Setting the big data stage

Pulling the data together to effectively activate real-time marketing is a challenge. First, casinos need to bring together all of the customer transaction data from all of the disparate systems that manage it. Then they need make sure that the data are of good quality and that there are no duplicates or bad data. Once the data is clean and ready, casinos build a 360-degree view of their customers and start to apply predictive analytics. This gives the casinos a unique understanding of their patron, including current and predicted customer lifetime value, the theoretical win they expect to gain from the patron whether it is daily or by trip for out-of-town patrons. They also build segmentation and response models to help them understand how to market to the patron and how they are likely to respond to offers.

Companies with game-changing analytics set their business strategies based on what the analytics tell them. In their book, “Competing on Analytics - The new science of winning,” authors Thomas H. Davenport and Jeanne G. Harris highlight Caesars Entertainment as a great example of this. By gathering and analyzing patron data through their Total Rewards program, Caesars found out something very important. They realized that their core, profitable patron was not who they thought it was. It was not the high-roller who dropped thousands of dollars per trip, but it was the high-frequency, lower-spend-per-visit slot player. They designed their entire brand position, rewards program, service offering and business strategy around this player and went on to become a market leader in the U.S. casino industry.

Foxwoods Casinos is another great example. Foxwoods segmented their customer database to such an extent that they were able to understand their guest preferences very well and get extremely granular with their campaigns. In some cases, for example, they can send 400 variations of a single mailer out to their customer base. Let’s think about that for a moment. Can you imagine sending FOUR HUNDRED different versions of the same mailing to your customer base? When you know your customers well enough you can give them exactly what they want, and keep them coming back.

Three essential ingredients to unlock the power of real-time marketing

1. Assemble rich customer information – from multiple sources to create a clear view of the customer. Most often that involves things like: the customer’s transaction history, gaming preference, any stated client preferences, use of casino amenities and restaurants, to name a few.
2. Find customer opportunity in data through predictive analytics – employing predictive analytics throughout the marketing process to not only segment customers and build propensity models, but to recalibrate models and adjust them as new information becomes available, using self-learning models to capitalize on emerging consumer trends and needs.
3. Implement real-time marketing decision engines – to execute at the speed of marketing today and take advantage of real-time client insight, marketers need real-time capability. This is fundamental in the digital age to convert insight into opportunity and deliver real-time offers down to the device. Incorporate smart decision engines into the marketing infrastructure that are flexible and adaptable and can consume the full range of analytical inputs from models, business rules and triggers. Lastly, ensure the solution can also receive real-time information based on important new insight from customers such as proximity to casino amenities/games which may be a trigger for offer execution.

Final thoughts

In the highly competitive casino environment, the use of real-time marketing during each customer interaction has become a critical piece to marketing success. Today, being able to make those real-time and accurate decisions repeatedly is what will separate the highly successful casinos from those that flounder. As consumers’ expectations for relevancy continue to grow only the analytically savvy marketers will be in a position to leverage the wealth of data available to drive optimal real-time offers.
 

About the author:

Natalie Osborn is the senior industry consultant for SAS Institute’s Hospitality and Travel practice, and a 20+ year veteran of hospitality and hospitality technology solutions development, specializing in revenue management. Prior to joining SAS, Natalie was the director, product marketing for Minneapolis-based IDeaS Revenue Solutions, where she worked from 2000 to 2011. To learn more about how you can leverage analytics to know your patrons better than the competition visit: http://www.sas.com/en_ca/industry/casinos.html