What you can do today without spending a dollar on BI tools
Tis the season for budget planning.
Now, I’ll admit … it’s not the most wonderful time of the year. Perhaps it’s because there are no budgeting carols to sing. But, let’s spread some holiday cheer; maybe you can avoid spending too much this budgeting season.
Before you start budgeting for a new BI system, remember that you already own BI tools that you can use today to solve many common casino marketing problems. Here is a list of five things you can do today with software you already own:
1. Self-Service BI – Getting access to the data yourself
Problem: You have an idea for a time-sensitive promotion. But, you need to review your player gaming data first to understand audience sizing and reinvestment costs. Sending a request to IT to get access to the data could take days or weeks. By the time you do get the data, the insight you had for the time-sensitive promotion might have passed and is no longer relevant.
Solution: With self-service business intelligence tools like Excel and Power BI, non-technical casino marketers can generate their own reports, run their own queries, and conduct their own analyses, without the assistance of IT staff.
2. Using the data without building complex SQL queries
Problem: You need to grab player data from the gaming database and sort it in ways that makes it easier to identify targets for promotions and special events. You are not a technical user who can build SQL queries, so you need a simple way to get access to the data.
Solution: Using Excel and Power Query, the casino marketer can point and click to the required data rather than creating a complex SQL query. All of this can be done from within Excel.
3. Visually segmenting your player database
Problem: You want to send promotions to four different tiers of players based on one-year theo. You want to visually identify and quickly segment these players.
Solution: Using Power BI, data can be ingested directly from the gaming database. A simple theo based segmentation strategy can be created using an Excel-like segmentation formula. Visual tools within Power BI can allow a marketer to export the player lists for the four tiers.
4. Measuring player worth across all activities
Problem: You need to incorporate hotel revenue with gaming revenue to get a full picture of a player’s value.
Solution: Using Excel and Power Query, gaming data and hotel data can be joined together using a common identifier (like the Player Id) that links the two data sets together. Once the data is within Excel, a more precise calculation of player worth can be calculated.
5. Evaluating the effectiveness of your promotions
Problem: You need to measure the effectiveness of your promotion investments using a common framework that allows for an “apples to apples” comparison. You need to look at all of the key performance indicators in a common way.
Solution: Using Power BI, a marketer can build a post-forma for all marketing promotions. The visualizations created can be leveraged and applied over and over again, without needing to build the analysis from scratch each time.
Remember, get utilization out of the things you own first before looking at buying new software you might not need.
Fa la la la la … la la la la.
