The Evolution of Customer Analytics & Marketing in the Gaming Industry

There has been a significant growth in the use of analytics to increase customer and casino profitability over the last two decades. The benefits of creating customer segments based on profitability, and aligning appropriate marketing offers is well know and practiced today. As competition has increased, casinos are working even harder to increase their share of each customer's wallet. In an effort to create and sustain a competitive advantage, cutting edge casinos have moved into the realm of "anticipating" customer value and behavior to proactively manage customer relationships in an optimal manner. For instance, leading casinos predict which low to medium value customers are likely to become high rollers. These "high potential" customers are then targeted with more costly and attractive promotions and comps in efforts to migrate these customers to more profitable segments.

While predictive analytics is seen as a competitive differentiator, some casinos realize there are still relatively untapped assets and technologies available to keep them ahead of the curve. The use of customer data from disparate systems and optimization techniques are the tools of leading casinos today.

Casinos are realizing more and more profits from non-gaming activities like events, lodging and restaurants. The ability to integrate and utilize these data represent significant untapped potential to increase customer loyalty and profitability across the enterprise enterprise. More recently, a subset of the most advanced casinos are now starting to utilize technology to optimize their customer relationships and profitability.

The evolutionary path of analytics in the gaming industry includes the following stages:

1) Business Intelligence - Basis customer profiling and reporting. Manually driven.
2) Segmentation of customers based on profitability. Drives differencing messaging and offers.
3) Prediction of future customer value which drives campaigns to reap full customer value.
4) Improve predictions based on 360 degree view of customer from all casino systems, eg, gaming, lodging, spa, etc.
5) Campaign / offer optimization to maximize revenues or profitability.

Real competitive advantage begins at stage three. A few select players in the gaming industry are pushing the envelope with stage four and five initiatives.

Our next article will examine stages three, four and five in detail.

[ad_2]

Source by Jim Stafford