Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Oregon Casino Hits Jackpot With Web Site Overhaul

June 10, 2009: summarized from BrandWeek -- Spirit Mountain Casino recently bet big on a Web site redesign. The company spent nine months last year retooling www.spiritmountain.com.

The redesign was aimed to convert TV, radio, print and billboard promotions-placed in those markets with mentions of the site-into more casino foot traffic, said Chris Cherry, online marketing manager at the casino. To create a higher-grade landing page of sorts for the mass-media ads, Cherry and his team thoroughly revamped the site's look-and-feel, navigation and back-end system.

"The new Web site is largely responsible for convincing more curious online [visitors] to make the trip out here to see what we have to offer in person," he said. "Our [year-to-date] figures are very favorable and much better than what others within our industry are experiencing."

Since premiering the site redesign in January, Cherry said that the brand has seen sign-ups for its "Coyote Club" customer loyalty program spike by 31 percent when compared to the same period of the year before. He added that his company has also seen increased inquiries from organizations that now see the casino as a potential event or conference venue.

Charles Voloshin, senior account executive, eROI, Portland, Ore., said that the most-important analytical goal in the redesign was to increase viewer engagement. Voloshin pointed to statistics showing that visitors have been spending an average of three-and-a-half minutes per visit and viewing at least five pages. While the site's old system didn't record page views, he suggested that the five-page average for the newer version has outperformed expectations going in.

Voloshin said that the site has an "incredibly low" bounce rate, which is a statistic that measures how many visitors leave after only one page view. The casino site, he said, has had a bounce rate of 16 percent since the re-launch five months ago. He credited the homepage's navigation layout.
Read more at: http://tinyurl.com/n38sco

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