intelligence tools.

Winning Casino Marketing Strategy: Personalization

You’ve seen the movies. You’ve seen HIM. He’s the slick smooth-talking casino host. Wrong! Let’s bring that time machine back to the present. Today’s casino host is part salesperson, part customer service representative. The primary functions of the casino host are to create experiences for high worth customers by providing the complimentary perks that make their visit truly personal. At the core of this function is the understanding that casino customers – indeed all of us – want the businesses we patronize to know who we are and what we like. Years ago, I dropped a dress off to my usual dry cleaner. I walked in and place my dress on the counter as usual. The young lady behind the counter greeted me and proceeded to complete my ticket and letting me know when my dress would be ready. Notice anything? She didn’t ask for my name. She knew it even though I barely stopped there every one or two months. To this day, that little moment is still memorable. Jim White is vice president of customer experience for Symphony Post Acute Network. As one of the most innovative providers of post acute care, Symphony looked to him to create an environment that would differentiate them. Sure. “In the Medical Resort model that we have created, a personalized experience is truly the only way to differentiate yourself from all the other businesses that do what we do. It’s all the the little extra touches – in addition to the excellent clinical care we provide, that causes more people to recommend us and make us their provider of choice.”

Winning Casino Marketing Strategy: A Chance to Win

Ever wonder what makes people buy lottery tickets when the odds are stacked against them? Psychologists will tell you that our brains can’t really compute probabilities that are that high. They might also argue we mere humans fall into a trap of “near miss”, in other words, “If I was that close this time, I could be the winner next time.” But what about freebies? When 7-Eleven gives away free Slurpees, people line up by the hundreds and thousands. Whether it be free or a gamble, people want a chance to win something. Casinos understand this and build calendars of events that use drawings, free spins and tournaments to create multiple chances to win.

Winning Casino Marketing Strategy: Value

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Anyone with a dollar to spend wants to feel they are getting something of value for that dollar. Casinos understand pricing and value like few other businesses. Thousands of focus groups have repeated the same feeling. Gamblers know the odds of winning are not in their favor, but the want to be able to play a sufficient amount of time with the budget they have. That’s how they interpret value on the casino floor. Additionally, casinos price certain food venues to appeal to that need for value. Value is not a dollar amount, it is the relationship to your customer’s wallet. So, as you look at your offerings and customer experience, think about those moments you add value and where you take it away. Sometimes, something as easy as using a POS system that easily emails a receipt can add value to a checkout.

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Winning Casino Marketing Strategy: Community

Let’s be honest, when casinos came to the area, many looked forward to the fun and excitement. Few really believed the operations would enhance the community. At the last company I worked for, employees performed over 14,000 hours of community service in only one year. Perform a simple search on the American Gaming Association site and you’ll see example on top of example of how the communities were enriched by the hard work of casino employees. And, yes, I am aware that some people are unable (through their own control or forces beyond their control) to game responsibly, but this story is amount being a part of the community and encouraging your employees to use their time (and perhaps a day or two of yours) to be a part of this beautiful city and the surrounding parishes. Get involved. There are too many needs and I bet given the opportunity, your employees would love to get involved.

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As a marketer, I constantly look to all industries for examples of best practices. These are the five casino marketing strategies that can easily be adopted by you.