Scottish Rugby is installing customer relationship management (CRM) and business intelligence software to boost sales and attract non-sporting events to its Murrayfield stadium.

The rugby governing body will use the technology to pull together and analyse sales and marketing data stored in five databases, to better target customers with promotions for national games.

It will also use software from IT firm Venue Solutions to send members and previous visitors tailored emails about future matches and music concerts.

'For some matches as much as 82 per cent of tickets are sold online, and using these CRM tools we will start to build better relationships with visitors,' said Alasdair Russell, head of marketing at Scottish Rugby.

'At the moment we are wasting time and money mailing thousands of database members with a single message, but by profiling them we will be able to send more targeted communications.'

The VenueCast business intelligence software will also connect to Scottish Rugby's ticketing and memberships systems, which run on Synchro Systems' Venue Master 2 software.

By improving analysis of customer data, the organisation also hopes to build on the success of recent music concerts held at Murrayfield by artists including Robbie Williams and U2, and attract new artists and their fans.

'We want to have the ability to use this to aggressively bring more acts and fans to Murrayfield. It will help us actively promote the events,' said Russell.

'We want to use it to cross-sell and up-sell. At the moment there is no cross-referencing without going through a manual process which requires lots of human involvement.'

Scottish Rugby is also planning to use Venue Solution's customer relationship marketing software to improve the sponsorship and merchandising parts of the business.

It will extend the use of the systems to increase ticket sales for the three regional rugby clubs it manages: the Glasgow Warriors, Edinburgh Gunners and the Border Receivers.

'We have matches against Argentina, Samoa and New Zealand, and this will help with promoting them,' said Russell.

The organisation hopes to have the systems fully operational by the end of the month.