Technology
A Whole New Way to Think About E-mail
An effective e-mail marketing strategy uses great copy to interest readers, compelling promotions to bring them in and effective tracking to monitor success. So far our customers have loved using our e-mail system to send newsletters and setup automated e-mails, but across the board have been asking for a feature to attach promotions and comps. BAM! We’ve been listening! Introducing three new features that are going to help you e-mail like a boss!
Easily Send Coupons and Comps along with Marketing E-mails
It’s a simple as drag-and-drop. After you finish designing any marketing e-mail or smart send, just select and drag from a list of your coupon promotions to attach and send. Choose up to four coupons to feature on the bottom of your e-mail and allow your customers to print and redeem. Customers may also present the coupon on their mobile device.
Get Started Fast with Stock E-mail Templates
Not sure where to start with an e-mail? With this release we’ve included a selection of copy templates to help you get started setting up newsletters, promotional e-mails and smart sends. Use them just as they are or adjust them to fit with your brand message.
Track From Open to Redemption
After sending an e-mail campaign, track and analyze campaign performance. Each campaign tracks everything from who receives your e-mail to who redeems your coupons on-site. Analytics include recipients, bounces, opens, clicks and on-site redemptions. All coupons include a QR code unique to the recipient to ensure proper tracking and fraud protection. Use our analytics tools to determine the success of each of your campaigns.
Attach Coupons to Physical Mailers
If attaching and tracking coupons in E-Mails wasn’t enough, you can create unique coupons to send out to your customers through physical mailers and have the same sophisticated tracking that you receive when you send coupons through emails. Gone are the days worrying about counterfeit coupons and fraud. Our system tracks each unique coupon and validates it in the system at the time of use.
For more information, check out our plans and pricing.
The New Apple iOS 5
Last week’s buzz was all about Apple’s release of iOS 5 and the new iPhone 4S. We’re pretty excited and in fact we were one of the first to try out the new iPhone 4S friday morning!
We thought we’d give you some highlights from the new iOS 5 and let you know how it will impact your RewardsForce system.
- Notifications – All notifications are now available by swiping down from the top of your iPad or iPhone. Quickly glance and see updates from new e-mails, texts, appointments, social media and apps.
- iMessage – A free messaging service that works between any iOS device (iPad, iPhone or iTouch). It includes the ability to instantly text and send photos or videos.
- Twitter Integration – Now tweet directly from Safari, Photos, Camera, YouTube, or Maps. No matter what app you are tweeting form, include your contacts names and link to any content you’d like. This dramatically reduces the difficulty of tweeting an article from the New York Times or updating your status.
- PC Free – With iOS 5, you no longer need a computer to own an iPad. All your activation and account settings are right on your device. You can now wirelessly setup your device and activate it right out of the box.
- iCloud Security – Once you’ve realized your iPad or iPhone has been misplaced or stolen, simply login to your iCloud account and view on a map where your device is. Send a message to your iPad or remotely wipe its apps and data to protect any information the device can access.
- Multitasking Gestures – a set of new moves and shortcuts that will help you navigate around even faster. Just use four of five fingers to swipe up and reveal the multitasking bar at the bottom; swipe right or left to switch between open apps and pinch the screen to return to the Home Screen. Also, a new optional split keyboard allows you to type with your thumbs.
Installing iOS 5 is a breeze and we will be offering a tutorial to interested clients. Look for our iOS 5 upgrade e-mail in the coming weeks. Check out Apple for more information about specific features. As always, feel free to contact me with any questions about the new operating system.
G2E 2011 Conference Highlights
Last week we made our first appearance at the Global Gaming Expo in Las Vegas. The conference blends new technology, gaming and networking in a week full of events and seminars. It was great exposure for our iPad player tracking system and caught us up on the newest trends in rewards management and gaming operations.
Here are some of the highlights from G2E 2011:
Mobile – From in-room gaming to hospitality apps, using mobile devices like smart phones and iPads to make marketing and operations better is an emerging trend. From the casino’s perspective, tablets provide that ability for rewards club managers, hostesses and other employees to manage their operations from wherever they are. Instead of spending time on computers and at terminals they can instead walk the floor. For customers, it will soon be a way for them to play from anywhere, including pools to hotel rooms. Very quickly, Apple’s iPad will be a permanent fixture on the casino floor.
Marketing – The casino and entertainment industry has long used paper-based direct marketing to target customers with promotions. Slowly marketing teams have adopted multichannel communication strategies by incorporating both e-mail and text. This trend was evident at marketing talks and walking around consulting booths. As with mailers, tracking the performance of these tools is critical and so the use of QR codes was on full display. We’re excited to be on the cutting edge of these new tools and help develop the right technology to make them effective.
Online Gaming – There’s been a lot of buzz around the closure of online poker sites like fulltiltpoker.com and PokerStars. For years the casino industry lobbied against online poker, but it is clear that the times have changed. G2E was littered with seminars and mini-conferences on the topic and the State of the Industry Keynote included a lively debate about online gaming led by Caesar’s Jan Jones.
G2E was a great experience, we learned a lot, made some great connections and, of course, had some time for fun…
Yes, iPads are sexy … introducing AnteUpdates
It’s easy to for us to talk about our new iPad application, AnteUpdates, but we’ll do the smart thing and just show it to you. Check out our new app for casinos and card rooms:
Our focus at RewardsForce is markets that are underserved in the loyalty and rewards space. Local card rooms are a perfect market for our first product for a variety of reasons:
- Outdated hardware systems and / or paper-based systems are used to maintain a simple CRM system. Maintaining these systems can take up to 40% of a floor manager’s time.
- The IRS and state gaming commissions require certain compliance reports to be kept on file. These reports are filled out frequently enough to warrant an electronic system.
- A lack of fruitful information about their most valuable customers. Their largest customers make up 80% of their revenues, but only represent 20% of the customers. There’s a huge opportunity here to increase customization to those customers.
AnteUpdates is specifically designed to help fix these problems and also administrate a rewards club.
The app makes it easy for floor managers to collect customer information and provide customized customer service to their best clients.
Specifically, the application also helps a floor manager keep track of:
- comps given out to a player
- a player’s reward points
- a player’s description and picture
- a player’s previous playing history
- a player’s buying preferences, and
- gambling commission compliance reports such as MTLs.
The app helps card room casinos overcome the unique customer service challenges of their industry. The best part is that the app is only part of the platform that is available to casinos. Our back-end system stores the information and the dashboard provides all the analytics and administration in one place.
This makes it easy for any general manager with a computer connected to the internet to get a clear picture of customers and the health of their rewards club.
