From the cheesy balloons and archaic games to the lame announcers, today’s slot tournaments are about as sexy as your GM in a Speedo. But it’s not your fault. Slot tournaments are costly to manage, and decades-old technology limits your creativity. Add in those error-prone manual processes and capital restraints, and it’s no wonder you’re barely breaking even. Always the survivor, your casino has likely overcome these obstacles and still finds tournaments worthwhile, using bits and pieces of different technologies to creatively market your facilities and services around them.
We’ve observed quite a few of these slot tournaments recently, and nearly all the operators we spoke to agreed that we need to do something to bring that edge back. So we got to thinking, what if you could free yourself from your current limitations and let your tournament imagination really run wild? Could you build an event that actually brings the sexy back to slot tournaments?
We think so, and we’ll show you that there is more to think about than just how you can turn those ancient machines into moneymakers in this four-part series. We believe that there are five key things that every marketing executive faces when designing and managing tournaments (see Figure 1):
1) Marketing goals
2) Planning
3) Execution
4) Content
5) Technology requirements
It’s after you have determined your marketing goals that the convergence of planning, execution and content will lead you to the requirements necessary to create the best tournament experience. At the end of this series, we’ll even offer you an evaluation framework to aid in your slot tournament product purchasing decisions. And while there probably isn’t a perfect solution available, we hope this framework will at least help guide your discussions with suppliers to develop a product with the ideal features and functions you need.
Marketing Goals
Perhaps the most difficult and most overlooked part of the tournament process is clearly defining your marketing goals. Are you trying to drive and sustain floor traffic? Are you trying to motivate consumers who don’t normally gamble in your casino? Do you want to reward loyal players so that they keep playing at your casino rather than the competition’s?
The marketing goals inform your tournament planning, execution and content decisions, and setting these goals is an extremely important first step. While tournaments might have a great deal of similarities in execution and content, you may need to market them differently depending on your goals. You may also consciously choose to alter your execution and content depending on your goals.
Planning
Once you have determined your overall tournament marketing goals, it’s time to move on to the planning component of our framework. Planning encompasses defining and understanding the target audience, determining frequency and duration, choosing a location, selecting prizes and funding mechanisms, developing tournament pro formas, and creating a communications plan (see Figure 2).
Target Audience
During the planning process, you’ll want to start by identifying the audience that you want to participate in your slot tournament. If your marketing goal is to motivate hotel or convention guests into becoming identifiable gamblers, you may structure the tournament differently than if you were trying to incite more play from your most loyal players.
Your target audience informs your decisions regarding tournament structure and marketing support. Keep in mind you want to design a memorable experience that increases the unique bond you have with your guests. We like to think that the participant is an event co-producer, so as you continue to plan and design your tournament structure, try to leverage the collaboration between you and your players to determine the most gratifying experience for both parties.
Frequency and Length
Now that you’ve thought about your target audience, you need to consider how often you want to hold your tournaments and for how long. Questions you’ll need to answer are:
• Is this a daily, weekly, monthly or yearly event?
• Is the event seasonal or for a special occasion?
• Should the tournament span one day, two days or more?
• How long should the sessions be, and what are the rules for moving into the money?
With nearly endless combinations of different frequencies and lengths, you really need to know and understand your target audience and how these decisions motivate them to participate. It’s only then that the proper frequency and length of the tournament will appear.
Location
So many qualitative factors impact the location of a tournament. Should it be on the casino floor or in a mixed-use space? Should it be in a fixed location for continual use? Choosing the optimal location will all depend on your space constraints, marketing goals and target audience, because like those annoying Hollywood stars, some people just want to be seen playing on the casino floor. Others, however, might run from any kind of publicity. Choosing the location of your tournament brings together an interesting mix of marketing and operational factors that can make the decision difficult, so you need to choose wisely.
Prizes and Funding
Depending on your marketing goals and target audience, you may have to choose between several prize types and funding mechanisms. If your target audience is your most loyal players, you may want to fund the entire prize pool as a reward. However, you may want participants to provide some or all of the prize funds if you’re looking to draw new customers. Alternatively, you might want to look for third parties to sponsor the tournament and provide prizes or funding.
These two items are major components of any tournament, and making wise decisions based on your goals and audience will dictate how attractive the tournament is to your target audience. But prizes and funding also provide room for creativity. You can select prizes ranging from cash to free slot play, comps or expired inventory, or even go beyond that to offer consumer electronics, cars or vacation packages. Just make sure the top prize is attractive enough to motivate participation, while at the same time ensuring that enough people win to make the event worthwhile.
Pro Forma
Developing a simple tournament P&L that estimates revenue impact will help guide your expense decisions. It should guide your communication decisions and how much effort you put behind theme concepts. Creating a tournament pro forma will also enable you to compare the forecasted performance versus the actual performance. Over time, this comparison will guide your decisions regarding tournament structure, frequency, communications and prize funding.
Communications
Once you’ve determined your goals, target audience, frequency, length, location, prizes, funding mechanisms and pro forma, the last part of the planning process is to figure out how best to communicate with your audience about the event. Figure 3 shows the Hierarchy of Effects in communication and is helpful to consider as you think about your communications plan. If you’re targeting loyal players, you may choose to communicate with them largely via the casino host and direct mail. Alternatively, if you’re trying to attract new customers, you’ll want to select one or more of the communication mediums below:
• phone
• e-mail
• social media
• video
• direct mail
• flyers
• website
Your communication plan is another essential component of any successful slot tournament, and you need to consider the cost and effort needed to execute your plan.
Defining the Ultimate Experience
It’s not easy to make a slot tournament actually fun, and just outlining these basic aspects of the planning process provides insight into why. There’s lots of work involved getting those glossy-eyed players in line down a row of ancient machines, furiously tapping the bet button. If you can begin this whole planning process with fresh eyes and an open mind, not worrying about how you will execute it, we think you might find yourself closer to creating a slot tournament that actually does bring the sexy back. Next month we’ll tackle the next concept in the framework: Execution.
Jeff Jordan most recently served IGT as a Director in several roles—product strategy and marketing research, corporate strategic planning and strategic business development. Prior to IGT, Jordan worked at Bellagio as the Executive Director of Slot Operations and Marketing. He is a Principal at Jordan Gaming Consulting Group and can be reached at jjordanlv[at]gmail.com.
Krista Reiner is the Marketing Manager for Acres 4.0, a company dedicated to improving the appeal and profitability of casino gaming. Before joining Acres 4.0, she was the Managing Editor of Casino Enterprise Management. She can be reached at (701) 388-7377 or krista.reiner[at]acres4.com.
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