In the fast-paced world and instant gratification of social media, email marketing can often get overlooked as a bit of a relic of the past. However, despite the hype on the death of email over the last couple years, the bottom line is that email is still prominently a part of our lives and will be for the foreseeable future.

As online marketers, we attempt to engage our users in any way we can. As long as our customers are using email, it will likely continue to be used by marketers as an effective tool to reach customers. So while many of us focus on staying ahead of the trend, sometimes using what has worked in the past can be a viable strategy (ideally, to be used in conjunction with some of the more cutting-edge strategies).

So enough about the death of email; how and when should we use it?

Monthly Newsletters (or at regular intervals)

If you’re a PAS publisher, you’re likely familiar with our monthly newsletters. We feel it’s important to keep our publishers up with the latest news and tips that are most important to them. Our newsletters also serve as a reminder of our products and services. We attempt the same regular engagement with users of our retail properties, most notably RakeTracker. Our RakeTracker mailer allows us to interact with users and keep players familiar with the best available offers. Through these interactions, our goal is to meet the needs of the recipients while also promoting our brand(s).

We feel it’s extremely important to not “spam” our players and publishers with useless information. Obviously, we won’t meet the needs of 100% of the target audience, but by knowing our customers, we should be able to minimize the “spam” label and provide a genuine service. So try not to take it too hard when that first user labels you as spam or unsubscribes, despite your best effort.

Advantages: Reach a large audience easily, can be informative, engaging(lags behind social media, however)
Disadvantages: Impersonal, may be seen as “spam”

PAS Recommendation: We recommend publishers send a regularly scheduled mailer to your players.

Special Events/Promotions/News

There is some news that can’t wait for an appearance in a monthly newsletter. Or maybe you just want to give special attention to a particular bit of information that may otherwise get lost. Our retail property campaigns have covered a variety of recent current events including the Eurobet move to Coral Poker, Merge Gaming’s reentry into new markets, Minted Poker’s $1 Rake Caps, as well as special new offers: all of them worthy of a unique campaign. Like our monthly newsletters, these special newsletters are sent to a large number of users in an easy way, but are often targeted to a specific segment of our userbase.

Advantages: Can give extra emphasis to a particular topic, Can reach a large audience easily.
Disadvantages: Impersonal, Perhaps more likely to be seen as spam if the mailer is different from what is usually sent.

PAS Recommendation: Use relatively infrequently. Make it count so when a user receives a non-regular mailer from you, it has extra impact. If these mailers are used for topics that you and your users care a lot about, they will look forward to receiving your mailers.

Personal Emails

One of the disadvantages of a mass-mailer is they are by nature impersonal: the same message being sent to hundreds or thousands of other people. Plus, with as many emails as we all receive on a daily basis, your messages may have difficulty standing out from the other commercial email your customers are receiving making it difficult to make that all important connection. Obviously our goal is to avoid contributing to the noise as much as possible.

One option is a personal mailer that doesn’t contain your fancy logos and attempts to reach the recipient on a one-on-one basis. The challenge is finding the words that speak to the player in their language while coming across as professional. The goal is to instill trust, rapport and to avoid acting like you are trying to sell them something. I like to try to think of the customer as a good friend and try to relate to them as much as possible. This can come easy if you really believe in the product you are trying to “sell.” For PAS publishers, a good way to use this strategy is with your VIP players. Maybe even give out your instant message contact details so if the user is skeptical of your intentions, they can feel better by an even more personal contact with you.

Advantages: More direct contact with your player, seen as less “spammy”
Disadvantages: Time-consuming, finding the correct “voice” for your personal connection can be difficult

PAS Recommendation: Because of the amount of time involved, using this option for your VIP players is the most effective way to get value out of this method. If you find the right formula and


More Information

Final PAS Tip: PAS publishers can export an email of their players via the “Export Members” function in the publisher admin. This feature is available under the “Users” tab.

Stay tuned to PAS for more posts on effectively using email marketing in today's environment.

If you wish to receive help on your email marketing campaigns, the PAS team is available to assist you, whether it’s simply helping you devise an email marketing strategy or PAS doing all the legwork for you (creating, designing and sending the mailer). If interested, feel free to contact Seb, PAS Brand Manager about these extra services and more.