mobileStorm Case Study

Successful Mobile Concierge Program

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Background:

MGM Grand is one of the first true “destination hotels” in Las Vegas. Featuring KA by Cirque Du Soleil, MGM Grand’s Crazy Horse Paris, and more than 5,000 hotel rooms, including the award-winning Skyloft luxury suites. MGM Grand is known for its fine dining, world class entertainment, and its AAA, four-diamond award hospitality.

Challenge:

Tourist interest in Las Vegas is bigger than ever. Families and career women are just as much a part of the customer base as high rollers and “boys’ night out” partiers. MGM Grand has to remain competitive in order to gain new customers among the changing tourist demographic, as well as maintain relations with existing ones. MGM Grand was especially interested in boosting its hotel and entertainment businesses.

Solution:

The mobileStorm platform helps clients use their own databases in order to more effectively communicate with customers and prospects. mobileStorm created for MGM Grand a mobile marketing strategy, which gave them the ability to send out SMS marketing messages regarding customers’ hotel stays and/or their attendance at shows and clubs. It lets the resort add digital messaging to its latest promotional campaigns. mobileStorm also helps the brand collect data about current and potential new patrons. MGM Grand uses mobileStorm to court both current customers and potential prospects. Here’s how . . .

The resort sends pre-arrival emails to guests about ten days before their scheduled stays. The messages confirm guests’ reservations and also offer a $25 entertainment credit to customers who sign up for the Mobile Concierge service which notifies customers via SMS about special offers and discounts during their stay. Customers sign up for the service by filling out a form sent in the email and can check off boxes of things that interest them like “spa” or “nightlife.” In turn, this enables MGM Grand to send special promotions only to customers meeting certain criteria—making their digital messaging campaigns more deeply targeted.

During one notable campaign, MGM Grand promoted its nightclubs with billboard trucks that drove up and down the Vegas Strip. The billboard promised people they could get on the clubs’ VIP lists by sending the following information via text message to a special short code: the keyword DUB, their full names, and the number of guests they wanted to bring. This allowed MGM Grand to track who came to their events, what clubs they attended, and how many guests they brought. It also helped the resort create new subscriber records so that MGM Grand could market to these customers in the future.

Results:

“We are better able to serve customers thanks to targeted messaging,” said MGM Assistant Vice President of Advertising Michael Perhaes. “For example, with the Mobile Concierge service, we inform hotel guests only about those amenities in which they are interested, without bothering them with messages that are not relevant. We deployed similar tactics for those prospects who opted in to our outbound text messages. And we were able to save contact and demographic information on these customers and prospects—which should help us more accurately target future messaging.”