How to Market and Advertise Casinos in 2020

Success and profitability of casinos depend on not only the assortment of presented games and the quality of service. Reasonably built marketing has a great meaning for business development. Thanks to quality advertising, you can not only increase the number of customers but also boost brand awareness.
How to market land-based and online casinos? What tools and approaches to use for this purpose? Read in the article below.
Online casino marketing:
what should you know?
For the development and realization of the marketing campaign, it is necessary to take into account subtleties of the legislation of the country where the gambling facility operates. Some countries set certain requirements for gambling advertising, while other jurisdictions ban such ads. Entrepreneurs that violate the existing regulations can be brought to responsibility.
For example, the law allows advertising only licensed betting houses and totes in Russia. Operation and ads of online casinos are prohibited.
Online services used for the marketing of goods and services factor in the peculiarities of legislation and set their own rules to gambling advertising. For example, Google Ads allows publishing gambling ads only in case they correspond with the local legislation, industry standards, and rules set by the service.
To make your marketing campaign more successful, take a reasonable approach to the development of ads and the choice of platforms for ad placement.
How to market
land-based casinos?
Land-based gambling facilities can be marketed both offline and online. The first case involves ads placed on buildings, billboards, elements of street furniture, in the underground, as well as leaflets, booklets, business cards, etc. In order to attract customer attention, ads should be bright and eye-catching.
For example, the head of product marketing at Adjarabet Giorgi Gvenetadze told that in Georgia, casino banner ads often contain images of expensive cars.
As for online marketing, fighting for the attention of users, modern land-based casinos make websites for their facilities and attract new customers using them.
In the process of website development for land-based casinos, experts recommend taking into account the following subtleties:
- quality website design. The website should convey the atmosphere of the facility. For example, upon visiting the website of a VIP-class casino, users should understand that it is a high-class facility that provides exclusive services;
- website architecture. The structure of pages should allow marketing the casino through contextual ads, social media, and SEO. For example, if casino advertising is banned, the entrepreneur can legally advertise the hotel, restaurant, or nightclub that works nearby the gambling facility or events held there. A standalone website section is developed for each of the mentioned directions. If an ad about the hotel located near the casino is placed on third-party websites, this ad should contain the link that leads to the hotel section rather than the home page;
- low page load time;
- adaptability for mobile devices and cross-browser compatibility (correct website operation with different browsers);
- multilanguage. Customers of the land-based casino can be residents of different countries. To reach a wider audience, it is preferable to use several languages on the website;
- availability of personal player profiles. It helps to build communication with users.
Online casino
marketing techniques
Thanks to the active web development, many efficient ways of online marketing appeared. Below you will find the most efficient of them.
SEO
SEO is a complex of measures intended to optimize the website, aiming to raise its positions in the search engine results pages (SERP).
SEO is labor-intensive work that involves the following stages:
- building a semantic core. At this stage, using special services, it is necessary to define keywords and phrases that reflect the website’s main theme best of all;
- development of broad website structure. Search engines including Google are advancing their algorithms. Thanks to this, they provide exactly those results pages that correspond to the query of each user most of all. To bring the website to higher positions in the SERP, specialists develop standalone pages for every group of key phrases;
- inner linking. To simplify the website navigation, pages are linked with hyperlinks;
- improvement of website usability. The online resource should be developed in a way to make it convenient for visitors;
- creation of high-quality content. SEO involves writing texts containing keywords of the semantic core;
- increase of external link mass. For this purpose, links to the casino website are published on third-party resources.
If website optimization is done correctly, users will find the casino quicker using keywords and phrases. It is preferable to delegate the task of search engine optimization to qualified specialists.
Affiliate marketing
Currently, affiliate marketing is one of the most efficient online marketing tools. Here the online casino acts as an advertiser. Webmasters (owners of websites or blogs) and arbitrage specialists act as its affiliates. They promote the gambling platform online and redirect traffic to it. These specialists get a cash reward when attracted users make a certain desired action on the casino website, for example, register or make a deposit.
Some online casinos have their own affiliate programs. They work with affiliates directly. Other gambling platforms use CPA networks. The latter are services that play the role of an intermediary between the advertiser and affiliates. Such platforms can bring together hundreds of sellers and thousands of webmasters.
The main advantages of affiliate marketing for casinos:
- efficient budgeting. The advertiser pays affiliates only for the result. Moreover, he independently defines what kind of the desired action users have to fulfill for the affiliate to get a reward;
- acquisition of targeted traffic. When you form offers, i.e. commercial promotion offers, you can set up requirements for the target audience. Among other things, you can specify gender, age, interests of users. This allows you to get exclusively targeted traffic;
- analysis of results. You caфn always analyze what platforms users come to the casino website from, what promotional materials allow attracting a bigger number of customers. Basing on the obtained information, you can take decisions on the correction of the advertising campaign.
Casino marketing
via social media
The audience of social networks amounts to billions of users. Social media marketing (SMM) allows attracting users of different age and social status to the casino website.
To market gambling platforms via social media, users of Facebook, Instagram, Vkontakte, Odnoklassniki create personal pages, communities, and groups dedicated to casinos and gambling. There, they post content aimed at the promotion of the gambling business. It can be direct ads, reviews, rankings, etc.
Besides, casinos are marketed through influencers. In social media, bloggers act as thought leaders. By buying ads from them, you can attract new customers and increase brand recognition.
Еmail marketing
This way of promotion is relevant for both online and land-based casinos. It involves sending advertising newsletters to potential customers and loyal users.
In the case of offline platforms, ads are sent to the gamblers that have already visited the casino or the users that have specified their personal data on the website.
Online gambling platforms make their own customer base. They collect email addresses using pop-up windows, landing pages, embedded filling forms. Then they regularly send ads to users.
When you promote the casino through email marketing, it is essential to take a responsible approach to the generation of emails. The most important thing is to make them look not like spam and incentivize users to become customers of your casino.
Teaser ad networks
and contextual advertising
Teaser ads consist of an eye-catching headline, an image, and in some cases, an announcement. They are distributed using teaser ad networks.
Casino operator registers with a corresponding platform and creates ads there. Later webmasters place them on various websites and receive remuneration for ad impressions or clicks from the service provider.
Contextual ads are text, graphical, or video ads shown to users in correspondence with their online actions. They are shown on websites, search engines, and mobile apps. Such ads are widespread using Google AdWords and Yandex.Direct.
Participation in industry-specific
events as an efficient way of casino promotion
Irrespective of the casino format, participation in industry-specific events is a good way to introduce your company.
Today themed events dedicated to the prospects and development of gambling are held in different countries. They gather representatives of casinos, affiliate programs and networks, SEO experts, marketers, and other specialists. At such events, you can get consultations of experts that develop and promote the gambling business. Besides, you will have the possibility to negotiate partnerships with them.
On April 15 and 16, 2020, Kyiv will see Ukrainian Gaming Week. At the exhibition, you will have an opportunity to get to know about products and services of manufacturers, distributors, and operators that work in the field of gambling. Besides, guests of the event will be able to learn about the prospects of legalizing the gambling business in Ukraine.