Portrait Software, a vendor of customer interaction software, has reportedly announced that VisitScotland, the national tourism agency, increased revenues through the use of Portrait Customer Analytics to the tune of $80 million

 

PCA, delivered as a hosted service through Optima Value Group, is credited by officials of the tourism board with increasing the revenue in the Scottish tourism industry $80 million. That figure is evidently calculated from independent market research referenced by VisitScotland officials, who said it represents the value of trips by visitors who claim they would not have visited without prompting from marketing.

The agency wants to give Scotland "a real presence in the global marketplace,"benefiting the whole of Scotland." Agency officials said their priorities are to "attract visitors to Scotland, engage with partners within the industry and to add value to the visitor experience." An upwards of 200 campaigns a year are now processed through the managed service, Portrait officials said.

If the goal for Scotland is to attract visitors, then as one with experience of the British isles, may First Coffee suggest doing something about the weather. I, for one, could do with fewer bagpipe skirls in favor of more non-rainy days. 

 

Last month TMCnet had the news that Portrait Software announced "record take-up of its global educational push on trigger marketing," a process it uses with large B2C businesses.

VisitScotland claims a database of more than 3.5 million consumers collected over the last four years, and "needed to determine how many were regular visitors, as opposed to occasional visitors so that marketing effort and monies could focus on those most likely to re-visit and those with a particular interest relevant to Scotland," Portrait officials said.

 

 Segmenting the data into "Here are the last names beginning in 'Mac” and “Here is everyone else..." and being able to apply marketing campaigns had been primarily a manual task, evidently, and the level of analysis and accuracy charitably described by Portrait officials as "fairly random." 

Using the Portrait Customer Analytics VisitScotland has developed a Relationship Marketing Program based on the analysis of the travel behavior and patterns of UK and Irish tourists and from tourist feedback. The database has now been segmented into a "loyalty ladder" with the level of marketing investment spent on each individual dependent, quite reasonably, on their position on the ladder.

 

Ian Rippin, managing director, Optima Value Group, said that Visit Scotland "is now able to process information so that the right message is sent to the right people at the right time."

Oh, and a complimentary bottle or two of the wonderful highland single-malt whisky for business writers probably wouldn't go amiss either. Just a suggestion.