This is an open letter to the marketing staff at MGM Resorts, Caesars Entertainment, Sands, and other casino corporations. And if you’re part of the marketing staff at a different type of company, you may want to pay attention to this as well – since the core takeaway here applies to you as well.
We get it.
We visit you a few times a year, and you never fail to put a smile on our face as we willingly throw our money at you in hopes of having a little bit of luck.
You want to be young and hip, attracting the “in” crowd by using the latest in technology and gadgets. Heck, the casino industry thrives on pushing the technologic envelope. We have no issue with that at all.
But you already know who we are.
We play faithfully with our Players Club card at every casino we visit, whether it be a Hard Rock in Florida, the Tropicana in Atlantic City, the Palms, or anything on the Las Vegas Strip from Mandalay Bay and Luxor all the way up to the Venetian and the Wynn (with stops along the way at Harrah’s, Paris, Bellagio, Mirage, Caesars, and the occasional roll of the dice at Casino Royale… if only to keep those $1 beers coming at us).
But you know this already.
Your database is chock full of information about us.
When we’ve played, how long we play, how much we wager, whether we’ve won or lost. Which machines we favor, which table games we spend the most time at, and probably even how much we tip the dealer.
It’s all there for you to pull up at a moment’s notice.
You also have our name, address, email address, birthdate… and in some cases, our banking information.
We give this to you willingly and eagerly, knowing that you will use that information to give us reason to spend more time with you with discounted and free room rates, tournament offerings, plane tickets.
Yes, it’s a parasitic relationship — we both want something out of each other… and again, we’re still fine with that.
We’re fans of yours.
When you decided to stop sending snail mail, glossy magazines, coupons in the mail — we said that was okay, we’ll survive on the weekly email offers that you’ve been sending.
But then things took a turn for the worse.
You got greedy.
You already had us hooked, you have everything you need from us.
So why do you need us to Friend you on Facebook? Why do you need us to follow you on Twitter? Why do you need us to join your Google+ group? Why do you need our cell phone number to text us?
We’re already your friend. We already have opened up our email and mailboxes to you.
What possible reason do you have for not using your existing marketing prowess? Why force us to jump through hoops that we’ve proven we don’t need to jump through in order to give us what you’ve already given us in the past?
The problem is that you’re diluting your marketing message.
If you already have your own website, then that’s where you should be focusing on. Everything else is just marketing and shouldn’t be used for anything but that.
Drive traffic back to your website. Don’t make us go to Facebook, Twitter, or elsewhere if we don’t have to.
If we’re already in your database as someone who has spent money with you, we’ve proven that we are a more valuable customer than someone that may or may not visit you.
Sure, we understand the cost of obtaining new customers can be high, and we’re okay with using alternative methods to reach those customers. Use Twitter, Facebook, or whatever else comes out to help spread the word about your business… but use those tools to drive traffic back to your main website.
Use your existing database and website to continue to encourage repeat visits from known customers. Don’t confuse us by making us jump all over the Internet to figure out what you’re trying to tell us. We already know who you are and what your brand is about. All we want to do is give you our money and have an opportunity to win it back.
We shouldn’t have to click a LIKE button to show you that we like you. You already know that we do.
So what kind of info do the casinos post on their Twitter accounts that they should just be sending to us directly? Check out Web Watch’s LAS VEGAS Twitter List…