Would you travel 3,500 miles to a casino that’s offering you a bonus of $5 free play or 3x points (on top of a standard offer of $5 free play) for visiting on a certain day? I sure wouldn’t, but yet that email has come at least once a month from a casino I used to frequent when I lived closer to it for the better part of the last year.
This is an interesting symptom of casinos that don’t take their customer segmentation far enough, especially when it comes to geography.
Casino marketing, like other forms of marketing, relies heavily on customer segmentation. Based on your level of play, you’ll often see your overall size of offer dependent on what you’re willing to put at risk on an average visit. If you’re a slot player, you’re more likely to see free play; if you’re more of a table games player, you might see match play, or one time use chips, in lieu of the free play.
One casino (the same one offering me that awful offer right now, actually) would offer bonus earned comp dollars instead of free play when my play skewed more towards tables, and then would flip to free play when slots were more my focus. (I often drift back and forth.)
So far, so good, right? But some of the smartest casinos also factor in things like distance, and the ones that don’t do so at their own peril (or at the very least a waste of time and looking foolish).
A close friend of mine lives in Hungary. On a number of recent occasions a Las Vegas casino offered last minute tickets to him to see a show. Most Europeans are unlikely to score any sort of a worthwhile last minute fare on a Tuesday, and are willing to make the trip, just to see a show on Friday.
Geographical marketing is nothing new, but some casinos seem to not grasp that it can be more effective. Instead of doing a blanket offer to everyone who meets the criteria, it might be smart to target those within the U.S. for free tickets, or perhaps even within X miles of the casino who have the best shot of getting there.
Seeing who claims the offer, and adjusting it over time to better reflect the customer base, is another refinement step that clearly hasn’t made it to my Hungarian friend.
I’d argue that casinos extending things like point multipliers to players outside a radius that can readily reach the casino is spinning a lot of cycles for not much reason. Global promotional offers are one thing, but that $5/3x bonus isn’t sending me to Google Flights to look up a trip across the country for it.
If anything, casinos that aren’t taking geographic considerations into account often enough are spinning marketing cycles on ineffective efforts that aren’t going to get us players into the casino. The ones that get it right are often most successful.
Since my very first trip to Las Vegas, MGM Resorts has always offered me a room/free play/resort credit stay package. They know I need a room when I’m coming out, and will need to eat, and offer the right amount of each to keep them in my plans just about every time I go. This was especially the case when I lived in New England, but even now in California I’m a few hours away, so a day trip is highly unlikely.
I noticed when I moved closer to Las Vegas and went through the process of updating my address with the various casinos, that more of the casino companies in Las Vegas were giving me more balanced offers, despite my level of play being pretty consistent before and after the move.
Those that aren’t giving the farther away players the same level of offers might be leaving money on the table if they think they can’t be wooed out to Las Vegas, given its status as a destination market. Of course, some more locals-focused companies might do this on purpose.
Ultimately, every casino handles things a little bit differently, whether it be their offer strategy, their player acquisition priorities or their overall budget for investing in players. Over time, you begin to see which casinos have you as a priority based on the offers they extend for your play vs. other casinos.
When you’re farther away from a property, especially those in destinations like Las Vegas, some simply don’t see you as a priority, while others do. But if the offer is wrong (like that $5 free play or tickets you can’t claim for the weekend coming up), the efforts might be wasted, which is just another reason why geographical considerations and the offer being extended are an area of opportunity for many casinos.
I 100% agree that some casinos do far better at this than others. I moved away from my old home casino, and they don’t do anything to woo me in, freeplay is nothing special and is on a weekly cycle, same for the food. And to make it worse they moved their player club tiers to a 6-month cycle, making even securing tier hard for an infrequent visitor. Rivers in Pittsburgh did a bad job too, not even offering me anything enticing until a year later, and even then with a time frame that was too short for me to plan.
One casino that does a great job of this is Hard Rock in FL, they’ve actually sent me decent offers, often with travel credit to help pay for airfare. I wish more casinos did a good job like that. And I agree that MGM does a good job with it in Vegas, so much so that there is always value there for me to consider a trip.
Hard Rock is indeed a good example of an operator with thoughtful offers! Thanks for the comment, Mark!