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Solid Marketing: If you promote it, they will come
July 19, 2005
By Kimberly Rinker
Kudos go out to Arlington & Maywood Park racetracks, who are having one of their most successful summer meetings. On Father’s Day and on the 4th of July of this year, Arlington played host to a packed house—some 26,000 fans flooded Illinois’ premiere thoroughbred facility. As well, Maywood recently sported one of their best nights yet--over $100,000 in live, on-track handle. How did they do it? Can harness racing throughout Illinois garner the same fans? Can we improve our product? Of course! Read on....
Dan Leary, Arlington’s Director of Communications, explained his racetrack’s philosophy.
"We are committed to being the leading entertainment destination of thoroughbred racing," Leary said. "We are constantly striving to bring new people into Arlington Park through a variety of ways. We feel that once they are here and see the beauty of the facility, experience our guest relations, and experience our promotions, food and racing, that they’ll be sure to want to return."
Arlington’s marketing team focuses on their weekend cards, and has specific strategies set out for Fridays, Saturday and Sundays.
"Fridays we have a 3 pm post time and we feature our Miller Party in the Park," Leary noted. "We have a different band each week that is paired with a radio station for a specific theme. We get tons of folks out here in a wide range of demographics."
Saturday Arlington features a Bud Lite Summer Bash and Barbeque.
"This promotion has been quite successful," Leary said. "We feature various meals and have teamed with the Weber Grill people to spotlight foods cooked on their grills. We get a lot of families and young people. As well, Saturdays tend to be our biggest stake days, so we get the big time horse players out here as well."
Sundays are Pepsi Family Days, with the track featuring all types of entertainment for families with children—including pony rides, face painting, balloon artists and the like.
"We have a multi-faceted approach," Leary said. "You have to be responsive to the needs of the customer. We focus on the big weekends and special holidays, and of course, the Arlington Million—our premiere event."
Arlington also caters to all age groups with various groups and players clubs. For instance they have a Junior Jockey Club just for kids, and a Twin Spires Club for adults. As well, Arlington maintains an extensive database to monitor their customer’s attendance, gambling and purchasing habits at the track.
"We have nine or ten different mailings that feature coupons that cater to the various types of customers that we have," Leary said. "We are able to target what days they visit our facility and what they do when they’re here. It’s a very useful tool."
Maywood Park, through the efforts of general manager Ken Kiehn, has also seen a great upshift in its promotions this summer. The half-miler is racing only on Thursday nights throughout the summer and Kiehn and his marketing team has brought forth a a variety of successful themed promotions.
Maywood’s Thrilling Thursdays feature food and drink specials, live bands and family fun nights, as well as "Drive of your Life" promotions where fans get to ride in a cart with their favorite driver and horse. The venue has been packed on Thursday nights with party groups, families and gamblers—as evidenced by an $100,000+ live, on-track handle recently.
What does all of this spell for the Prairie State and elsewhere? It speaks that racing fans--both harness and thoroughbred---are out there; that there are people out there who want to be entertained, and if the racetracks are willing to make an effort to produce a solid marketing plan, that they will come. It works for Arlington and it is working at Maywood Park. Kudos to both for making racing what it should be.
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