Casino Enterprise Management

We’ve just completed a review of 85 Midwestern casinos’ websites, from stand-alone properties to the local offerings of Las Vegas brands. What struck us is that for too many in this group, the role of their website is unclear and, in some cases, even counterproductive.

We recognize that a casino’s online presence is part of a larger brand offering. But for the majority of these casinos, it felt like their site was developed with the single direction of, “We need to have a website.” There perhaps was not enough “Why?” in the discussion or “What do we want it to do?” Or “Who are the audiences we’re trying to reach?” Too little upfront planning is often a rush to just get a website online.

Following, we describe what we observed in our Midwestern casino website review and some actions that you might want to take to improve your website.

What We Saw
Current Casino Customers are the Default Audience. When we looked at the layout, messaging and construction, most of the websites we reviewed could only have been designed for people who already know about the brand or site. Such sites contain too little of the type of content that helps websites appear in search engine results pages, making it difficult for non customers (who don’t search by the name of the casino) to find the property in a search. For example, searchable text on many sites is weak or non-existent, important search keywords are left out of copy, the meta content that search engines use to understand a website’s purpose is either missing or is created only for people searching by the name of the casino, and an overuse of images, video and flash files act as roadblocks to higher search rankings. All this means that few people will ever find the site without typing the name of the casino directly into the search engine. These casinos are only talking to their current customers and are not using the web to expand their market presence.

Overly Focused on Gaming. This may sound heretical since gaming is the primary source of revenue for casinos, but we question whether gaming is the primary source of new customers via the web. Think about gaming promotions being the highlight of a website. Those promotions are already heavily marketed on-property and in points-club mailings. It’s good to remind online, but is the most important purpose of the home page to tell existing customers something they likely already know? Plus, there is an unspoken truth about gamers—most are not heavy web users. Data from national and local surveys by MRI, SMRB and Scarborough shows that casino gamers under-index for web usage. It has to do with the age and income demographics of gamers. So, you’ve got an audience that doesn’t use the web a lot, and that likely already knows about current promotions, yet 75 percent of the home page is spent talking to them about just that.

Few Provide What Customers Want. What customers want is the status of their casino club membership—“How many points do I have?” They want a quick and easy way to find out whether they can game a little more, buy a steak or take in a show. Gaming customers that use the web will come back again and again to find out how many points they have. And when they do, it’s a great opportunity to cross-sell them. Plus, if you have a decent database, you can make the cross-sell customer-specific by personalizing the site content you serve.

Too Few Bring Customers Back. Look at your website through a customer’s eyes. Why would you come back? Does anything ever change? Are the reasons to come back obvious? Some of this can be accomplished simply through better placement of information on the home page. Or better yet, what if there was a mechanism for online customers to sign up to receive news from you? An opt-in effort? Those that sign up are telling you they want news, promotions, deals, special events, etc. Without a ton of effort, this can be put in place and measured to make sure you’re getting the results you want. Too few of the sites we surveyed took advantage of lead-generation mechanisms.

Pictures are Too Dominant. There must be a stone tablet around somewhere that says, “Thou shalt show your facade and/or idealized customers front and center on your website.” The reality is that the exterior of your building is likely less interesting than the designs you have created inside. And showing smiling, happy customers is not only a cliché, but it’s dangerous—if I’m 35, do you want me to think this is a place for people who are 65? Or vice versa? Use what’s unique and cool about your property, what you spent a lot of time thinking about in the design. Make visitors want to come in and see what you have to offer.

Some Still Lack Analytics. In fact, more than 25 percent lack analytics. And great tracking tools are free and easy to implement (one of the best is Google Analytics, which can be found at www.google.com/analytics). They are easy to use and provide a wealth of valuable information about the site, who is visiting it and where they are coming from. Plus it’s surprisingly fun to use these tools. Even if you only have a website just because you’re supposed to have a website, wouldn’t you like to know how many people visit it and whether they paid attention to the things you think are important?

What to Do
We would encourage most casino operators to think about which of these three groups is the primary audience for their website (which may be different from their overall business): 1. Current customers; 2. Local prospects; and 3. Out-of-area prospects.

Depending on how you rank these three audiences in importance, your website should be structured accordingly.

Target Current Customers. Again, what they likely want to know is where they stand with your customer rewards program—“How many points do I have?” Make this a prominent and accessible element on the home page by creating a large button that helps them get to that information quickly and easily. Maybe even provide the entry fields for their identification and password right on the home page so they can jump directly from there. Once they get to that page, take the effort to cross-sell new promotions, new games, dining specials, and maybe even offers available only online.

Target Local Prospects. First off, if these people have been in the area awhile, they likely know that you are a casino. If they know you are a casino and they still aren’t a customer, then you need to think about other ways to drive them to your business. These people may think of you as a casino, but maybe you don’t come to mind when they want to go out for dinner. Or when they want an evening of entertainment. Or a weekend getaway (if you have a hotel). Accomplishing this may involve a coupling of online directories (Yellow Pages, CitySearch, and other directories locals use to find out what’s going on) and your website; you get listed in those directories, people click on the listing, they get sent to your site. Your home page should showcase the dining/entertainment/hotel section in which they are interested, maybe making an offer that increases their likelihood of visiting. Or with just a little more work, each type of local online directory could link to a different landing page on your site. A local dining directory could link to your dining landing page. A local entertainment directory could link to your entertainment page. A things-to-do directory could link to your hotel getaway deals. It’s not that complicated and it would take less than a day for a junior person (even an intern) to create these links.

Before we forget, here’s an over-looked area for local prospects: local business meetings. If you have an on-property meeting area of any kind, use it. Promote it to the Rotarians, the Elks, General Manufacturing, the local Bar Association, the college booster club, anyone and everyone. Offer it at cost. Have a section of your website dedicated just to this. People that may never have set foot on your property would come and start to feel comfortable and familiar with it. Once these people are there, give each attendee a reason to come back: a “goody-bag” of offers—dining, gaming, entertainment, hotel, whatever the gaming authority and your budget allows. If you’ve covered your costs for the meeting, and if even 10 percent of meeting attendees become customers, it will be the least expensive customer acquisition method you’ll use all year.

Target Out-of-Area Prospects. The web has become the tool for out-of-towners to learn about what’s in the area. So the goal should be to get them to your website before they come to town by popping up when they search things to do in your area. To better do this, fix what the search engines see. There are a couple of simple ways to start that require no site redesign or major overhaul. One of the most important is meta content. Meta content can be defined as “information that you provide that is used by search engines so that someone searching for the kind of information the page contains will be able to find it.”

Meta content comes in many forms. Two of the most important are:

1. Meta Titles: When you’re online, look at the top of your browser. You’ll see a bar with some words in it. This is the meta title, which also appears as the headline in a search result listing, above the description (see below). To search engines, the meta title is like the headline of your website. If it only says, “name of  your casino,” right off the bat that limits how the search engines identify you. Put your city (or the market you serve), and how you want search engines to classify you. Just keep it fewer than 70 characters.
2. Meta Descriptions: In addition to the meta title, this is another thing that search engines use to classify your website. And there’s a pretty good chance this will be the brief description consumers see with their search results. So it has to be written in a consumer-friendly manner (ideally, in 150 characters or fewer), but also in a way so that search engines find you when  people search. To do this, start with the words that you want people to find you under when they search. Perhaps words like gaming, casino, entertainment, fine dining, fun, getaway  weekends. Then build a short paragraph around them. And don’t forget the market you’re in. For example, “Exciting (city name) gaming and gambling with slots, poker and blackjack, great entertainment and nightlife, fine dining, and hotel deals and specials.”

There will be a better chance that your website will be found in a search if you use these two forms of meta content. It will take a bit of thinking time but very little time to implement. Just give the meta content to the people running your site and they can add it in minutes.

Another relatively quick benefit is gained by thinking about the text on the pages of your site. A number of the sites we reviewed are made mostly of pictures. Until very recently, search engines have not been able to “read” pictures, and there are some hurdles to being able to do so.  Search engines work best with html text.  Having more html text may require some re design (probably not a do-over), but just like a meta description, copy that uses terms people search for helps the search engines learn more about you. And it gets you higher up in the search results than sites that don’t have much copy. Surely there’s a graphic on your homepage that can be replaced by a nice block of well-written copy. Do this and out-of-area visitors (or anyone, for that matter) will be more likely to find you—and visit you.

The Web as a Tool, Not a Stepchild
Looking at the many websites we visited, there is certainly a lot more thought that can be given to how to use a website, from the audience and the message to successful search results. And while gamers may not be heavy users of websites, consumers are. A casino website should not be an afterthought. It’s a really valuable tool in helping bring consumers to your business.

Many improvements can be made without altering, or spending, very much.  Frankly, it didn’t take all that long for us to figure this out about 85 Midwestern casinos’ websites. For many of these sites, it also won’t take long to make some meaningful changes—just a bit of thinking up front and some attention down the road.
 

Dave Hamel is the Managing Director for ESW Partners. He can be reached at dave.hamel[at]eswpartners.com.

Pierce Hasler is the Director of Interactive Marketing at ESW Partners. He can be reached at pierce.hasler[at]eswpartners.com.