Tuesday, 15th January, 2008
New measurements on the menu for chef Colin - 15th January, 2008
Former VisitScotland marketing analyst counting new success in Cromarty
Sutor Creek café, in the town of Cromarty is a bustling tourist hot-spot in summer. Unlike some Highland establishments, it remains open in winter, where it is at the heart of a dynamic local community, hosting films, salsa dancing, the book club and other events. 
Sutor Creek is owned and run by Colin (pictured) and Sarah Munro who took over in June 2007.
But prior to his training as a chef, I knew Colin in another guise: as a web and marketing analyst for Scotland’s national tourism marketing body, VisitScotland. In fact, Colin was pretty much the only other web analyst in Scotland at one point, meaning we had a lot in common!
So I caught up with Colin to find out how the transition from tourism marketer to tourism business has been - and what data he is measuring these days.
But first, I had to understand why anyone would abandon beautiful data and lovely trends in order to become a chef.
Colin explained: “I’m quite an impatient person. And measuring marketing campaigns and activity, and to understand those impacts – which was my job – is very hard and often slow. You’re always striving to measure impact, but in reality that is very difficult to gauge.
It is not always possible to clearly see the responses to what you’ve done, even after a period of time. So, I think that is why I was attracted to the action-response model that a restaurant business like this offers. There is this terrific immediacy in customer response when you are serving them food. And, of course, I love cooking!”
Well, as an analyst myself, that makes sense. It also confirms my theory there is a direct relationship between the complexity of data and the quantity of food required to resolve it.
Did previous experience at VisitScotland help in the running a tourism business?
Sutor Creek was already a successful going concern when Colin and Sarah bought the business, so they weren’t starting from scratch. From the very start, they realised that rather than concentrating on marketing, they had to focus their efforts on getting the core product right – specifically food and service.
“Our philosophy was to concentrate on the core product, so marketing was a little bit at the back of our minds. And that was deliberate as it would have been all too easy to get carried away doing marketing, which was something I was comfortable with and I liked, and not spend enough time on those areas where we had more limited experience”.
Colin strongly believes that getting the product right in terms of quality will generate good word of mouth that will greatly assist marketing efforts. The café is featured in the new edition of Scotland The Best, for example. He’s also employing varying techniques, such as events and email marketing, that would not of been out of place in his VisitScotland days.
But where his VisitScotland background has really helped, he says, is in understanding what the organisation actually does, and how they as business benefit from that.
“The Dutch and German people who turn up here in Cromarty are a direct result of what VisitScotland do. It is their business to market Scotland abroad and to act as a resource for visitors once they’re here. A lot of businesses don’t see that.
I know they are not here to market my individual business. But I am aware that they offer another route to market, if its appropriate and if I choose to advertise. For example, they are setting up a café trail, which we’ll be part of and that will be a great piece of promotion.”
So how much of a role does research and analysis play in daily life now?
As with almost every tourism business we talk to, it’s revenue and the related metrics that are the priority for the business.
Sarah’s background is in finance, so they’ve done lots of work on cost of sales and staffing cost so they can quickly determine which days of the week are worth opening. “By keeping a close eye on the data, we can make a decision and act on it fast. For example, we quickly realised there was no point being open on a Thursday night in winter”.
Web analytics hasn’t been abandoned (see the part 2 video interview for more), but the reality of the long hours and intensive summer season means that right now wider research and web measurement is largely a winter activity for the business.
And Colin adds “You get such good anecdotal feedback when you are this close to the customers, that right now, that’s my customer research. If we got people focussing more on handing out comments cards, for example, we could lose their focus on quality service for little additional research gain.”
Happily, Colin’s analytical streak is as strong as ever. He explains, “we’ve been meticulously recording all sorts of data – so once we’ve run a full year we’ll have like for like for comparison. And that will be really interesting to see if we’re growing the business!”
It was great to catch up with Colin and to see him and his wife really putting everything into growing what is both a tourism and community business. I wish them every success. And believe me, if you’re ever in the Highlands its worth making a detour via Cromarty to check out Sutor Creek!
Video interview with Colin part 1 - how have the first 6 months of business been?
Video interview with Colin part 2 - what are you measuring these days?
