Location Analytics: Use of Business Analyst to Understand CA Visitors

By Kamal Paudel, MSA, GISP

GIS Specialist, Credit Valley Conservation (CVC)

Presented to Latornell Conservation Symposium, 2014

Overview

-Technology

-CVC’s Marketing Strategy for Conservation Areas (CAs)

-Example of the work being done (Island Lake Conservation Area)

-Basic Demographic Data Extraction for everyday work

-Limitations and other options

ESRI summarizes Location Analytics

Source: http://video.esri.com/watch/2543/esri-location-analytics

Before we move on…Technocrat Vs. Technocreep

Location intelligence (Business Analyst) & CAs• Helps decision makers for conservation

lands management and planning

• Discovers patterns, gaps in your customer locations, and preferences

• Communications Departments can use it for marketing the brand

• Can be used with Business Analyst Extension for ArcGIS

Location Analytics

ESRI Maps for officeESRI Maps for IBM CognosESRI Maps for Dynamics CRMESRI Maps for MicroStrategyESRI Maps for SAP BusinessObjectsTableau software

Technology

ESRI’s Business Analyst Extension• An extension that runs with ArcInfo (standard) License

• Uses the industry standard models and formulae such as Huff’s model (gravity models)

• The analyses such as “trade area analysis” are fairly quick

• Advanced analyses such as customer profiling and gap analyses can be done in a shorter amount of time with some trainings.

• Very easy tool to extract demographic information for 5 year intervals up to10 years in future (& previous 5 years).

PRIZM C2: “Psychographic data”

-Market segmentation

-With 66 lifestyle types, PRIZM c2 provides valuable insights into the behaviour and mindset of Canadian Consumers.

•You can look up your neighbourhood (from Environics Analytics):

http://www.environicsanalytics.ca/prizm-c2-cluster-lookup

Key Features-High quality data-Market research and planning-Customer profiling and prospecting-Store market analysis-Territory design-Site Selection

Sample Demographic data

Sample Data

Where do the data come from?• The Canadian 2013 data update

(currently used): 2011 Census data from Statistics Canada, including changes to the base geography (dissemination areas or DAs).

• Approximately 85 percent of DAs remained unchanged (from 2006), but the boundaries of many existing DAs have shifted, and entirely new DAs have been created in areas of population growth.

Sources as defined by ESRI: Business Analyst Canadian products are based, in whole or in part,on: Selected Statistics Canada files. Environics Analytics acquires and distributes Statistics Canada files in accordance with the Government of Canada's Open Data Policy. No information on any individualor household was made available to Environics Analytics by Statistics Canada. Copyright: 2014 CVC, 2013Esri, Environics Analytics & 2012 TomTom.

How the boundaries are calculated1. Block Apportionment- is the most accurate since it uses

the population and household counts in block points for determining what portion of a census geography falls within a

trade area.

2. Cascading Centroid: Fast but the least accurate . It includes only those census geography polygons whose

centroids fall within the trade area

3. Hybrid: a mixture of the two, and the software decides which method to use depending on the size of the trade area (preferred for the speed and accuracy!)

Marketing Strategy for CAsNeed to develop a marketing strategy that has:

• Clear goals and objectives

• Sufficient information to provide a strong foundation

• A comprehensive approach

• Adequate support (budget, staffing, resources)

• Well-defined performance measures

• Feedback loops

CVC’s Approach

Who

• Undertake data collection (postal code, visitor surveys) to determine who are current customers

• Identify what demographic sectors are over- and under-represented

• Select demographic sectors:

– believed to be most likely prospects (household income, family structure, age) and/or

– where you want to increase your visibility

What

• Undertake research to better understand the characteristics (e.g. social context) of each targeted market segment

– Beliefs and attitudes; activities; social, cultural, religious events, holidays

• Identify what features and activities are attractive to these segments

– Assess strengths and weaknesses of current facilities and programs

– Identify what might be done to make CA more attractive to various segments (immediately, short term, and long term)

When

Identify when to market to each market segment to align with:

• Traditional North American events / festivals (fall colours, maple syrup)

• Coincide with social, cultural, religious observances associated with each targeted market segment

How

Identify what types of communications tools are most effective in reaching each sector:

• Traditional radio / television spots

• Print materials:

– Flyers (drop off, newspaper inserts)

– Newspaper (regular advertisement)

– Targeted magazine advertisements

• Outdoor advertising (e.g. bill boards, bus signages/ bus stops)

• Social media

CVC- Postal Code Analysis (example)

Objectives: a. Find out WHO our visitors to

Conservation Areas are, based on our gate house information

b. Can we find other locations where similar people might be living?

-Available Data: 9,874 records

(after outliers were removed) from five conservation areas (Island lake, Belfountain, Ken Whillans, Terra Cotta, and Upper Credit)

What does the data say?

What do our eyes look for?

Getting into the depth…

Visitors by Time of the Day

0.00%

10.00%

20.00%

30.00%

40.00%

50.00%

60.00%

70.00%

80.00%

BELFOUNTAIN

ISLAND LAKE

KEN WHILL

ANS

TERRA COTTA

UPPER CREDIT

Conservation Areas

Perc

enta

gePct_AfternoonPct_EveningPct_MorningNo Data

Why?

An Example from Island LakeCustomer Profiling based on following variables1. Population by Age and Sex

2. Children at home (total and under 6)

3. Recreational spending

4. Visible Minority (total pop-based on adj 06 data only available)

5. Average household income

Results: Island Lake Conservation Area:

Male median age: 37Female median age: 39

Have an average household income of about 97K peryear

25.94 % are visible minority37.20 % have children under 6 at home.

An individual spends on average $1,782 per year onrecreation

Methodology & Results

RESULTS

• 54 polygons were created (prospective areas) based on the profile with 35% variability (floor and ceiling values)

• 11 of them are within the watershed, 43 are outside the watershed.

Finding new customers based on the profiles

Neighbourhood: People in late 30s with higher income & have children at home

We should focusin Mississauga

Postal Code Analysis: Trade Areas- based on gate house info

Island Lake CA-Trade Area

$0

$20,000

$40,000

$60,000

$80,000

$100,000

$120,000

$140,000

0-40% 0-60% 0-80%

% of customers

Aver

age

Hous

ehol

d In

com

e

200620112016

Higher growth of seniors

Spider diagram

Questions Answered

• Who

• What (partially)

• How (underway)

• When (TBD through research)

What else in general can we do with this information?• Create events and programs to attract families with

children and or the seniors depending on the area

• Include the activities (fishing, canoeing, biking etc) focused on demographics (i.e. male/female in late 30’s) while creating a strategy for land management plans- consider accessible trails for seniors

• Direct mails to the under-represented communities (instead of wasting resources in unlikely areas) to let them know about the great outdoors

• Targets for revenue based, health focused (i.e. trails), senior’s activities if majority are seniors

• And so many other potentials

An example from CVC: Overall DemographicsWho is more likely to visit our conservation areas -2011Male of median age: 36 and female of median age: 38 who

have an average household size of 2.77 (family!) –

Majority of them are 30- 50 years of age. (Programs targeted to middle-aged, not young adult)

81.46% speak English only –probably no need to create multilingual flyers YET!

85% own their houses – “Dear resident” flyers to those neighbourhoods will reach them.

Average household (current) income is $87,782;

It will be $100,078 in 2016 (Generally, well-off people-what type of activities/program attract them more to those CAs?)

Limitations on using the software

• Installation issues if you don’t have admin rights on your machine

• Running larger number of geocoding or analyses crash the program

• Although there is a description, understanding of the stats and models such as Huff Model helps

• Fairly costly software for a single CA for something that’s not used in a daily basis

The Glorified Nature:

ArcNorth News: Fall 2013 Edition: http://www.esri.ca/sites/default/files/filemanager/Resources/

ANN/ANN_FALL2013_Final.pdf

More Options

BA Online available for Canadian Customers:

• Analyze trade areas, competition, supply and demand

• Determine population within a specific drive time or distance

• Identify and segment customers

• Reach customers more effectively

Acknowledgement: Mark Thompson (slide contribution), Senior Manager, Lands and Natural Heritage Program, CVC & Communications Department at CVC

Photo and data Credits

ESRI, Environics Analytics, TomTom, CVC, Conservation Ontario, Jon Clayton (CVC), Microsoft clip art, http://screenmediadaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/location_art_2.jpg

Thank You!

Questions?