In the rainforests of Australia, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea male Birds of Paradise partake in elaborate mating rituals to catch the eye of females. These birds pay special attention to their appearance, grooming themselves almost relentlessly, but most interestingly, they dance.
The bird that has the most eye-catching dance will ultimately gain the attention of the female, ensuring their genetic continuation. In the gambling world online casinos are the male Birds of Paradise – consumers are the females.
In an extremely crowded market – in itself predicted to be worth around $60 billion in the coming years – online casinos are constantly vying with each other to catch your eye. That’s why if you type ‘online casino’ into a popular search engine, you will be greeted with hundreds of results in less than half a second.
So in this competitive landscape, how online casinos stand out and grab your attention?
Targeted Demographics
“If something’s for everyone, it’s for no one”, so goes the advertising mantra.
If an online casino is seeking to attract more customers, it is not enough for them to merely appeal to everyone. If they do, they will be swallowed up by the competition so choosing a niche and tailoring an offering to that niche is of paramount importance to would-be successful online casinos.
But we’ve found the perfect example of an online operator that’s very aware of its target market – specifically younger, digitally-savvy players with a love of all things retro.
As such, their website design is a snapshot of old school casino nostalgia. Its theme is 1950s Vegas – the heyday of gambling – complete with chequered flooring and a Wurlitzer soundtrack. On the landing page of 777 casino, you are greeted by a neon flashing sign situated in what appears to be the Nevada desert.
While 777 caters for a broad audience with its diverse selection of exciting casino games and slots, it clearly has a refined brand identity which sets it apart from the generic look and feel of other online operators it competes against. Take a look at 777 online casino and you’ll be amazed at quite how distinct it is when compared with other operators.
Enhanced Casino Technology
A crowded market can be bad for individual companies as they drown in the competition, but it is good for innovation. A crowded market provides the perfect environment for talent to emerge, and that’s exactly what’s happening in the online gambling industry.
To differentiate themselves from their competitors, online casinos are spending huge amounts of money to improve their technology. Once upon a time a bland, 2D user interface was par for the course when it came to remote gambling.
Now there are huge swathes of companies offering live streaming casinos to their customers. Whether it be through partnerships with existing land-based casinos or through purpose-built venues, online operators now give their customers the chance to bet and interact with a live dealer.
In years gone by, a technological innovation such as this would be cause for widespread back-patting in the industry, but it’s merely the beginning of a long continuous process for most providers. Gambling experts are looking to the gaming world for inspiration in their pursuit of bringing augmented and virtual reality casinos to the market. For these operators, it’s not enough that their customers can interact with a live dealer – they want something more.
They want their customers to be able to walk around a purpose-built area, choose from a wide range of games and interact with other players as well as dealers. They want there to be no real difference between their online casino and some of the biggest and best casinos around the world, bringing the simulated environment even closer and more immersive than the real thing.
Bonuses, Bonuses & More Bonuses
Having a bonus that appeals to online customers is the equivalent of sending someone out onto the street with a sandwich board and instructing them to shout about your company. It is the way that online casinos get noticed and stand out from the crowd.
The best offers are those that are likely to persuade a new customer to use a particular online casino. Free spins and free bets are the most common bonuses to see, and if they’re good enough other gamblers will start talking about these bonuses thus spreading the reach of the online casino further.
It’s not just about sign-up offers though. Most online casinos pay particular attention to your betting habits – analysing your favourite games, your most common wagers and your behaviours to offer you tailored bonuses.
Once you’re in with an online casino, you’ll get tailored bonuses sent directly to your email or your smart phone notifications. Love blackjack? Great, then you’re going to be getting a whole heap of blackjack offers sent directly to you. You might miss out on some great poker offers, but your online casino knows you don’t like Texas Hold ‘Em – so your offers are going to be perfectly personalised to you as a result.
Summary
Birds of Paradise and online casinos have a lot in common. They both have a tough task to stand out from the crowd and appeal to their target demographic.
To be a success, they must be better than their competitors. They must be appealing and they must be the best. Birds of Paradise do that through creating elaborate dances to woo their potential mates. Online casinos do it by making themselves different in order to appeal to certain demographics. They do it through shouting loudly about their brilliant bonuses and they do it through being at the forefront of technological advances.
In nature, as in business, it’s the strongest who survive. And often strength comes from being having a unique set of selling points that target the right consumers at the right time.