Covid-19, the Corona Virus, what do we have to compare it to? Is it unprecedented for you and your company? While this is a tragedy and we are truly sorrowful for the bad things that are happening, the purpose of this article is to say that there is a glimmer of hope on the other side.

At our company, Touchpoints Marketing & Advertising (www.touchpointsmarketing.net), we find the current situation eerily similar to Hurricane Katrina that decimated New Orleans and the Gulf Coast back in 2005.

The office that housed our account and creative teams had the roof ripped off and the building was left in ruins. We had to go through armed military checkpoints to retrieve the equipment that wasn’t destroyed. The equipment had to be moved to a temporary location – our employees evacuated across three States, only a skeleton crew remained in a devastated City.

Panic buying and looting had hit the stores and supplies were scarce. People were told to shelter in place and not go out for fear of what could happen – much like Covid-19. We limited human contact because you didn’t know who was good and who was bad, much like today – carriers and the non-carriers.

We needed to get people back to work and get people home, but for as many as evacuated, tens of thousand more stayed home with nothing but their televisions and stories of doom and gloom for over a month. Sound familiar?

We discovered that you can only limit people’s movements for so long. People want to be out, people want social interaction beyond their immediate family.

So many were without income as nearly all businesses had closed, much like today. Unlike Katrina though, the majority of people/your customers are still in the area, your area. This is going to lead to HUGE pent up demand – it did after Hurricane Katrina and we believe it will be the same as human nature doesn’t change.

So what was our marketing angle once businesses were allowed to reopen?

People needed relief and we, for our main client at the time, needed to be first to provide that relief.

Our main client was a casino property that did between $9 and $11 million per month – they employed hundreds of people.

So what was our secret?

Our secret was two fold. We had a creative staff that had a desire to work and we were able to buy media at fire sale prices – again it seems eerily familiar.

We handled all production in-house, just like today. We had a date things were to reopen – just like today. So we got ahead on the media and booked radio and TV before we even had a concept for a spot to run. All we knew was the theme had to be relief.

Many don’t know this but Touchpoints was the first to use desktop based television production in the casino and hospitality industries.

As our resources were limited we used the same audio track for radio and television. “We are open” was the theme. “We are open for food, we are open for fun and we are open to provide you a safe place to play.” We had an opening date spot and an open now version of the spots.

We ran them on a heavier rotation than ever before, as media was basically six for one price wise.

The pent up demand, shelter in place at home demand materialized. Just like the demand will materialize form all of those having to stay home for the next 14 to 30 days.

Revenue soared to $24 million per month – people wanted relief and escape which are truly the same thing.

By being first to advertise and first to open our client soared. When revenue stabilized it stabilized at $17 million per month a full $6 million more than their previous high that we credit to all of the exposure that we picked up during our advertising fire sale.

So, today, does digital have a place in this mix. It does, but think Facebook for digital and then radio and TV as those are the mediums people are glued to.

It’s been 15 years since Hurricane Katrina and the lessons learned are applicable to today and Corona virus. You may cut temporarily but be prepared to come back on full force or greater, be first and offer relief/escape to your customers.

Be of service, offer relief, buy cheap and advertise when no on else will!

Stay strong, be safe, and pray for those affected.

How my trip to the dry cleaner explained what’s happening with your Casino’s customers.

If we made a list of the ten things we most want as casino professionals, my guess is “share of wallet” would be near the top. If we can increase our share and get that one more visit, think of the revenues. In a local market that three visits a month becomes four. Simple math says that’s a 25% increase. In reality, it’s 33.3%. Wouldn’t we all like 33.3% more business?

Well, here’s how we’re driving it away.

Recently I went to the dry cleaner, the same one I gave 100% of my business to for years. Instead of the usual pleasant lady working the counter, the owner was there. In my hand was a shirt that I was going to put on that morning and it was covered in grease splotches with the dry cleaners tag still attached. I paid money to have my shirt cleaned and it was returned to me with grease splotches.

So what did I expect?

A simple “I’m not sure how that happened,” would have sufficed with an offer to clean it again for free. No apology was expected.

What did happen?

I received a terse reply that implied I had put the grease stains on the shirt myself, and a long dissertation on how their equipment could not have done this. The conversation ended with a “Hrumpf” sound and that they would clean it, but instead of the usual one day service I could come back in two.

So let’s do the math.

I average one shirt and one pair of pants per day that I wear that are dry cleanable. This is not to mention the other family members clothes or my one off jacket, suit, tie etc. With 261 working days in 2016, that equates to 261 pairs of pants and 261 shirts at $6.85 per day or $1,787.85 per year. That likely nearly covers one employee for nearly a month.

So I just walked out your door.

I tried three other drycleaners. Rather than bore you with the details, I can say I found one I really, really like, and as a bonus I save 85 cents per shirt. I will go back to the other one when I have a quick need, but more like four or five times a year, not 261.

Was it one really horrible interaction that drove me away? No, that was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. Every few trips I would get a shirt without a button back or some other minor annoyance. All of those minor annoyances added up to be capped off by the one bad interaction that sent me out the door.

Think about your casino.

How well are your people trained? Did you just hire them and let them loose? Did they just go through the mandatory new hire training without any focus on customer interaction? Think customer interaction, not customer service. Think about your last customer interaction, an apology isn’t always necessary, but a polite measured response is. Think about your Shift Managers and your Directors. How do they respond?

Think about Social Media.

I’m not one to tell the world, but I did tell my family as I was made to feel like a criminal. Think about what could be happening to you on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and more right now…

At Touchpoints Marketing & Advertising we spend a lot of time creating memorable casino brands, but all that time and work can be undone by a single interaction. Part of our business is managing Facebook pages and a “share” on Facebook has almost limitless life.

To learn how Touchpoints Marketing & Advertising can help your casino, reach out to me, Ben Gravolet, personally at bgravolet@touchpointsmail.net

Sorry to be so blunt, but have you been to a casino promotion lately?

If you have and you think they’re great’; this may not be the article for you.

Look at your promotion from your guest’s perspective. A virtual ticket, in a virtual drum to win a virtual prize, exciting isn’t it?

Do you remember when a casino promotion was a show and an event? The lowly “wind machine.” Every casino has done it, there’s probably one languishing in your warehouse now. Let’s look at how it’s done…

• A guest earns virtual points…
• Virtual points equal virtual tickets…
• A name is chosen virtually…
• The person comes up, steps inside the machine for X number of seconds and tries to catch cash. The trick is the cash has to be placed into a box – what’s in the box they keep.

I have had TWO amazing meetings in the past two weeks with casino general mangers who say, “Enough is enough, bring the floor excitement back!”

1. Let’s look at the same “wind machine” done in a new way.

• A guest who enters is given a REAL ticket…
• A guest can earn more tickets through play…
• Guests get the additional tickets at the Players Club…
• The guests fill out those tickets…
• The guests place them in the drum on the DAY OF the promotion… (You can even have different barrels based on time – barrel for 7:00PM, 8:00PM etc…)
• You have an MC who is great on the Mic. (Want some additional fun? Do an open casting call on your property for the guy or gal with the Golden Voice…)
• When a name is chosen give them three minutes to appear…
• If possible, have the guest help you load the money in the machine… For good measure take 3 or 4 $100 bills and crumple them up and throw them into the mix at the very end…
• Challenge the winner – remember they’re a gambler – give them an option to spin a BIG 6 wheel for additional time, less time, or a BONUS.
• Suit the winner up in a painter’s suit including head sock… Have them wear protective goggles too – flying money can be dangerous…
• COACH THEM on how to win…
• Set the clock and put them in the machine…
• As it begins, have the assembled crowd count down the last 15 seconds with the machine…
• When the person exits make a BIG DEAL out of counting the money…
• Encourage them to Facebook it…
• Post a TALL board with first name and hometown and challenge others to beat it.
• Offer a BONUS to the person who gets the MOST and the person who gets the LEAST at the end of the promotion…

Same “wind machine”, new found FUN!

How easy was that? Simple steps and you generated a lot of BUZZ.

Think about all of your promotions this way.

Guess what… What do you do with all of those tickets in the drum? You send them off to be input into a database then you run it against your existing customer database and WOW a new prospect list of people who ACTUALLY LIKE YOU!

Accompanying this article are some pictures of some fun promotions we created for our clients. We’ve created promotions with game boards, bubbling cauldrons, race cars that ran down a 30 foot track, and even built an aircraft carrier in a mostly military market.

This is the age of Social Media… Social Media means free exposure and publicity either good or bad… Make that exposure great.

If you’d like to learn more about creating floor excitement call me, Ben Gravolet with Touchpoints Marketing and Advertising 504/361-1804 ext. 202

www.touchpointsmarketing.net

I’ve been creating casino promotions that have worked from Coast to Coast for 20 years.

 

 

 

 

Ignore The Competition

One of the greatest College basketball coaches of all time said, “Don’t worry about the competition. Worry about yourself. Go out and do the best you can and the competition will take care of itself.” Coach John Wooden is right. Don’t try to do what everybody else is doing so that you’re not limited to their results. Focus on what you can offer. Focus on what you can give. Spend every single day living up to the principle of constant and never-ending improvement. If you focus on being the absolute best you can be, you and your customers will know it and you will both benefit from it.

I encourage you to drive around and look at the billboards near you. Are they mostly generic messages or do they attempt to do something more? I once spoke at a Casino Marketing Conference where a fellow speaker said billboards were only for branding. I disagreed with that statement then and I still disagree now. The real issue is most people do a really poor job with them.

This morning I passed a billboard for a small restaurant I like and it said “Best Service.” Do you go to a place for service if it’s a restaurant or do you go for food? There’s a legendary steakhouse in New Orleans that has the worst and borderline rudest service you can imagine. Guess what? It’s packed every night because of the food. The food transcends amazing. And the service; it has become part of the atmosphere, almost like dinner and a show.

Have you ever driven somewhere and been distracted the entire time, but when you arrive you’re not sure how you made it? That’s the power of your subconscious mind taking over. When you see an advertisement your subconscious mind asks the questions why and is it for me. It’s the old WIIFM theory – What’s In It For Me.

I encourage you to take a look at all of your advertising. Does it answer the question why? Why should I attend the event? Why should I visit your restaurant? Why should I visit your Casino? And, ultimately, why should I spend my money with you?

Once we answered why, we need to focus on the what. There’s a billboard near my office for a bank that touts some new service with a name that means nothing to me.

Are there so many amateurs doing advertising these days that the basics have been forgotten? It’s all about the benefits and what it means to the prospect.

The headlines are filled with the news that it has been 10 years since Hurricane Katrina.

At the time of Hurricane Katrina I was a Regional Senior Director of Marketing with Pinnacle Entertainment. My job was to oversee the marketing operations of Boomtown Casino New Orleans and Casino Magic in Biloxi. I would also travel to other properties and help solve their toughest marketing problems in properties from Indiana to Reno, Nevada.

The Friday night before Katrina I was making sure large screen TVs had been installed in the bar outside our steak house. My intention was to run a football promotion there. At the time we had an intern, who is now the top Social Media guy in the gaming industry. I appointed him Unofficial Director of Casino Football Operations – he was beaming. Little did we know what was to come.

I managed to evacuate with my family but had to be back at work four days later in a City and a Parish that was under martial law. We returned to the property in New Orleans via a boat from the back bayous of Des Allemands. I traveled at the time with our then General Manager – we were both shocked at the devastation. Our beleaguered crew that stayed behind was in need of relief.

Arriving at the Property we immediately went to work offering relief and cleaning. It was odd to clean walk-in coolers to burn the food not knowing if the coolers would ever be turned on again, or if you even had a job going forward. I remember digging trenches to burn spoiled food and wondering if there was enough money in the bank to meet the mortgage payment for an extended period without a job.

We ended setting up a base camp at the Property to house energy related workers as they were previously housed at nearby Oakwood Mall but they were the subject of sniper attacks and looters had tried, somewhat successfully, burning the mall. In the same time period we started housing out of state Sheriff’s Deputies. They arrived like the Cavalry with a tractor-trailer of supplies from the owner of Dixie Chopper Lawn Mowers.

At one point I went to my office, about a mile from the property, to see what could be saved. I guess I stayed a little too long loading the truck with what I could salvage as I ended up being held by the National Guard at gunpoint. Thankfully we were able to clear that up. Our law enforcement guests had put up signage showing the number of times they discharged their weapons during the day and the number of bodies they’d come across. It must have been difficult for them as every night they would play poker for ammunition and drink us dry. My job was to secure all the alcohol and dispose of it. One night some men, I didn’t recognize, had a bit too much to drink and tried to get a little too friendly with a female reporter, again my job was to intercede. Don’t think I’ve ever been hugged so tightly since.

While this story could go on for pages of all the things I saw and experienced it’s best to end it now, as I can’t face any more of the memories. There were positive ones, like the Catholic School in Morgan City who took my two oldest boys in or the fact that Touchpoints Marketing & Advertising exists today because of Katrina.

Without the Hurricane I wouldn’t have had the desire to leave the parts of the casino business I didn’t like and join my wife in starting a business that emphasized the parts I did: the marketing and especially the advertising side.

I am very grateful and thankful to our clients over the past nine and a half years and the opportunities they have offered me and my family, as well as all of the Touchpoints team members who have passed through our doors. Even today we still have members of our original crew with us.

We are still the leading specialists in casino advertising but have since expanded into hospitality, automotive and many other areas.

Thank you to our clients, team members, and friends… how about we all agree not to relive this at 15, 20 25 years etc…

Ben Gravolet

9 years ago I sat down and wrote a book of 43 tips that I had learned in my years in the gaming industry. My intention is to share those with you and if you’d like a copy of the complete book of tips just visit:
http://www.touchpointsmarketing.net/casino/43-casino-marketing-tips/
to get your copy. The artwork is a bit out of date but there’s an all new updated version coming soon.

Today’s Tip
Create Giveaways After Your Giveaway…You’ve spent all of this effort to get customers to visit your property for a giveaway or promotion, give them an excuse to stick around after the grand prize drawing. Add a hot seat or a drawing one hour after the grand prize to hold on to the crowd.