Developing an Effective Marketing and Public Relations Program Program for Sunshine Café
Question
Task: How can Sunshine Café develop an effective Marketing and Public Relations Program program to attract and retain customers?
Answer
Introduction
The food and beverage industry has been identified to be among the most successful and profitable industries but businesses in the industry also need to develop effective marketing plans. The plans identify target customer groups and address their needs thus allowing the business to maintain its market dominant. Sunshine Café intends on performing a market research which will allow the business develop an effective public Marketing and Public Relations Program program (Daymon & Holloway 2010). This can only be achieved if the business first undertakes a market research which will identified target customer groups and their needs or expectations. This information can then be used to identify effective goals which the café can target with the intention of improving its public Marketing and Public Relations Program and boosting its sales.
Strategy Should Fit the Target Audience
The first step linked to developing an effective market research plan requires for the target audience or consumers to be identified. It’s important to identify the consumer groups the business intends on targeting thus allowing the business to focus its attention on specialization. Sunshine Café must consider targeting regular customers who are likely to visit the café on a regular basis and help ensure the business remains operations and functioning throughout the year. It’s also important to target two regular consumer groups which will deliver additional customer stability (Kudyba & Hoptroff 2001).
The two main consumer groups likely to deliver regular day business to Sunshine Café are students and office professionals. Both groups tend to depend and prefer dining out at cafes making them the prime target consumers to consider during the daytime hours. Sunshine Café can then also consider catering to families during the evenings but not depend on this group to generate the daily and bulk income
Tactics Are the Activities That Will Put the Strategy into Operation
While the two identified regular day consumers have been identified, Sunshine Café will also need to undertake some research to identify important events and activities which they can use to their advantage to generate additional business (Kaufman & Horton 2014). While waiting for regular customers is the primary source of income, Sunshine Café must also identify the special events and demonstrate an aggressive attitude towards approaching schools, colleges and businesses to introduce the business and also build Marketing and Public Relations Programhips.
Many schools and college students arrange parties and these events can help generate additional income. The same applies to businesses which tend to arrange many events to entertain their skilled professionals as a way of showing their appreciation and motivating the employees to perform even better. Sunshine Café must be preparing to adopt an aggressive approach and approach potential customers to build Marketing and Public Relations Program and also inform hem regarding the available facilities.
Deliver On Consumer Expectations
No matter how large a business or brand is, eventually the consumer will evaluate certain criteria to determine if the business meets their expectations (Lewis & Slack 2003). Sunshine Café must also ensure these expectations are being delivered to ensure consumer satisfaction and recommendations. Failing to deliver on basic consumers exactions will result in a gradual meltdown and regular customers will begin disappearing.
Deliver On Consumer Food Expectations
Sunshine Café would be targeting two main consumer groups which require for two differing menus concepts for each group's expectations. Students are more interested in junk foods while working professionals would want a healthier and solid meal thus both consumer groups expectations should be addressed.
Health is Wealth for Working Professionals
The working professionals would be the primary target consumer for Sunshine Café thus making is important to develop food menus which best suits them. Many working professionals are single and do not have the time to cook food at home which results in them preferring to purchase their meals on a daily basis. With food being purchased they prefer a restaurant which will offer good and hygienic food which will not be too heavy to digest. They are also looking for a solid meal which will keep them satisfied for several hours till they have dinner. This makes it important to consider delivering an economically affordable and healthy menu to be presented to working professionals which would see them returning to the restaurant on a daily basis.
Junk Food - A Students Love
Students are generally young and looking for something different from their daily meal at home making most students prefer consuming junk foods while visiting a restaurant of café. Sunshine Café must, therefore, offer a verity of trendy fast foods which are popular among students and youngsters. Calorie and fat rich meals such as burgers, pizza, and pasta are some examples of foods students would like to see on their menu. It’s also important that fun meals and beverages also be available on the student menu which also tends to be a major attraction and preference among students.
Maintaining a Positive Social Network Image
It is also necessary to develop and manage a positive reputation among social networks which have a major contribution towards any brands image in today’s world. This makes it important for Sunshine Café to also review the social media while performing market research to identify any topics which customers may have been discussing regarding the brand. Many businesses fail to manage the social media resulting in the brand developing a negative reputation on the social media.
This can be done by unsatisfied or displeased customers or even be fraudulently been done by competitors who intend on using the social media to create a bad reputation for competitors. This makes it important that a social media audit is first undertaken for Sunshine Café which will help identify the businesses current reputation on the social media (Singh 2016). Effective approaches can be developed which address any identified problems and helps improve public Marketing and Public Relations Program and the business reputations among social media users.
The social media has become a powerful public Marketing and Public Relations Program tool and many consumers will today quickly turn to the social media to identify a brand's reputation or previous consumer complaints. This makes it very important a social media audit is undertaken immediately and countermeasure developed to address any bad publicity which may have already been spread on social media networks. Only after the Sunshine Café current social current status and reputation has been identified can further social Marketing and Public Relations Program campaigns are developed.
Provide Offers, Gifts, and Vouchers
The market research plan must also consider providing offers, gifts, and vouchers to customers who will help encourage them to recommend Sunshine Café to family, friends and other businesses. This is a strategy which has been used by several businesses which offer cash backs, vouchers, and gifts to customers who recommend the brand and must also be used by Sunshine Café to build a positive public Marketing and Public Relations Program atmosphere among its customers (Mullin 2014). This will help boost the number of customer’s returning to Sunshine Café as well as help increase the number of recommendations which will contribute towards increasing the number of customers visiting the business.
Develop Timetable Scheduling Tactics throughout the Year
The organization, planning, and preparedness are the key fundamentals associated with success. This makes it important to develop a timetable highlighting each occasion and event throughout the year which will allow Sunshine Café to prepare and offer suitable facilities catering to each of the events. Sunshine Café will need to develop a timetable highlighting every social event falling under the academic and social year as well as also perform some business research to identify special business events and dates (Pride & Ferrell 2016).
This would allow the Sunshine Café develop a marketing timetable plan which can be used by the marketing team to approach suitable customer groups with the intention of winning their acceptance to visit and use Sunshine Café facilities. The tactical marketing timetables should be broken down according to the events each of the target customer groups celebrate after which the timetables should be combined.
Dates which have two groups which conflict should then be re-evaluated to determine which group is likely to deliver higher returns. The marketing campaign can then be prioritized onwards that group to help Sunshine Café generate more income and profits. The objective of developing a tactical timetable would be to allow Sunshine Café develop an effective marketing plan aimed at Sunshine Café securing the highest occupancy rate throughout the year. Being able to secure high occupancy rates will increase the businesses turnover and returns as well as reduce overall costs and which will automatically increase profits.
Marketing and Public Relations Program Program Budgeting
Budgeting is always an important factor linked to any Marketing and Public Relations Program program and it’s vital to make sure the specified budget is maintained. For Sunshine Café to maintain a strict limit on the Marketing and Public Relations Program budget the best approach would be to contract the project for a fixed price to Marketing and Public Relations Program experts. The contract should outline the specific guidelines that need to be covered during the Marketing and Public Relations Program program and a fixed budget set for the program (Shimp & Andrews 2012).
The budget should also clearly mention targets which must be met before any payments are made. This would fix the Marketing and Public Relations Program Program budget as well as clearly set the goals and objectives each stakeholder must cover before being applicable for further payment. Goals achievement timeframes must also be clearly set so as to limit the project duration and encourage the project undertakers to meet or beat the set timeline.
The Marketing and Public Relations Program Program contract should also clearly mention the businesses current Marketing and Public Relations Program status as well as the targeted goals. This will help eliminate complication and confusion related to goal achievement ad clearly is able to point out achievement and areas of improvement. The program contract should also not interfere with current business operations until a full audit has been undertaken and a new Marketing and Public Relations Program program developed. The new plan should be infused to the existing program to avoid disrupting Sunshine Café current operations and instead contribute by improving the operations.
In case Sunshine Café does not have the required finances to undertake the entire project at once this must also be included in the budgeting process and contract. This will help stakeholders remain clear on the intended project execution timeframes and stages each being undertaken at a different time. This would allow for all stakeholders to prepare to manage Sunshine Café Marketing and Public Relations Program Program and also allow the stakeholders plan their own timetable with regard to handling other projects.
Conclusion
Developing an effective Marketing and Public Relations Program Program is essential for every business but the program should be able to identify important elements linked to the business before effective programs can be developed. Marketing and Public Relations Program Program are also time-consuming as they require for research to be performed before and during the development of the program. This should therefore not disrupt Sunshine Café current operations and gradually be infused into the current operations with the objective of improving Sunshine Café marketing plan and the brand's reputations among the public.
References
Daymon, C & Holloway, I 2010, Qualitative Research Methods in Public Marketing and Public Relations Program and Marketing Communications, 2nd edn, Routledge, London.
Kaufman, I & Horton, C 2014, Digital Marketing: Integrating Strategy and Tactics with Values, A Guidebook for Executives, Managers, and Students, Routledge, Oxon.
Kudyba, S & Hoptroff, R 2001, Data Mining and Business Intelligence: A Guide to Productivity, Idea Group Inc (IGI), Hershey.
Lewis, M & Slack, N 2003, Operations Management: Critical Perspectives on Business and Management, Volume 2, Taylor & Francis, London.
Mullin, R 2014, Promotional Marketing: How to Create, Implement & Integrate Campaigns that Really Work, 6th edn, Kogan Page Publishers, New Delhi.
Pride, W & Ferrell, O 2016, Foundations of Marketing, 7th edn, Cengage Learning, Buston.
Shimp, T & Andrews, C 2012, Advertising Promotion and Other Aspects of Integrated Marketing Communications, Cengage Learning, Mason.
Singh, A 2016, Managing Public Marketing and Public Relations Program and Brand Image through Social Media, IGI Global, Hershey.
