Casinos: The Worlds Greatest Landing Page

Posted on March 1st, 2008 in Affiliate Marketing

Having just returned from Vegas, Nickycakes picked up on a few good things outside of the conference.  One thing was very clear.  Casinos know what the hell they’re doing when it comes to marketing.  Gambling is a multi-billion dollar industry, so you better believe they’re doing whatever it takes to get you in and spending money.  Here are the basics of how they do it:

• Getting You To The Landing Page
  So the first, and probably most important step, is actually getting you to the casino.  Tickets to Vegas are always cheap….ALWAYS.  You could buy a ticket 2 hours before the plane left and it would cost you about $300.  Hotels are cheap.  The one Nickycakes stayed in was pretty nice and cost $60 a night.  The buffets are cheap or free and have better food than most restaurants in your hometown.  Drinks are free.  There are shows, shopping, plenty of things to see and stuff going on at all times to attract people to the city.  Think of this like clicking an ad on adwords offering a free ipod ;]
• Getting The Conversion
  So once you’ve been suckered into coming to Vegas, they have pretty much one goal.  They want you to sit at the slot machines and pump in your money.  Slot machines have the absolute worst odds for the player winning anything and are great for the casino.  That’s why the places are full of them.  There are really no hotels in Vegas, they’re all just casinos with rooms to stay in.  To get to your room, you have to walk through rows of slot machines to get to the elevators.  The carpets are very visually confusing and designed to get you lost.  In fact, pretty much everything in the casinos are confusing to the eye except the slot machines and game tables.  Walking around is supposed to feel uncomfortable, and sitting and playing is supposed to feel good.  There are no windows or clocks.  The lights are dimmed slightly to make sure the slots are the brightest things in the room.  They don’t want you to know what time it is so you will continue to p(l)ay for as long as possible.

The place really is the ultimate landing page.  It’s been split tested, and researched to death to bring in the absolute most money possible to the casino.  So next time you’re designing and split testing a landing page, keep that in mind.  Make a version with some of the characteristics of a casino floor and see how it does.  Make everything except the call to action a little bit confusing or fuzzy.  See how it does and post your results here.