The saying goes “knowledge is power,” so as a marketer, having more information at your fingertips is better than having less. While the practice of data mining and storage has become increasingly popular and affordable, the numbers and figures it unveils and records isn’t worth much if it isn’t cultivated into insightful, operative information. Multi-dimensional data is available to virtually every casino, and is an emerging trend in the casino industry that allows smart marketers to better evaluate customers on a more expansive scale.
Using Multi-Dimensional Data
Every property captures multi-dimensional customer data. The challenge is taking the various operational systems that capture this data and organizing their respective information within one warehouse where patterns can be identified and acted on appropriately. It’s not as costly as you might think, and you’ll be amazed at how effective organizing and evaluating customer data can be to your bottom line.
Multi-dimensional data refers to various pieces of information from your current or potential customer base. When properly organized, this information generates a clearer picture of your consumers—their likes, dislikes and behavioral patterns. This insight can support you in making better decisions and taking more appropriate actions, which is why your customer data system can also be considered a decision support system. The information it provides is what you rely on to make keen marketing decisions and it supports every move.
Available Multi-Dimensional Customer Data
There are three forms of multi-dimensional customer data a casino may compile: purchase, customer, and third party information. The following are just a few examples. Purchases made at different venues at one casino property.
Casino marketers have become very adept at analyzing gaming behavior to predict player gaming patterns. Another emerging trend is for marketers to understand each player’s spending behavior at ancillary venues throughout the gaming property. Knowing what a customer spends on dining, golf, hotel stays, shopping, entertainment, and spa visits further enlightens a marketer and supports certain marketing decisions.
Purchases made at other properties owned or operated by the same stakeholders.
Many tribes or management groups operate multiple gaming properties, each maintaining its own systems and databases without integrating or sharing valuable data. This means they operate blindly without understanding the true value of each customer to the greater organization.
For example, some customers who visit each property independently are not rewarded for their bundled play behavior. An even worse scenario is when marketers are unaware that they are spending community profits to move a visit from one of their properties to another. This is like taking a dollar out of your left pocket and re-depositing only 50 cents in your right pocket with nothing to show for it. It’s hard to stay in business that way!
Answers provided by guests.
Customers are often happy to provide important information about their gaming behavior, but take the time to ask. Establishing a dialogue with customers is easy to do and can yield incredibly useful information. For example, customer dialogue can identify important customer insights and satisfaction ratings for various products.
Information purchased about customer base.
You’ll be amazed at the data you can obtain about your own customer base. Lifestyle data, psychographic and demographic information, and phone numbers can be costly to obtain, but if you are beginning to model your file, and you are segmenting customers into clusters, the information may be critical. Other file improvements—such as data-cleansing, which addresses standardization and change of address, deceased screening, and postal coding—are the types of additions you would be wise to include in your data warehouse process to ensure your file is as clean and up-to-date as possible.
How Do I Assemble This Information?
There are strong Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software products available that deliver good solutions to support a decision support environment. A major strength of using such a system is self-reliance—a property that employs CRM software independently can drive its own actions.
This can also be the downfall of many organizations because they mistakenly believe the process is as simple as plug it in and go. In reality, to take advantage of all the CRM software has to offer, companies need strong users who can skillfully administer these systems, and strategists who can direct the efforts that generate results, as well as evaluate and react to the outcomes.
To fully take advantage of these systems, casinos must prepare to alter their processes and actually change the way they go about their business. Managing change is challenging for any organization to pull off. People within an organization are often content doing their job a certain way and reluctant to change.
Therefore, external providers are typically a better option for casino properties. With external providers, casinos receive not only the software and data warehouse, but also—and often more importantly—the trained data experts, analysts, and strategists who deliver improved results at a reasonable price.
Your organization needs to decide for itself whether to invest in a proprietary CRM system or to partner with a good external provider. As you compare your options, weigh the advantages of each and compare their total costs. Don’t forget to consider and incorporate the cost of human resources
necessary to properly utilize a CRM system and to deliver the results you require. Make certain the appropriately trained human resource personnel are available in your market for hire and identify the pay scale they will command for their services.
Great, I’ve Assembled the Data, What Do I Do with It?
The true value of data comes from how you apply it to improve your bottom line, not just how much of it you’re storing. Here are just a few examples of how you might use good information to generate profitable revenue for your organization. Remember good old-fashioned strength, weakness, opportunity, and threat (SWOT) analysis? Apply your dimensional data to create programs supporting one of the critical SWOT attributes. Review the following examples:
SWOT = Strengths to support customer acquisition.
Develop a decile analysis, feeding the model with your dimensional customer information. Make sure to use the data from each of your venues and combine multiple properties into one warehouse environment. This will identify the total gross value.
Then identify your best customers. Take your top decile and extract the predictive attributes most likely to be present in top achievers. Where do they live, and what is their age, income, gender? What can you use to separate the best from the worst? Identify predictable patterns and use those attributes to find other gamers in your file, or from other purchased lists, that model in a similar fashion to these best performers.
SWOT = Weaknesses in your current plan.
Cultivate a campaign analysis overlap report to assess where you are overspending and determine what campaigns are most successful in driving profits. Identify which programs are draining revenues from the
bottom line through under-performance. A simple adjustment to your segmentation plan can dramatically affect results and drive profits to the bottom line.
SWOT = Opportunities to identify share growth.
Attach a response device to the next promotional mailer, and ask customers where else they play and how often they go there. You’ll be surprised how many guests complete the mailer and return it. This supplies insightful information that you may capture in your decision support system. Use it to generate a share of customer map—a visual display of exactly where your competition is encroaching on your market. You’ll know where you need to dial up or dial down your offers.
SWOT = Threats to your current share.
Run a Chaid predictive modeling analysis against your walk-away guests. What attributes can you extract from the analysis that helps you determine if a customer is at risk for future attrition from your property? Now apply those attributes to the rest of your file and identify your threat audience.
Plot the results with mapping software to improve your understanding of competitors’ marketing initiatives. This will help clarify what you’re up against with each customer. Develop your marketing tactics appropriately with your competition in mind, increasing or decreasing offers to maximize response and profit.
The longer you have your decision support system (data warehouse), the more skilled you’ll become at using it to drive profitable revenue. Over time, you’ll wonder how you ever lived without it. It will be a dynamic tool, constantly changing as you add new information and software tools. As always, don’t fail to establish annual benchmarks and compare results on a timely basis. Be accountable for the results you’re delivering to the organization, and take credit for your success.
Roland Hill has more than 10 years of marketing experience. He can be reached at roland.hill@lacek.com.
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