MRI Casino Marketing Blog
Six Reasons Why Email Marketing is Still Relevant for Casinos

When shiny new mobile apps and social networking tools debut every day (an emoji-only network anyone?), it’s easy to get distracted from your email strategy. Communicating with your players via email may feel out of date, but it’s still the most effective digital channel for reaching your customers and offering the type of personalized communications your players expect.

Not convinced? Here are six reasons email marketing is still relevant for your casino:

1. The Numbers Game

Everyone may be talking about Pinterest and Whatsapp, but your players are more likely to have an email address. In 2013, there were 3.9 billion email accounts worldwide, which is three times the number of Facebook and Twitter accounts combined (Radicati, April 2013). What does that mean for your casino? Take a quick look at your numbers. Past analysis of casino databases has shown a similar ratio, with properties having about 3.5 times as many players club members’ email addresses on file than total Facebook and Twitter followers. 

2. It’s What People Want

The numbers also show that customers prefer email. When asked which channel they prefer for permission-based marketing messages, 77% of consumers surveyed chose email communications. Other digital channels, such as social media and text messaging, barely cracked the 10% mark when combined (Exact Target, February 2012). This was true across all age groups, with older respondents leaning even more heavily towards email as the preferred method of communication.

3. Targeting and Personalization

As a casino marketer, you’ve been using data-driven marketing strategies long before “big data” became a buzzword. Communicating with customers through email allows you to apply the same principles used in your direct mail campaigns to digital marketing – whether it’s a personalized welcome message, promotional content that reflects a player’s gaming preferences, or barcoded offers based on your player reinvestment strategy.

4. Email Extends Beyond the Inbox

Because an email campaign can be tied into customer data, you can use these messages to bring recipients to a personalized landing page, customer survey, or online account details. What if your email linked to an online game designed to deliver a unique offer to the player, which they can then print or save on their mobile device and bring to the property on their next visit? You now have a full-featured interactive marketing campaign that ties directly into your existing player development program.

5. Email is Mobile

Smartphone adoption has revitalized email, not diminished it. In the United States, 75% of smartphone owners use their device for checking email (Nielsen, 2013), and more than 50% of emails are currently opened on mobile devices (Litmus, 2013). This means that your emails will reach your customers throughout the day, whether they’re at home, at work, or on the go. Keep this in mind with your next email redesign – now that mobile open rates eclipse desktop ones, it’s important to optimize your emails for touchscreens and smaller screen sizes.

6. Return on Investment

Email works. According to the Direct Marketing Association, email has an ROI of 4300% (DMA, 2013) and for ecommerce sites, email marketing produces greater conversion rates than both search and social (Monetate, 2013). Closer to home, our clients have seen response rates that match or exceed traditional direct mail campaigns.

In digital, as with traditional advertising, you need to be where your customers are – whether that’s Facebook, a local news website, or major search engine sites – and a solid digital marketing plan will address all of those platforms. But email offers a unique direct marketing opportunity for casinos and remains the star of your digital toolbox, no matter what the latest news headlines are touting.