Thread: Retaining your most important customers

Hello,

Now the MO has sorted my posting privileges it's time for me to earning my keep on this board.

MO, thanks for the opportunity to add this section, hopefully some of your regular will get involved and we can bounces some idea's around.

I thought i'd start my postings with something relatively light and relative to both industries; retaining customers. Here's an insight into what some of my clients are doing to hold on to those customer they've fought to acquire. With an industry average CPA of circa $500USD you can't blame them for looking for new and innovative ways & means.

Enjoy and please let me know your thoughts...

MANAGEMENT & MARKETING

FOR ALL GAMING OPERATORS, the task of acquiring and retaining profitable customers becomes more complex and expensive by the day. Increasingly fierce competition in the global marketplace, not least caused by the current economic climate, has created adverse conditions that have caused an erosion in customer loyalty, leaving businesses to pay ever-increasing acquisition costs for new customers who merely bide their time until they find a better offer.

Given today’s marketplace demands, it is more important than ever for gaming operators to retain their existing customers.

The simple fact is that it is significantly less expensive to retain an existing customer than it is to acquire a new one. Therefore, it is vitally important that operators gain a greater understanding of their customers and find more effective ways in which to communicate with them. What operators need are tools that will reduce competitor access to their customers and allow them to improve communication with, and continue to satisfy, the customers they have cultivated and provided good service to over the years. Positioning the online gaming operator at the centre of its customers’ online world is paramount.

THE BATTLE FOR THE BROWSER IS BEGINNING...
Branded Browser Applications (BBA) in the form of toolbars, widgets and personal start pages, have become a proven method for organizations to maintain direct connections to their audience with an easy one-time grant of permission which seamlessly overcomes the traditional challenges of email open rates and website return visits.

Over the past four years, the top global web destinations have each introduced both toolbar and personal page solutions for their users. Yahoo!, Google, Microsoft and AOL each see the value and benefit in claiming customers’ eyeballs, attention and loyalty.

Discover MINE has developed one such application specifically for the gaming industry. MINE allows an operator to offer to its users a branded toolbar and start page application that not only constantly promotes the company’s brand and information whenever and wherever its users are online, but also allows the user to personalise their own bar and page by unlocking a powerful directory of relevant RSS content and links to other valuable information.

Celebrity gossip, sports news, horoscope readings, lifestyle information and music are amongst the hundreds of categories covered (tailored to each local market), meaning
that users from all gaming verticals (poker, sportsbook, casino and bingo) will find information that engages them. This data, along with a large variety of toolbar features and functions such as radio and email access, compliments the operator’s own related information, products and services, thus enhancing the user’s experience and guaranteeing greater retention and usage of the toolbar.

Most importantly, these applications give the operator the opportunity to directly communicate with their audience in real-time through the scrolling ticker located within the toolbar as well as through the start page. These messages are guaranteed to avoid the spam filters. This, therefore, becomes an exceptionally powerful marketing proposition, even more so for poker and casino operators who can broadcast directly to their customers, even when they are not within the gaming client.

The analytical capabilities of applications such as these are incredibly important. By linking the toolbar, start page and directory together, operators can obtain crucial information on the usage patterns of its user base as a whole.

Reports can provide data that defines which publishers are the most popular and which areas of interest are most common. This information helps the operator to target messages directly to a certain part of their audience (e.g. Manchester United odds to all those that add in a Manchester United RSS Feed, ‘Sex And The City’ (SATC) casino promotion to all those that add in a SATC RSS Feed), and helps them to foster a better understanding of the areas of interest that their customers have beyond their own website, leading
to closer ties and loyalty with its customers and, ultimately, increased retention.

EFFECTIVE MARKETING IS THE KEY...
In the past few years, organisations have responded well to the idea of having a branded toolbar or widget. There is little reason not to offer such products, especially one with such an increased value proposition to the user. Applications such as MINE can be successfully distributed to an operator’s customers in many simple ways.

However, by best utilising promotional strategies and marketing tools such as the video presentations and flash animations provided by Discover MINE, the operator is assisted in distributing the tool to an even greater degree of success. Offering a nondownload start page-only option is vital, as well as having the ability to wrap the toolbar application up within the download client of a poker or casino operator, to ensure that all bases are covered. By engaging with the leading social networking tools, the more sophisticated applications also open up a whole world of viral marketing possibilities for the operator, bringing with it the huge potential of a new customer base at no cost per acquisition.

It is vitally important for all operators to retain their most valuable customers – the ones they already have.

Integrating with their user’s browser is the most powerful way to do this.

With customer retention proving to be a considerably cheaper pursuit than new player acquisition, Sam Williams from Games Marketing discusses how customised toolbars can be at the forefront of increased retention.