Email marketing is one of the most popular forms of marketing your gaming establishment can utilize. There are so many essential components of email marketing, such as overall design and length, but today we’ll be focusing on how your business can make the most of email marketing.
Use Email Marketing Software
When it comes to marketing software, there are many options including HubSpot, Constant Contact and Mailchimp, to name a few. Accel can’t tell you which is best for your business because it all depends on how much you are willing to spend and what features you specifically need. Regardless of which software you choose, the tools they offer you will really take your email marketing to the next level!
Send Different Types of Emails
There are many ways you can use email marketing to reach your audience and give them reasons to visit your establishment. In this section, we will provide examples of how you can utilize email marketing. You may be surprised to find you are already doing some of them.
Email newsletters are one form of email marketing you should consider using. What makes newsletters so great is that they only need to be monthly, which gives you plenty of time to create the content that goes into them. Email newsletters are an excellent way to let your patrons know what is new and happening at your establishment and also promote other aspects of your business such as your website or social media channels.
If you can’t wait to make an announcement in your monthly email newsletter, you can always send an individual email. These announcements can be quick and to the point, giving your audience all the information they need. These announcements can be exciting such as adding a new addition to your menu or something unfortunate like being closed due to construction.
Emails can be used to market your products or services. It’s important to remind your patrons of everything you have to offer them. If you are a restaurant or truck stop then you offer food and beverages, but as a video gaming establishment, you also have slot machines that you should be marketing through emails.
It’s important to send emails letting patrons know what promotions are going on at your establishment. This is a great way to get people to visit your establishment with the anticipation of winning a prize.
Emails offering discounts on your products are another great way to get visitors to your business. This one doesn’t really need a huge explanation because most people enjoy saving money on their favorite things.
Sending emails asking your patrons to leave reviews is important to the overall success of your business. With higher reviews you are more likely to attract new customers to your establishment. Reviews also show just how satisfied your current customers are and help you come up with ways to improve your establishment.
We couldn’t write a blog about email marketing without giving a special shoutout to the Accel Loyalty Engine (ALE). Don’t forget that if you are paying the monthly fee of $25, you have access to ALE, which means not only do you have an AE Player Rewards kiosk for players to check into, but also a device providing you with valuable information on your patrons and their habits. Use that information to your advantage by crafting customized emails and text messages to keep your patrons engaged and encourage repeat visits!
Monitor Your Metrics
Whether you obtained someone’s email from a visit to your website, from social media content, or from a handwritten form, you should be making the most of that email list. One of the most important things you should be looking at when it comes to email marketing is what is working and what’s not. There’s nothing wrong with having to change your approach, because in the long run it will get you more engagement from your audience and prevent you from wasting time on what’s not working. Some of the most important metrics you should be looking at are open rate, spam reports, clickthrough rate, unsubscribes, and bounce rates.
Your open rate shows you if your patrons are opening your emails. If you are getting spam reports, that means some of your patrons are marking your emails as spam. This can mean either those patrons aren’t interested in your email offers or they think your offers aren’t legitimate. If your open rate is low, or you are getting more and more spam reports, it may be time to start experimenting with new subject lines.
Clickthrough rate shows how frequently your patrons are clicking on links or Call to Action (CTA) buttons within your email. Clickthrough Rate is a great way to see how engaged and interested your patrons are in the content within your email. If your clickthrough rate is low, you may need to try including links to different offerings.
If you see very few unsubscribes, that means you are sending emails that are relevant to your audience. When you start getting lots of unsubscribes it should be a sign that either your audience is not interested in the emails you are sending or that you need to create a new email list based on your target audience that is interested.
Your goal should be to have a very low bounce rate. If you have a low bounce rate, it means your email list has mostly legitimate email addresses and your patrons are actually receiving your emails. Of course, there is always a chance someone provided an outdated email by accident, but either way, if someone is not receiving your emails you are missing out on opportunities to market to them!
We hope you found this blog informative and useful as you further examine your email marketing strategy. Remember it’s never too late to try something new and see how it works for your video gaming establishment. Thanks for reading and don’t forget to let us know your thoughts in the comments below!