Strategy9 2016 Casino Email Marketing Survey
strategy9.com
EmailIQ.ca
CASINO EMAIL MARKETING SURVEY 2016 RESULTS
Strategy9's annual email marketing survey for the casino industry
Report Progress
Welcome to Strategy9's 2016 Casino Email Marketing Survey Results!
We appreciate your participation in our survey, and are happy to share the results with you in our "State of Casino Email Marketing" report. We hope that by sharing the anonymous results with you we'll help you better understand what (if any) you can do differently with your email marketing program to improve your results.
If you have any questions or comments, please email us at
info@strategy9.com
.
Thanks again,
Strategy9
Which casino department is responsible for your email marketing program?
90% of casinos responding said that either 'Marketing' or 'Casino Marketing' was responsible for their email marketing program. No big surprises here...
What is the current size of your email database? (# of addresses)
Is your email database not as large as you expect it to be? Do you have patron records without email addresses? Strategy9 can help you append email addresses using consumer records - or help you devise strategies to have your patrons self-enter their email addresses. One such strategy is by implementing an online contest. Check out how we're helping the Royal Beach Casino in St. Kitts do just this:
Click here to see the Fly Away and Play Sweepstakes
(you can even enter if you'd like to win...)
How many staff members work on your email marketing campaigns (database, creative, programming, analysis, etc.)? (select one)
Managing an email marketing program is no easy task. In fact, in our experience the complexity of sending even a single eblast to 50,000 email addresses is often underestimated. With that in mind we don't find it suprising that 56% of responding casinos report they have more than 3 staff memebers involved with email marketing campaigns.
If you're feeling overwhelmed, give Strategy9 a call - we want to help you succeed.
Who creates your email creative? (select all that apply)
More than half of casinos responding say that they have internal staff creating their email content. This is impressive that such a high proportion of sites have skilled staff to handle this function.
If you're not getting the results you want however, it may be time to lean on a dedicated, professional casino email marketing company.
Give Strategy9 a call - we've been helping casinos succeed since 2000!
How often do you communicate via email with your players? (select one)
Almost half (47%) report that they email their players at least every two weeks. Another 29% do it monthly - and 6% email daily! How can you maximize response and email your players more often without bothering them? Strategy9 can help you find that line and increase your opportunities for response!
How do you segment your players? (select all that apply)
Effective segmentation is a key component to achieving higher response rates AND ensuring you're spending your offer budget on the right player at the right time.
Strategy9's renowned PlayerIQ-RFM scoring system can show how your numbers stack up.
Are you spending too much on under-performing patrons?
What's your 80-20 rule?
Give Strategy9 a call - our database science will change how you look at your comping and offers program.
For email campaigns, do you send different offers to different players in a single campaign? (select one)
More than half of the respondents report sending different offers within a single campaign.
Sending different offers allows you to offer proportional rewards based on club tier, Avg Theo, or some other score or data element.
Do you send out individual email offers to players (ie: Birthday offers, Anniversary offers)
Almost two-thirds of the casinos who answered our survey report sending individual offers via email.
This is an indication of a sophisticated communication strategy - where your team has the ability to focus on and target single customers. Great systems make this type of email marketing easier.
Are you in the "no, but we'd like to" group?
Give Strategy9 a call - our EmailIQ system will give you the ability to talk to your customers one at a time when you need to...
Do you send marketing email that includes specific variables? (ie: current points available, current club status, etc.) (select one)
A third of casinos are sending email with specific variables, a third aren't, and a third want to.
Email with specific variables allows you to communicate precise information to your customers.
For example, Strategy9's EmailIQ system can help you send email that can tell your players how many points they are away from the next club tier, how many comp dollars they have available, or how much free play is in their accounts.
Want to add this ability to your marketing tools?
Give Strategy9 a call - and let us help you share the details with your players.
How often do you update your patron database with results from email campaigns? (ie: bad addresses, etc.) (select one)
Wow! A quarter of casinos are updating their patron database daily! (and 15% need a hand!)
Routine updates mean you're keeping your email database as clean as possible - thereby keeping your hard bounce rate as low as possible, and ensuring your sending reputation stays high.
However - this is only half the battle. It is also important to have a mechanism to remind your customers when their email address goes bad...
Strategy9 can help you implement ways to keep your email addresses up to date. Give us a call at (702) 421-3999 - or drop us an email at
info@strategy9.com
- we'd love to help you!
How many separate email campaigns do you send a month (ie: birthday email campaign, hotel offer campaign, etc.)
Almost a third of casinos are sending more than 4 different campaigns a month.
However, more than half of the casinos responding are sending 2 or fewer campaigns each month.
Want to ramp things up?
You know who to call... ;)
How many total emails do you send per month?
A third of casinos are sending fewer than 10,000 emails per month, while 15% are sending more than 100,000.
Whatever is keeping your monthly totals lower than you'd like - not enough time, not enough staff, no system to collect email addresses - Strategy9 and EmailIQ can help get you moving in the right direction.
Are you happy with your current response levels from your email marketing program? (select one)
So this is a big question, isn't it? Certainly we all WANT to be happy with our response levels...
Well, only 27% report being "Happy" or "Very Happy". And, 42% say they are "Meh" at best, and "Very Unhappy" or "HELP ME!" at worst!
How about we help turn those frowns upside down?
Just think of us as Jerry Maguire - help us help you... ;)
What metrics are important to you?
Of course we all care about opens and clicks. Forwards are cool too.
However, isn't it important to be able to connect a sale / booking / reservation made where an email was the catalyst?
We can help you connect the dots...
Who performs your email marketing analysis?
The numbers always matter. So we send all this email - how do we know if it is working?
Most casinos are doing it internally - but 21% are asking for help.
At Strategy9, we've been perfecting casino analytics for over 20 years. In fact, once you have us help you with your email analytics, we're sure you'll ask us to help with the rest of your casino analysis, too!
Which of the following is done for your email campaigns?
A third of casinos who responded to our survey tell us that they are using feedback loops, hard bounce management, and soft bounce management to improve their deliverability. Complaint processing, proper unsubscibe processing, and blacklist monitoring are important, too.
There are quality tools and vendors in the email marketing space who can help you with many of these processes and techniques.
Need a hand? We're here to help.
Do you use any of the following?
While we have low percentages of casinos reporting use of these methods, it is highly likely that many of you are implementing them without knowing about them.
If you truly aren't using them, or simply want to know more about how they help get your email delivered, talk to us. We love this stuff, and are happy to help you ensure you're using the right tools to get your email delivered.
Do you send triggered or transactional email?
Most casinos responding say that they aren't currently sending triggered email.
A triggered email is an individual email that gets sent automatically when a certain event or condition occurs.
For example, you could have a "Welcome" email get sent as soon as a guest checks in to your hotel - or even when a patron cards-in at a slot machine!
Strategy9 can help you automate your email marketing... give us a call!
What other internet channels do you employ in your marketing strategy?
It is exciting to see how casinos are embracing all the different social media channels available to us these days.
Most properties are taking advantage of Facebook and Twitter, and there are lots of Instagram accounts being used, too!
Keep those channels open - your customers are using them too!
Have you ever had difficulty getting your email delivered (ie: blacklists, spam folder, junk folder, etc.)
Many people think sending email is easy. Sure, sending one, ten, or even 100 emails can be easy. But, sending 10,000? Or more - much more?
Marketing emails from casinos are even harder to get delivered than non-casino email. In fact, some email marketing companies won't even send casino email for fear of ruining their sending reputations.
At Strategy9, we've been sending casino marketing email since 2002. We've been through it all, and can surely help you get your email delivered.
Which languages do you use with outbound email other than English?
It is interesting to see how global our casino industry is, and it is reflected in our email marketing communications.
For these casinos who are sending email in more than one language - are you automatically sending a language based on a database field in your patron system?
If you're not yet doing so give us a ring - we can 'translate' it for you...
Thanks for participating in our 2016 Casino Email Marketing Survey.
We hope these results will give you some ideas on how you can improve your own email marketing program. As always, we're here to help when you need a hand.
Email us at
info@strategy9.com
Call us at (702) 421-3999
Backward
Forward