It's the goal we're all after, from operators to affiliates: What are the most proven ways to increase gaming revenue on your online casino site?
With affiliates, that problem can be answered pretty easily: Increase your sign-ups, increase your revenue. The most proven method of driving revenue is, obviously, converting your traffic. So: what are the most effective marketing tactics you can employ to get tangible results from your users — actual conversions and sign-ups?
Winning conversions
What motivates a visitor to convert? Why do some affiliate programs enjoy higher conversion rates than the others? Is it because of the quality of those sites? Their banner ads? Their TV ads? Or is it your content? Or maybe even a random preference from a random visitor?
State lawmakers welcome the lotteries and casinos for this very reason: The tax revenue gives them the flexibility to fund other programs or even cut other taxes. 'If you're a state legislator. 'Every database, be it large and small, has a gaming budget tipping point. $100 ADT is that tipping point. Programmatically, your competitors set their player development (PD) sights much higher. Mine the doldrums in between $100 ADT and your PD threshold for your greatest incremental revenue potential. The players will be delighted. Revenues from Maryland's first casino, in Perryville, at the northern tip of Chesapeake Bay, have already dropped 30 percent from their peak in 2008, and are expected to decline even more. Your competitors aren't just other restaurants. Everyone wants a piece of the food and beverage industry. There are supermarkets, convenience stores, and food trucks selling meals, meal-kits, and stuff you haven't even thought of. You have to think of new strategies and restaurant marketing tips to increase revenue. Here are some ideas to.
Those questions aren't abstract, and they're not as hard to answer as you might think. But they are subjective — what works for you won't necessarily work for another casino affiliate The specific answers, then, come down to your content and your market.
Which means that the answers can be found, but they will vary from site to site. The exact same banner ad from the exact same casino affiliate program will perform differently on different sites, because those sites have different content, a different search engine presence, and different readers.
So, even though it can be frustrating to hear this as a beginner, finding out what programs convert for your site is mostly going to be a matter of experimentation and trial and error. But that's part of the fun — you're a gaming affiliate because you love gaming, so naturally, you'll promote the sites you personally prefer.
But if those sites don't win you the kinds of conversions you're after, don't be afraid to change things up. Switch to a different program — maybe a more popular one, or one with a greater presences in your market — and you could see higher conversions almost instantly.
Specific factors
With that warning out of the way, there are some specific factors you can look to as conversion drivers. For their part, the casino affiliate programs you partner with will try to help you with this.
What inspires someone to visit a casino? It's believed that welcome bonuses, deposit bonuses and jackpot listings help influence visitors to click on an ad.
Bonuses
Almost every online casino you'll deal with has a welcome bonus. The question is, how much, and how well is it marketed? And how well can you tie it into your website content to point visitors in that direction?
Actually, because welcome bonuses are so common, it can seem pointless to market them. That may be the wrong attitude, though, if you're targeting non-experienced gamers. Generally, it can be assumed that the total novice doesn't know about welcome bonuses at all, so choosing affiliate banner ads that advertise such bonuses on a page marketed towards first-time gamers makes a lot of sense.
Social media
Investigate a casino affiliate program's social media presence, too. It's common practice now for every business to have a Facebook page, and the size, activity, and general buzz around any given casino or poker room's page should give you a great clue as to how that program is likely to perform on your site.
Email marketing
If you've engaged in a long-term email marketing campaign, there are specific things here, too, that you can do to better engage your prospects. For starters:
Start a welcome campaign. Welcome new visitors to the fold with a warm, helpful intro message that should also include an offer to engage them right away.
Clean up your email list. Removing old email addresses and make sure you're getting whitelisted by your customers.
Questions? Comments?
As always, we'd love to hear your thoughts. If you have any particular experience to share regarding what kind of marketing leads to better conversions, sound off in the comments and share your thoughts with the CasinoAffiliatePrograms.com community.
How To Increase Casino Revenue
(Times photo - Leigh T. Jimmie)
President Ben Shelly answers questions from a Navajo Times reporter on Wednesday, one week into his administration.
The Navajo Nation's new president said Wednesday his top priority during his first 100 days in office is fixing the tribe's antiquated procurement system.
'We need to downsize the system and make it easier to work with,' said Ben Shelly during a 45-minute interview in his office in Window Rock.
Related
During the interview, he touched on more than a dozen subjects, ranging from his feelings about gaming to his desire to get a better working relationship with the Navajo Nation Council than his predecessor had.
He said a major component of his time and energy during his first months in office will be looking at ways to increase the tribe's revenue in light of shortfalls that occurred during the past three years because of a national downturn in the economy.
To do this, he said, the government needs to start taking advantage of the tribe's natural resources - coal and oil - and enter into new agreements that will bring in more royalties and tax revenue.
Tribal mineral officials have been saying for decades that there is an untapped reservoir of energy worth hundreds of millions - if not billions of dollars - but since 1980, the tribe has only approved a couple of new leases.
'We never had to worry about this before because we had money coming in,' said Shelly.
But with revenues on the decrease, the time has come, he said, to seriously consider entering new agreements to exploit this source of revenue.
But outside energy companies may want to wait a while before sending proposals because Shelly doesn't have a good opinion of the tribe turning over these resources to outside companies.
'They are like pirates,' he said. 'They come in, make money off of us and then disappear.'
What he would like to do is enter into agreements with Navajo-owned companies that have knowledge of Navajo traditions and would take that into consideration in developing the resources.
He wants to do the same with tribal enterprises.
'I want to privatize a lot of our businesses,' he said. 'I don't think the government should be running a business.'
He wants to sell these business to Navajo entrepreneurs but he agreed that there have been problems in the past when the tribe sold businesses to Navajos only to see them sold to non-Navajo interests a few years later.
He said he would also like to the see the Navajo Engineering and Construction Authority, which currently handles construction jobs only on the reservation, start expanding its operation to bid on projects off the reservation, thereby creating more jobs.
Alcohol and gaming
As for casinos, he said he is not expecting to see much revenue from the Navajo Nation Gaming Enterprise because all of their profits are being used to develop more casinos.
'I look at the casino operation as a 50-50 proposition,' he said.
The first 50 percent benefits the tribe by creating jobs and a future revenue stream. The other 50 percent, however, is negative and this relates to the amount of money that is generated by the casino from gambling by tribal members.
Although the enterprise expects to see a lot of non-Navajos gamble at casinos that are being developed near Leupp and Flagstaff, almost all of the customers at the Fire Rock Navajo Casino in Church Rock, N.M., and Flowing Waters in Hogback, N.M., have been tribal members.
Ways To Increase Casino Revenues
'I'm very unhappy about this,' he said.
So unhappy that he has asked Navajos when he saw them gambling why they did it. Most said they did it as a way to 'reinvest their money back to the Navajo government,' pointing out that if they didn't gamble at a Navajo casino, they would do it somewhere else.
He admitted that he's also reinvested some of his own money this way, saying that when he visited the Flowing Water Casino recently, he lost $50.
Gaming is here to stay, he added, and because of this, he is looking at the possibility of setting up an alcohol and gaming department within the tribe since some of the casinos will serve liquor and should be monitored by the tribe.
He said he was aware of talk by some members of the Council about the possibility of legalizing liquor on the reservation so that the tribe would have a new revenue steam.
He pointed out that when he was on the Council, he was part of a task force that studied the situation and the studies pointed out possible aspects of having liquor sold on the reservation.
But this is an issue, he said, that should be decided by the Navajo people and not the government and if the people want to see it happen, they could get the matter brought up to a vote of the Navajo people.
Another aspect of the casino operation he is not happy about is the decision by the enterprise to provide free soft drinks.
'This only causes more obesity and leads to more diabetes,' he said. 'I wish they would change it to Navajo tea.'
Sovereignty
Speaking further on the subject of more revenue for the tribe, Shelly said he is looking at reviving the proposal for the tribe to issue its own license plates.
Several other tribes are doing it and the Navajo Nation has been looking at the idea off and on for the past 20 years. But Shelly said he would like to move beyond that and further tribal sovereignty by having the tribe issue its own driver's licenses.
This is important, he said, because it is time that the tribe take more control over things that are important to the Navajo people.
This is why he plans to work toward the day when the tribe gets funding direct from the federal government for programs like Medicare and Medicaid, instead of having to go through the state governments.
Relations with the Council
When the subject came to the relationship with the Navajo Nation Council, Shelly was adamant that his administration would not see the bickering and confrontations that occurred during the previous administration.
'I have already gone to the Council and told them that we will work together,' he said, adding that he told the Council that he would only veto legislation that violated tribal law.
Members of the Council, he said, told him that they did not like the idea of the line-item veto and he promised that he would use the power only when he felt he needed to.
If there is a possible conflict between the Council and the president's office, he said he plans to walk across the street and sit down with the Council and 'work out a compromise.'
One way he wants to resolve the possible conflicts, he said, is to revise the current signature authority procedure to merge the operations in both branches so that any resolutions would go before all the appropriate parties before it gets to the Council floor. If there are any objections, they can be resolved before it gets to the Council.
Shelly said one of the things he wants to do as quickly as possible is work with the Council to get the discretionary fund program re-established. The Navajo Nation Supreme Court earlier this month ordered that the program be discontinued until the Council could put in place procedures to make sure that the money is spent properly.
'We have a lot of grandmothers coming in asking for money,' Shelly said, adding that there is a need for the fund to help pay for things like funerals.
Vice president's role
Traditionally the vice president has been assigned to work on matters affecting the Eastern Agency but the new vice president, Rex Lee Jim, is from Arizona and doesn't have a lot of knowledge about eastern issues.
So Shelly said he and Jim decided that his two main areas of focus, at least in the early portion of the administration, will be on education and health.
These efforts will include setting up standards for educating students on the reservation and promoting a healthier lifestyle among the people.
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