smartFOCUS lands PartyGaming contract deal to provide intelligent marketing software

Multi-channel marketing software specialist smartFOCUS Group (LON:STF) has won a contract with a major online gaming company PartyGaming (LON:PRTY),  to provide high performance marketing software to increase both the volume and value of player activity across PartyGaming’s brands - including PartyPoker, PartyCasino, PartyBets and PartyBingo.
                                                                                                                                                                   
PartyGaming has purchased the full suite of smartFOCUS software and services, including analysis, campaign management and reporting.

The addition of this latest high profile contract further expands the company’s strong client list. smartFOCUS provides marketing software to a wide range of blue chip companies – including Rank (LSE:RANK), Carnival Group (LSE:CCL) and Easyjet (LSE:EZJ). Its software helps to improve customer responsiveness and retention, hence a number of smartFOCUS’s clients operate in sectors where effective communication with their customers is a key corporate objective.

SmartFOCUS chief executive Chris Underhill commented. “Armed with an increased understanding of each customer, PartyGaming is delivering more intelligent customer insights and targeted marketing to improve customer management and significantly increase marketing performance."

For PartyGaming, the software will allow it to gather more customer data, to derive a better understanding of its customer base. The gaming company said it is “now able to profile players segmented by life-stage, value, recent activity and frequency of play, then take advantage of highly granular data”.

“smartFOCUS will enable us to test new ideas and analyse vast amounts of customer data instantly, providing us with a competitive edge to investigate and react to market changes quickly and effectively”, PartyGaming stated.

The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The company has been progressing well since it shifted its revenue model towards ‘Software as a Service’ (SaaS). In April, in the company’s full year results, to 31 December 2009, smartFOCUS reported that revenues in FY09 climbed 15% to £11.9m (FY08: £10.4m), 66% of the total revenues were generated from SaaS contracts (2008: 50%).The demand for SaaS software helped smartFOCUS swing to a full year pre-tax profit of £0.5 million from a loss of £1.2 million in 2008.

According to smartFOCUS, investment in the marketing software sector was being driven by a number of long term trends, including increased online competition, increased consumer sensitivity to invasive marketing and pressure on marketing budgets for increased return on investment (ROI).

In the current financial year, smartFOCUS has won contracts with lastminute.com, Myprotein.co.uk and Hachette Filipacchi Media US.

Also in 2010, smartFOCUS has launched its analytical software for marketers to better understand trends among social networks. The new software allows marketers to track a consumer's online activity and behaviour through the viral process of social networking - across sites such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Delicious and Digg - and quantify the consumer’s value as a 'social advocate'.

smartFOCUS believes that the service can enable marketers to optimise their approach to social network marketing by rewarding advocates based on the number and value of customers their behaviour has helped acquire, retain and affect. Thus providing a cost-effective way to engage with customers and increase revenue gained from social networks.

http://www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk/companies/news/17902/smartfocus-lands-partygaming-contract-deal-to-provide-intelligent-marketing-software-17902.html