Supremegol

Just like its rivals for consumers’ disposable income, America’s $90-billion-a-year gaming and casino industry is significantly driven by database marketing. But gaming customers are very different in one major respect.

Online Marketing Strategies for Gambling and Casino Websites This is a Step-by-Step guide on the strategies we used to get to #1 for “online casino”. In my 12 years of search marketing, I’ve haven’t seen many fields as hard to compete in, as online gambling (the gaming industry in general actually). Casino marketing strategies aren’t just tied to the digital and print world. It actually starts with your staff. Understanding how hospitality, customer service and the key messages your staff are sharing about your casino and brand directly to your customers is an often overlooked but crucial component to a comprehensive plan.

While adult patrons of a hit movie, for example, know they will spend about $8 to $10 on a ticket, perhaps buy soda and popcorn and then head home, some casino customers lose huge sums of money while a few others might actually make a profit, especially those who are skilled at games such as blackjack.

Can casino owners more accurately identify and predict which of their regular customers will lose the most money? How often will these customers visit? How will they allocate their bets among slots and tables? By targeting those players, can casinos follow up with a more effective direct marketing campaign?

The questions inspired two Wharton faculty members and a colleague at New York University’s Stern School of Business to see if they could develop a mathematical model to identify these most lucrative customers. The three researchers — marketing professors Raghuram Iyengar and Jehoshua Eliashberg, and Sam K. Hui, a marketing professor at Stern — say that the answer is an unqualified yes. Indeed, they wonder why casinos aren’t already using these tools.

The issue for casinos “is one of attracting their best customers,” said Iyengar, noting that most casinos and slots parlors already collect some types of extensive marketing data on their customers. “Our list overlaps somewhat with their list, but the lists are not identical.” The casinos are reaching out to their customers, “but they could be doing it better.”

The study by Iyengar, Eliashberg and Hui — entitled “A Model for Gamers’ Revenue in Casinos” — develops a mathematical model which integrates gamers’ frequency of casino visits, their total wagers and the distribution of those bets at table games versus slots machines. The researchers determined if revenue from specific players was derived from “skill” or “luck,” and they were able to identify players who are highly skilled or perhaps revenue-producing high rollers.

Avoiding ‘Unattractive Customers’

In addition, the team looked at ways that demographics could provide casino owners with valuable marketing insights. The data suggested, for example, that women devote more of their spending to slot machines than to table games like blackjack, and that men have a higher level of skill at the gaming tables than women. Iyengar and Eliashberg suggested that more useful information could have been gathered if they had been given more specific demographic data. “This information would really help [casinos] target more precisely the most attractive customers, because you certainly don’t want to target the unattractive customers,” Eliashberg said. “You want to spend your money where you get the most bang for your buck.”

While the characteristics they studied are fairly unique to the gaming industry, the authors said there are other business situations in which customers can be identified and targeted based on their specific skills or unusual customer behavior. For instance, they noted that better modeling of customer behavior might help hotel managers to more intelligently market the use of mini-bars or business centers, or allow car-rental firms to target extra-cost products like GPS units or satellite radios.

But it is the sheer size of the casino industry in the United States that makes it such a strong candidate for this kind of individualized predictive modeling, more commonly known as database marketing. Americans spend more money on gaming than on trips to the cinema by a 10-1 ratio, and more money is lost during a typical casino visit than is spent in an average visit to a mall. Of the $90 billion spent on legalized gaming, according to the American Gaming Association, some $59 billion is spent in casinos as opposed to lotteries or pari-mutuel wagering.

Unique aspects of the casino industry suggest that casino operators should be developing different tools for customer relationship management than, for example, mall operators — who analyze how much customers spend on a typical visit to a store and what products they purchased. Through the use of gaming loyalty cards and other tools, casino executives have the ability to more closely track the performance of individual gamers. Access to such player-level behavior, together with mathematical modeling, can help uncover a gambler’s level of skill — an important consideration in determining the individual targets of direct marketing campaigns.

“The use of mathematical models to predict future behavior is very important [because] the most recent profitable gamer is not necessarily going to remain [the] most profitable in the future,” Eliashberg said. “You have to look at the frequency of going to a casino in general and combine it with all sorts of aspects of wagering behavior. Does the customer wager more on slot machines or at the tables? You also have to look at the skill level. You need a model for human beings.”

Iyengar and Eliashberg noted that casinos already perform broad mathematical calculations — based on aggregate behavior — in an effort to predict their overall revenues and profits. The goal of this research, they said, was to come up with a mathematical model that would measure the difference between a typical player’s theoretical and real spending relative to the player’s skill level. The use of a “formal model, which makes clear distinctions among individual gamers,” is a more effective tool than a casino operator’s “judgment based on intuition,” Eliashberg stated.

‘Share of Wallet’

The data that researchers examined came from a major U.S. casino operator with gambling facilities in a number of U.S. locations. It provided the authors with detailed information — gathered through the use of loyalty cards — on more than 1,500 customers who made a total of about 9,000 casino visits from December 2004 through April 2007. The gaming company also offered age and gender information for about 400 of those customers.

To determine the skill of the players, the authors ran through a series of complex calculations based upon factors, including the particular games the individual played, the expected take by the casino versus the actual take, and whether a gambler’s winning or losing on one visit affected behavior on the next. While the researchers noted that more work must be done to learn how a gambler’s skill improves at a game, such as blackjack, over time, they believe their model can be a powerful starting point. For example, the authors predict that this new and more detailed type of data can be combined with customer survey results to obtain much better information on so-called “share of wallet” — that is, how much of the money that a gambler budgets for the casino is actually lost on a visit.

Beyond that, they also urge additional research on casino promotional activities — such as complimentary hotel stays or cash-back awards — in order to develop a better sense of how marketing efforts affect high and low revenue gamblers differently. In addition, they note that the customized data could help operators as they weigh how to better design their casino floor space to increase revenues, such as the use of environmental cues to encourage gambling or altering the ratio of table games to slot machines.

“The behavior may change from one facility to another, but we believe this information is helpful in designing your facility in line with customer behavior,” Eliashberg said. In future research, the authors note, they would like to examine more demographic data such as relationship status, home address, profession and education level to gain even more insights into gambling habits.

According to Iyengar, the research has implications in other industries. “A sales force manager could better understand how a person makes a sale,” Iyengar said. “It might make a difference if they could figure out whether it’s the product that’s selling or whether it’s the skill level of the sales person.”

CHAPTER

02

It’s a big promise: perfect content marketing.

But it is possible if you understand how content fits into your overall digital marketing strategy.

And done right, your content marketing will not only attract prospects, but also move them through a marketing funnel to drive more sales and grow your business.

In this chapter, we cover the basics of a successful content marketing program, including methods and metrics, the business roles that should own your content marketing, and the lingo you’ll use to talk about it.

Methods of Well-Executed Content Marketing

Let's start with a thorough understanding of what we mean when we say content.

You see, most businesses miss out on a lot of opportunities because their vision for content marketing is too small.

As a result, they're churning out content but not getting great results. And here's why: content in and of itself isn't what drives traffic and sales.

Your content needs to be 'perfect.'

Now, what do we mean by that?

Perfect content isn't about you, your brand, or your objectives. It's about delivering the right information to your prospects at exactly the right point in the customer journey.

For instance, for the software company Freshbooks, this web page represents perfect content marketing for a prospect who needs pricing information to make an informed buying decision.

Content is any information that helps you keep the funnel full.

Yep, a pricing page is content.

The big misconception is that content marketing is blogging.

While blogs are a major component of content marketing, they’re only a part of the bigger picture. In fact, in most cases, a blog is not the most lucrative form of content marketing.

But we’ll come back to that.

First, let’s get clear on the six characteristics of perfect content marketing and why it’s essential that you get started.

(NOTE: At the end of this chapter, you’ll get access to a tool we use to make perfect content planning a breeze.)

Want To Save This Guide For Later?

No problem! Just enter your email address and we'll send you the PDF of this guide for free.

1. Perfect Content Marketing is Full Funnel

I know this is Marketing 101 stuff, but stick with me for just a second before I get into the more advanced content marketing concepts we’ll be covering.

For an ice-cold prospect to become a customer, they will need to travel through three stages:

The 3 stages all prospects go through on their way to becoming a customer.

1. Awareness – The prospect must first become aware that there is a problem and that YOU or your organization have a solution for it. (This is where your blog excels.)
2. Evaluation – Those who move through the Awareness Stage must now evaluate the various choices available to them, including your competitor’s solutions and, of course, taking no action at all to solve the problem.
3. Conversion – Those that move through the Evaluation Stage are now at the moment of truth—purchase. At DigitalMarketer, our goal at this stage is to convert leads into frequent and high-ticket buyers.

A cold prospect cannot evaluate your solution until they are first aware of the problem and your solution. And conversion is impossible until the prospect has first evaluated the possible courses of action.

To move a prospect through a marketing funnel, you need to give them content specifically designed to satisfy their needs at each of the three stages.

In other words...

• They need content at the top of the funnel (TOFU) that facilitates awareness.
• They need content in the middle of the funnel (MOFU) that facilitates evaluation.
• They need content at the bottom of the funnel (BOFU) that facilitates conversion.

Make sense?

Blogs are fantastic facilitators of awareness, but they do a poor job of facilitating evaluation and conversion. And, at the risk of pointing out the obvious, evaluation and conversion are super critical to your business.

To move prospects through the middle (MOFU) and bottom of the funnel (BOFU) you’ll need other content types.

It looks like this...

We call this The Content Lifecycle.

Let's look at each stage of the funnel and the content needed at those stages...

Top Of The Funnel (TOFU) Content Marketing

The prospects entering the top of your funnel are completely unaware of your solution and, often, completely unaware of their problem.

As a result, you need content with a low barrier to entry—because at this stage, they have little to no motivation to put skin in the game (such as giving your contact information or money).

You need freely available content at the top of the funnel (TOFU) that...

• Entertains
• Educates
• or Inspires

...and you need to make it readily available using content types like:

• Blog posts
• Social Media Updates
• Infographics
• Photographs
• Digital Magazines/Books
• Audio/Video Podcasts
• Microsites
• Print Magazines/Newsletters (You’ll need a bigger budget here.)
• Primary Research

Do you need all of these content types at the top of the funnel?

Heck no.

Most businesses will post content to a blog and to social media channels like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc. Once you’ve mastered these two content types, you’ll want to add more top-of-funnel content to the mix, like a podcast or a print newsletter.

Remember, the big goal at the top of the funnel is to make prospects 'problem aware' and 'solution aware.'

Notice how Whole Foods, using their Whole Story blog, raises awareness for a sea scallops offer while providing valuable content (recipes and cooking instructions):

TOFU content raises awareness of your offers while providing valuable information.

At DigitalMarketer we do that by providing educational content our prospects are interested in—and using that content to raise awareness of our training products and services.

(Shhhhh... don’t tell anyone, but this VERY chapter is educating you about the strategy and tactics taught in our Content Marketing Mastery Certification.)

And the good news is it works in any industry for any type of product.

Notice how this kitchen remodeling company uses photographs of remodeled kitchens to make prospects 'problem aware' and 'solution aware':

With TOFU content, you want to create awareness around problems as well as solutions.

Unfortunately, the top of the funnel is where most organizations begin and end their content marketing efforts.

Smart content marketers know that, with a bit more effort, they can move prospects from awareness to evaluation in the middle of the funnel.

Here’s how it gets done...

Middle of the Funnel (MOFU) Content Marketing

The big goal in the middle of the funnel is to convert 'problem aware' and 'solution aware' prospects into leads.

Here, we use free content to incentivize prospects to submit their contact information and opt in to receive future marketing.

We call this type of content a Lead Magnet.

Lead Magnets can be...

• Educational Resources (Case Study, White Paper, etc.)
• Useful Resources (Swipe File, Checklist, etc.)
• Software Downloads
• Discount/Coupon Clubs
• Quizzes/Surveys
• Webinars/Events

This is a Lead Magnet that DigitalMarketer uses to generate leads for our products surrounding Facebook advertising:

Lead magnets are free content that incentivize prospects to opt in to your list, becoming leads.

When visitors click on the 'Download Now' button, they're prompted to enter their email address to receive the piece of content.

This piece of content (a white paper) from Cloud Margin generates 'solution aware' leads...

A white paper or report creates 'solution aware' leads.

But you can’t deposit leads in the bank.

A third content type is required at the bottom of the funnel (BOFU) to convert leads into customers...

Bottom of the Funnel (BOFU) Content Marketing

OK, it’s point of sale time.

What types of content will your new lead need to make an informed purchase decision?

Here are a few...

• Demos/Free Trials
• Customer Stories
• Comparison/Spec Sheets
• Webinars/Events
• Mini-Classes

Your lead may be reading your blog and downloading lead magnets (and it will help convert her), but you’ll need content that helps her decide between you and your competitor to move her through to purchase.

Notice how Salesforce supplies leads in the bottom of the funnel with plenty of customer stories to prove that their product can handle that lead’s circumstances...

Customer success stories are smart BOFU content.

Salesforce.com has dozens of these customer stories—one for every major industry, product offering, and size of business.

Customer stories are content that converts, and they are the responsibility of the content marketing team.

Consider this piece of content designed to assist prospective Quickbooks customers in choosing the right solution:

At the bottom of the funnel, prospects are comparison shopping, so comparison sheets make smart BOFU content.

But Quickbooks could earn some points by comparing their tools to their competitors' tools as well. For instance, a Google search suggests that a comparison sheet between Quickbooks and their competitors (such as Xero) is another piece of content that should be on the radar of the Intuit content marketing team.

Google's suggestions are a good source for content ideas.

And while we’re at it, look at all the bottom-of-funnel (BOFU) content Xero’s content marketing team has built:

Brand comparisons are good BOFU content.

And...

Customer stories are great BOFU content.

And...

The best BOFU content answers last-minute questions and gives prospects a reason to buy.

Is creating top of funnel (TOFU) content on a blog important?

Absolutely.

But failing to build a full-funnel content plan will leave you disappointed in your content marketing results.

2. Perfect Content Marketing Is Intent-Based

Some businesses and marketers get hung up on the wrong metrics, particularly when it comes to their blog.

Take a look at this video to see what I mean:

The key to perfect content marketing is understanding existing intent and anticipating future intent, and then, creating the content “assets” needed to address that intent 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

In our Freshbooks example, a customer who's deep in the funnel might have the intent to compare Freshbooks to Quickbooks.

This content asset addresses that intent:

To come up with valuable content assets, anticipate current and future needs.

And you’ll have to run paid traffic to your content to maximize your results or you risk leaving money on the table as Molly explains:

The truth is the most lucrative content assets you’ll create (if you have an existing business) are assets that meet intent at the bottom and middle of the funnel. Optimize for this existing bottom and middle of funnel intent before going to work on generating awareness at the top of the funnel with an expensive and time-consuming blog roll out.

That’s not to diminish the power of a business blog. Over the last 24 months, we’ve been adding content assets (articles and podcasts) at the top of the funnel and we’ve increased website traffic (think awareness) by 1053%.

That said, the quick wins in the content marketing game are in the middle and bottom of the funnel.

3. Perfect Content Marketing Is Ascension Focused

Failure to provide an ascension path from every piece of content you create isn’t just bad marketing—it’s a bad user experience.

Smart content marketers anticipate the next logical intent and remove as much friction as possible to create a clear path to conversion.

For instance, let's say I’m shopping for supplies to repaint my kitchen...

In our Freshbooks pricing page example, notice that Freshbooks has created a clear ascension path to a 'Risk-Free Trial' of the software.

In blog content, prospects can be given the opportunity to opt-in with their email address to get more information about a topic.

Check out this ascension offer embedded in a blog post. Clicking on this banner ad will take the prospect to a landing page to enter their email address and ascend to a lead:

Ascension offers can be embedded in your blog posts.

They get more information about a topic they are interested in. You get a lead.

4. Perfect Content Marketing is Segmented

You can run surveys and polls until you're blue in the face. But you won’t know what people are truly interested in until they give you their money or time.

When a prospect visits a piece of content (spends time) they have raised their hand and indicated interest. And, because of the magic of ad retargeting you can follow up with these prospects with a relevant ascension offer without even acquiring their contact information.

Retargeting blog visitors can help you create segmented leads.

5. Perfect Content Marketing Is Cross-Channel

Perfect content marketers publish content that meets intent in any channel where groups of prospects are searching for and sharing content including:

• Website/blog
• Facebook
• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Pinterest
• YouTube

Chances are a single content asset could be published across numerous channels to maximize exposure.

For instance, could that video demo of your product be republished on your YouTube channel like Cuisinart has done here?

(If you’re wondering, 'Who in the hell would watch that boring video?' the answer is anyone who is interested in buying a coffee grinder and, particularly, anyone interested in buying THAT coffee grinder. Anecdotally... I bought that coffee grinder after watching that demo just a few weeks ago. The grinder does a great job grinding coffee and that video does a great job at cross-channel content marketing at the bottom of the funnel.)

Can that article on your blog be repurposed as a webinar? Can that podcast become a written article for LinkedIn Pulse?

6. Perfect Content Marketing Is Avatar-Based

Last, but certainly not least, perfect content marketing assets are produced to satisfy the intent of your customer avatars. A content asset can satisfy the intent of multiple avatars or it can be published to target a single avatar.

At DigitalMarketer, for example, we produced an article to raise awareness (top of the funnel) for our marketing certification programs. This article was specifically targeted to our 'Employee' avatar who has the intent of acquiring skills that will land them a better job.

Our goal for this article was to raise awareness for our marketing certification programs, so it was targeted to our 'Employee' avatar.

Content Marketing Planning: The Content Campaign

To execute perfect content marketing, you need a plan.

At DigitalMarketer, we make this plan at the offer level using a spreadsheet called a Content Campaign Plan.

The planning document includes fields for:

• Marketing Funnel – Is this asset addressing intent at the top, middle, or bottom of the funnel?
• Avatar – Which avatar(s) will this asset target?
• Vehicle – Will this be a text, image, video, or audio asset?
• Channel – Where will this asset be published?
• Ascension Path – What call-to-action will be used in this asset?

The Content Campaign Plan is used to align content marketing with business objectives like generating leads and sales.

It looks like this (I know that’s hard to read, but you can access the template by clicking here).

DigitalMarketer's Content Campaign Plan

Want to create content that converts prospects at all stages of the funnel? Create a Content Campaign Plan and execute on it. It works.

Your Content Marketing Success Metrics

How do measure the success of your content marketing tactics?

Digital Marketing Websites

Traffic by Channel

At the top of the funnel, design your marketing to raise awareness for your business, brands, and products. Measure traffic from channels like Google, Facebook, and Twitter.

Net New MQL's

Measure the number of leads generated in the middle of the funnel that require further nurturing before they are ready to make a purchase.

Conversion Rate

When content marketing is done correctly, it generates traffic to lead forms and product pages. Measure the conversion rate (Page Visits/Conversions) on lead forms, product pages, and other calls-to-action.

Net New SQL's

Measure the number of leads consuming content at the bottom of the funnel (demos, customer stories, etc.), indicating they're ready to buy.

Relevant Roles in Content Marketing

Who in your organization should be trained in email marketing?

Content Marketing For Online Casinos Digital Marketing Firms

Three different departments should be proficient at and understand the role of email marketing.

Marketing

Content marketing is a foundational discipline affecting your search, social, email, and advertising. Every marketer involved in your digital strategy should be well versed in content marketing.

Sales

According to Harvard Business Review, the average buyer is 57% of the way through the sales process before they engage with a sales representative.

Instead of contacting your sales team your prospects are consuming your content. Sales people who understand content marketing can work in conjunction with your marketing team to create content that closes deals.

Public Relations

The modern-day PR team must understand how the content they produce fits into the larger content, social, and search marketing strategy.

The Lingo You'll Use as a Content Marketer

Best Digital Marketing Websites

What are the terms you need to know as a content marketer?

Top-of-Funnel (TOFU) Content

Digital Marketing Products

Content designed to raise awareness for your business, brands and products. This content is delivered through a number of channels including blogs, podcasts and video hosting platforms like YouTube.

Middle-of-Funnel (MOFU) Content

Content designed to generate leads and move the prospect through the evaluation stage. Content in the middle of the funnel often takes the form of a Lead Magnet.

Lead Magnet

An irresistible bribe offering a specific chunk of value to a prospect in exchange for their contact information. The goal of the Lead Magnet is to maximize the number of targeted leads you are getting for an offer.

Bottom-of-Funnel (BOFU) Content

Content designed to convert a prospect into a customer by providing the information needed to make an informed purchase decision. Bottom of funnel content includes webinars, product demonstrations, and customer stories.

Summing Up

Content marketing isn't restricted to blogging. You'll probably create tons of blog posts, but if you're strategic, you'll use your blog as just one channel in your content campaigns.

Remember, content marketing works with your other digital tactics in a comprehensive marketing plan designed to move people deliberately through your Customer Value Journey.

Don't forget to download the Content Campaign Plan, which is your best resource for planning content for every stage of the funnel: TOFU, MOFU, and BOFU.

Then, once you've got your content assets built, you're ready to learn how to use digital advertising to drive traffic and conversions.