Single Track. Shared Experience.

We’ve developed this agenda as a 360-degree view of the responsibilities of casino marketers in the US: creating revenue. We start with strategy, move to tactics, and then an exploration of new marketing channels. And, rather than have you decide which session to attend, we’ve kept this to a single track so everyone can share in the experience and grow together.

We have made the decision to shift to a virtual platform – shorter days over 3 calendar days with entertaining breaks in between sessions.

Tech Check

In order to ensure a smooth virtual experience, individual appointments will be set with participants and their IT support teams to test technology during this week.

Times are listed as CST.

10:45 am   Welcome
11:00 am   Keynote – Be Vigilant! Strategies to Stop Complacency, Improve Performance and
Safeguard Success. Your Business & Life Depend on It.
12:30 pm  Strategy of Branding
2:00 pm    Engagement as a Strategy

Times are listed as CST.

10:45 am   Welcome Back
11:00 am   The Digital Marketing Dilemma: Fighting For Attention
12:30 pm  Learning the Language of Your Financial Reports (and Your GM)
2:00 pm    Creating (More) Results from Your Segmentation

Times are listed as CST.

10:45 am  Welcome Back
11:00 am  Marketing to the Senses
12:30 pm  The New Normal of Promotions
2:00 pm    Expanding Your Reach with Your Social Casino
3:00 pm    Optional Roundtable Discussion

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Session Descriptions
Click on each session to see more.
Keynote: Be Vigilant! Strategies to Stop Complacency, Improve Performance, and Safeguard Success. Your Business & Life Depend on It.
Complacency is a trap we can all fall into without even realizing it. It destroys progress. It destroys businesses. It can destroy your career.  Len Herstein shares three of the lessons learned that make up his upcoming book.

 

Session Coach: Len Herstein, ManageCamp Inc.

Strategy of Branding
What if you had the ability to step outside of your brand world and look at it from the outside, perhaps like a customer. Would it look “all over the place?” Would it feel recognizable, perhaps unique? Or worse, would it look like what you are saying doesn’t reflect who you really are and what you really do (or say you want to do)?
 
Before you start looking at 31 different versions of the color blue for a new campaign, let’s step back and take a look at your bigger brand picture and what you need to define in order to develop the brand strategy that will support your long-term business goals and help you determine how to approach your customers and how you will measure success.
 
Next, we’ll review the essential components of a brand strategy that will help keep your company around for years to come.

 

Session Coach: Julia Carcamo, J Carcamo & Associates

Engagement as a Strategy

Most properties understand the importance of Engagement Marketing on the floor. It generally is centered around customer service and providing a personal touch with their hosts, players club personnel, hotel staff, servers, the cage, valet, and more. It’s vital to the success of any property. Yet, the majority of casinos think it starts and ends at the property level. They do not realize the positive impact that continuous engagement marketing can have on their business when the customer is not at their location. The reality is an effective continuous engagement strategy can enhance customer experience and provide a tangible ROI as it keeps players more connected to you. That can easily convert into more property visits and incremental revenue.

So, what is it? Engagement marketing, commonly known as Content Marketing– is the use of strategic, resourceful content to engage people and create meaningful interactions over time. Engagement of this nature takes “dating” to the next level and can create a lifetime customer relationship.

In the world of continuous digital connection, it is proven you can win over customers with an effective plan and implementation. Conversely, you lose customers to your competitors who understand the power of this marketing tool and implements it correctly.

Content engagement marketing of this nature continues to grow year after year. It’s a fact that thousands of brands either haven’t invested in content or are just starting to do it now. According to eMarketer, about 80% of marketing professionals around the globe said they expect content-led campaigns to grow over the next two years.

There’s a reason for this upsurge in this type of engagement marketing. According to an Adobe study, brands who marry a strong omnichannel presence with engaging content marketing strategies may realize:

  • 10% increase in YoY growth
  • 10% increase in AOV (average order value)
  • 25% increase in close rates

Join this session to learn more about this emerging marketing strategy and opportunity.

Session Coach: Jerry Epstein, Engaged Nation

The Digital Marketing Dilemma: Fighting For Attention

The challenge for all properties engaged in digital marketing (social media, digital advertising, online/website, mobile, and email marketing) is how to capture the attention of your players and keep them coming back for more. Consider each digital marketing platform as its own casino gaming floor — we are constantly adding amenities, game titles, and adjusting our gaming floor to best serve our players and ultimately drive more play. Our player’s club reps, casino hosts, front desk agents, table games dealers, floor managers, slot attendants, servers and customer service staff are all engaging with our guests throughout their visits.

-Are we creating engaging and attentive atmospheres in our digital marketing channels?

-What are we doing online to keep our players coming back?

-Are we capturing their attention or just making noise?

-What is the value proposition we’re offering?

The goal of digital marketing is to not only advertise, track impressions, and post content, but to create and nurture online communities through meaningful interactions with our players. I would argue that the most effective use-case for digital marketing is that we have the ability to engage directly with our players.

In this session, you will hear direct strategies for capturing the attention of your players by using existing digital marketing channels available to everyone, along with some tips for which social media and digital advertising methods are working best.

Session Coach: Justin Shank, Shank Marketing

Learning the Language of Your Financial Reports (and Your GM)
There is much discussion around breaking down silos and understanding our IT and HR partners’ goals and mindset. But understanding the business and how your efforts truly make an impact requires skills that are seldom spoken about – the language of your financial reports, and more importantly, that of your general manager. More often than not, even the most talented marketers can run into a brick wall. That brick wall can mean a more difficult path not only for our marketing programs but our careers as well.
 
How come? Sometimes, there can be a fundamental difference between the marketing team’s goals and that of the business as a whole. The language we use can often sound the same yet have different meanings. Marketing brings insights based on an understanding of what the customer values, and this can often be at odds with the efficiency of operations.
 
Marketing does not operate in a vacuum. In fact, marketing success stories are the result of a TRUSTED relationship among the executive team — when you can take risks with new programs, fully supported by your GM and CFO.
 
Marketers must develop a better understanding of the goals and financial signposts used to guide the business. This understanding can help you reframe marketing thought processes and measurements to be more attuned and receptive to the more-financially focused members of your executive team, making your seat at the executive table more valuable to the organization.
 
The best marketing plans SUPPORT  the company’s financial plans, driving the results that can get the team to a full stretch bonus.

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Session Coach: Gaye Gullo, Gaye Gullo Consulting

Creating (More) Results from Your Segmentation
Casino marketers can often find themselves going through the motions of their segmentation strategy. Often because we’ve seen a certain level of success with our current approach. But times are changing. Casino customers have learned how to play the offer game to their advantage. COVID had impacted our databases. Inactive suddenly has a new meaning. New customers have found their way through our doors, and old ones may not have reappeared yet.
 
In this session, we will discuss how to get the most out of your new-ish database, how to understand and serve the segments you rely on, and how to drive value to the right guests and your bottom line.

Session Coach: Mary Loftness, Profitable Customers

Marketing to the Senses

Close your eyes and think about the last “great night” you experienced with a group of friends or family. Chances are all five of your senses were enlivened that night, and you can still taste, feel, smell, see, and hear all of the particulars.

Casino operators should strive to make the guest experience within the walls of their property a prime spot for one of these “great life moments.” To do so, they need to create an atmosphere that stimulates all five of the guest’s senses using sensory marketing.

A successful sensory branding strategy will elicit a guest’s beliefs, feelings, thoughts, and memories and quickly create a lasting brand image in that customer’s mind.

Casinos have a built-in advantage in that guests entering the property are already seeking out a good time, and the environment is inherently stimulating. Their senses are already being tickled as soon as they walk through the door, thanks to flashing lights, the sound of chips hitting the table, the distinctive scent of a casino and slot machines chirping. 

In this session, New Level Radio VP Nathan Green will discuss how crucial it is to have a targeted marketing strategy for your property that tickles all five senses of your guests:

SIGHT 

The eyes contain two-thirds of all the sensory cells in a person’s body, so sight is the most prominent of all human senses. When people “hear” information, they’re likely to remember only 10% of the details three days later. But if relevant “visuals” are paired with that same information, people retain 65% of the information three days later, according to a Brains Rule study. With that said, utilizing a tool such as video messaging can play a key role in creating that “best-night-of-my-life” atmosphere. Video walls are affordable and can brighten up the casino floor and differentiate space. The correct visuals in prime locations will make the entire ambiance and surroundings more memorable while delivering a “location-based experience.”

SOUND 

Once a sound wave reaches your ear, your brain recognizes it in 0.05 seconds. That’s 10 times faster than a blink of an eye! So, it’s only natural that the first thing that registers with a customer when he or she walks into your casino is sound. Not what they see. Not what they smell. It’s what they hear that travels fastest to their brain. A targeted music and messaging program unique to a casino’s layout and customer demographic will help keep the customer on the property longer, increase spend, allow the atmosphere to match the casino’s brand, and even boost employee productivity.

TASTE

The sensorial strategy of taste is difficult to master in casinos. Still, the recall can most certainly stimulate taste-buds for anyone who has had a previous experience with a casino’s restaurant or a specific beverage, which can encourage sales and create an enjoyable experience. 

SMELL

The sense of smell is 10,000 times more sensitive than taste because it taps directly into our memory. A unique smell or odor can very quickly and easily stir emotion and create feelings of nostalgia. Every casino has a certain smell. The nose will prompt the brain to think about a previous big win at a certain table game or slot machine or harken back to a memorable event, encounter, or evening at that property.

FEEL

Touch is a powerful sense, and casinos can capitalize on it in many ways, and not just with poker chips or slot machines. For instance, an interactive concierge is not only trackable, but it allows guests to control their visit with a simple touch and engages them as they look for their favorite restaurant or receive directions to a certain place in the property. Many casinos are also now utilizing virtual concierge programs, which put the property brand directly on a guest’s mobile device and, in turn, stimulates the sense of “touch.”

Session Coach: Nathan Green, New Level Radio

The New Normal of Promotions

For the health and safety of our team members and guests, we are rewriting our playbooks on a regular (sometimes daily) basis. But, what do you do when you cannot rely on your tried and true tools like promotions and giveaways. No crowds? No problem.

Technology is making the excitement of promotions a reality. Explore all the ways you can continue to create excitement and energy on your casino floor even at a safe distance.

Session Coach: Vince Manfredi, Manfredi Consulting

Extending Your Marketing with Your Social Casino
If there is one thing we learned in the last few months, digital has quickly become THE channel for marketers worldwide.  The evolution of the modern casino and the speed at which operators are building online solutions to keep customers engaged is mind-boggling.
 
Social casino solutions increase the value of your players and build brand loyalty. According to SuperData, 82% of social casino players have visited a land-based casino within the past year, and 60% have visited in the past 6 months. This kind of opportunity to capture your target customer’s attention is not available through any other customer gaming channel.
 
More importantly, a social casino can extend your property’s digital brand and assist customers in becoming comfortable in a rapidly developing digital iGaming environment.
 

Whether you already have a solution or are considering one, it is critical that you understand how to maximize the opportunity and create a cycle of engagement to keep your valuable players inside your house of brands.

In this session, we’ll discuss how your social casino can increase acquisition, engagement, and monetization, as well as what you should consider for developing or improving your social casino. We’ll also discuss the available operating models and what it takes to successfully operate, market, and support a social gaming property.

Session Coach: Jason “Wolf” Rosenberg and Itsik Akiva, American iGaming Solutions

Optional Roundtable Discussion

The final roundtable has become a hallmark of Boot Camp. It provides coaches and attendees with the opportunity to discuss how they will implement new thinking and identify their STRS – what they want to Stop, Turnaround, Reactivate, or Start in their marketing.

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