Hospitality Service and Facilities Management - Essay Example

?Hospitality service and facilities management Problem: how to promote a sandwich store if the regular s are and office staff. What has to be done when the competitors are cafe bars, pub and supermarkets. The essential purpose of this paper is to promote a sandwich store in order to increase the product’s sale volume at any given price. The paper hopes that promotion will affect the demand elasticity for the product, making the demand inelastic in the face of a price increase and elastic when price goes down. Promotion, generally, is a business activity that informs, persuades and influences a person to buy the company’s product. There are several methods of promotions, and some of the most widely used are personal selling, advertising, and sales promotion (Stanton, 1975,p. 468). In the case of Our Sandwich Store, we will be using sales promotion that employs several activities to provide incentives to customers in order to stimulate immediate sales. A sales promotion as defined in the Business Dictionary is an activity designed to stimulate sales through “contests, demonstrations, discounts, exhibitions or trade shows, games, give aways, poit-of-sale displays and merchandising, special offers, etc.” Aside from this, Lake, L. (2011) said that focusing on the target market will help the company strengthen the brand’s competitiveness. So in order to arrive at the correct strategy of promotion, it is necessary to make an analysis of the existing conditions of the business to answer the following questions as suggested by Lake (2011) Who is your target market Where is your target market located? What do they think about your current brand? What would you like them to think about your brand? Who else is competing for their loyalty and devotion? Are you targeting business or consumer sectors? How will you attract them to your products or services? Target market description First, let us define the target market of the business. Target markets of Our Sandwich Store are students, teachers and office staff. Because of this preoccupation, the target customers are located in the campus, universities and vicinities around the school. These are the customers who find fast food set up convenient for a quick snack, lunch or dinner. Patrick Noone, in a sandwich consumer trend report (2010), as shown in the chart below, said that some of the reasons of consumers for buying sandwiches are that, along with hunger satisfaction, they put importance on health and portability of the food. More consumers prefer sandwiches to go at lunch and prefer a light and healthy meal at lunch. This means that lunch sandwiches are routinely purchased by target markets for lunch than for dinner food. However, for dinner, consumers prefer quality and a bigger portion size, even if the sandwich commands a higher price. Source: Noone, Patrick. Sandwich Consumer Trend Report (2010) Competition of Our Sandwich Store is cafe bars, pubs, and supermarkets which are also located around the vicinity of a university or campus. One of the cafe bars that I have checked at the internet, the Napoleon House cafe opens from 11:00 a.m.to 1l:00 p.m. that serves local sandwiches, soups, salads, and jambalayas. The cafe’ offers classical music and a unique ambiance for a sit down lunch or dinner (Napoleon House Cafe, n.d.). The second competition is a pub house. My idea of a pub house, as I have seen in the internet site, like the Market Pub house, is a place that offers family and friends cozy dining, although it serves juicy burgers, saucy wings, fresh salads and wraps and hearty sandwiches . A pub house normally opens 5:00 pm till midnight. The third competition is a supermarket. Of course, we know how a supermarket operates where there are stand in corners and fast food stores offering snack foods that include sandwiches. We are targeting here consumer sectors that are composed of students, tutors and office staffs. Normally, our target market observes school hours and office hours that usually begins from 7:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. A differentiation of target between business and consumers has to be set because these two sectors have different purchasing behavior because of lifestyle orientation and segmentation. Having established the landscape of our market, the study now will present an appropriate promotion based on the findings above. 1. Location of Our Sandwich Store. The location of the store should be placed within the proximity of a campus, university and a busy site. It could also be placed inside a supermarket store wherein it could open a sandwich store to target same market of students, tutors and office staff. A supermarket sandwich store could also expand the target market aside from those suggested above. 2. Opening time of the store. Most of the target markets come to the place of work and study very early in the morning. Some have missed breakfast and become hungry before noon. This is an opportunity to catch up early birds who want to start their mornings with a hot cup of coffee or chocolate and a sandwich. Better yet, as study shows, consumer prefer sandwich to go, then 7:00 a.m. is a good time to open up the store. The time difference will beat up competitors who normally open at 11:00 a.m. 3. Analysis of Chart 1 above shows consumers prefer sandwiches because of several reasons, and the most important cause is hunger satisfaction. However, it is noted that there are customers who are more satisfied with their sandwiches for dinner than for lunch because of the bigger portion served, but of course, price has something to do with it. Cafes and pub houses offer bigger portion of sandwiches but most often times, priced higher than the day time sandwich houses. The study therefore of price elasticity comes to place in this situation, and will put the marketing promotion into a test. In the suggested promotion plan, the sandwich portion will be big to compete with that of the pubs and cafe, but of course the price increase goes along with it. If the demand increases in spite of the price increase, the demand is inelastic. This means consumers will continue to buy the sandwiches because of the satisfaction they derived from it. The promotion plan of serving size and price strategy should be started with a study of the correct pricing for a bigger serving of sandwich. Upon reaching a pricing strategy, this should be properly announced to customers through sales promotion. According to the study of Uva (2000), a sales promotion changes the behavior of customers and will act to a sales offer, discounts, in-store displays, coupons, gifts and contest. An example of a sales promo that could be offered by Our Sandwich Store is shown at the left side. One argument found in sales promotions and offers as noted from UVA study is that sales promo and discounts lasts only for a short time such that there will be a constant planning and change of offers. However, the tools used in promotion remains the same, but the content of offers is always revised to continually attract customers. Others that could be used to target markets are premium items needed in studying such as ball pens, pencils, note pads that are given to customers in exchange of some points of purchase. 4. Delivery system. Another way of promotion that has become increasingly effective is the delivery system of food that could be ordered thru on line system of ordering or by phone ordering. Some customers find it difficult to go out and eat at the sandwich stores and restaurants because of busy schedules. A web site could be used to accept orders of customers, or an answering service could facilitate taking orders by phone. An example of delivery service, is the McDonald’s Free Delivery Service that is available anywhere it is located. Our Sandwich Store can develop a similar scheme of service to all its target markets. This is one thing that will beat its competitors because cafes, pubs and supermarket do not provide this kind of service to customers. First thing to do is to inform customers about availability of this kind of service from Our Sandwich Store. Tools to be used are advertisements, e-mails, posters and other reminders. One reminder I have seen is a small sized magnet reminder pasted on the fridge door. Recall makes it easy because of the constant reminder on the fridge door. Talking about recall, the promotion should not miss out the very important slogan that could easily be remembered by customers. A slogan according to Bickers (2002) should be something catchy and not clumsy. Something that comes to mind readily is slogans previously used by food companies such as: “It’s the real thing” for Coke and “Finger lickin’ good” for KFC. A sample of an effective slogan used by McDonald in their campaign was…”You deserve to take a break today”, probably referring to snack or lunch break (Todd, K. 2011) In delivery, one of the most popular slogan used in Pizza delivery was “Get the door, it’s Domino’s”! (Bickers). In the delivery service of Our Sandwich Store, it should come out with a catchy slogan that would be painted on its delivery van. A separate study is recommended for the appropriate design for this. Getting the services of an advertising agency is proposed. Conclusion. The preparation of a promotion of Our Sandwich Store requires several steps which could be wrapped up to the following steps. First is determining the appropriate location, make a study of the target market, and knowing the purchasing behavior or reasons for preferring sandwich over other choices of food and pricing. Then, having gathered appropriate information, the company could design a suitable promotion to attract the customers. What I am saying here is that, the promotion should be integrated with the strategic planning that should include price, place and promotion to be assured of its success. Proper promotion like delivery service and early opening of stores could beat competition because it is highly improbable that competitors could use this scheme because of their set up. This kind of promotion becomes probable thru the internet on line ordering or thru phone delivery system which has enjoyed popularity of use by customers. List of References Bickers, James, (20 March 2002). Catchy or clumsy. Pizzza.marketplace.com. Retrieved 07 Feb. 2011 from http://www.pizzamarketplace.com/article/112827/Catchy-or-Clumsy Business Dictionary. Sales Promotion Definition. Retrieved 07 Feb. 2011 from http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/sales-promotion.html Lake, Laura. (2011). Focusing on your target audience. About.com. Marketing. Retrieved 07 Feb. 2011 from http://web2.userinstinct.com/31621943-mcdonalds-free-delivery-service.htm Market PubHouse (n.d.). Our story. Retrieved 07 February, 2011 from http://www.marketpubhouse.com/) Napoleon House Cafe, n.d. Menu. Retrieved 07 Feb. 2011 from http://www.yelp.com/biz/napoleon-house-bar-and-cafe-new-orleans Noone, Patrick (2010). The Sandwich Consumer Trend Report, Attitude and Usage Study. Technomic Information Services. Retrieved 07 Feb. 2011 from www.technomic.com/_files/products/2010_sandwich_brochure.. Stanton, William. The Promotional Program.Fundamentals of Marketing. McGraw-Hill Kogakusha, Ltd. International Student Edition. 1975, p. 468). Todd, K. 06 Feb. 2011.What was McDonalds old slogan before I’m lovin it? Chaca.com. Retrieved 07 Feb. 2011 http://www.chacha.com/question/what-was-mcdonalds-old-sloganbefore-im-lovin-it Uva, Wen Fei. Dec. 2000. Develop a successful Promotion Program. Department of Applied Economics and Marketing, Cornell University. Retrieved 07 Feb. 2011 from hortmgt.aem.cornell.edu/pdf/smart_marketing/uva%252012- Napoleon House Cafe, n.d. Menu. http://www.yelp.com/biz/napoleon-house-bar-and-cafe-new-orleans http://www.napoleonhouse.com/menu1.htm. Market PubHouse (n.d.). Our story. Retrieved 07 February, 2011 from http://www.marketpubhouse.com/) Lake, Laura. (2011). Focusing on your target audience. About.com. Marketing. Retrieved 07 Feb. 2011 from http://web2.userinstinct.com/31621943-mcdonalds-free-delivery-service.htm. Uva, Wen Fei. Dec. 2000. Develop a successful Promotion Program. Department of Applied Economics and Marketing, Cornell University. Retrieved 07 Feb. 2011 from hortmgt.aem.cornell.edu/pdf/smart_marketing/uva%252012- Noone, Patrick (2010). The Sandwich Consumer Trend Report, Attitude and Usage Study. Technomic Information Services. Retrieved 07 Feb. 2011 from www.technomic.com/_files/products/2010_sandwich_brochur.. Definition of promotion. How a sandwich shop should be promote if the regular customers are students,tutors and office staffs. what needs to be done if the are others cafe bar, supermarket et pub as competitor. Created:  2011-02-05 07:05  Deadline:   2011-02-10 05:07 Time Left:  4 days 21h 20m Style:  -  Language Style:   English UK  Grade:   2:2  Pages:  6  Sources:   10  Sales promotion - Sales promotions are short-term incentives to encourage the purchase or sale of a product or service. Sales promotion includes several communications activities that attempt to provide added value or incentives to consumers, wholesalers, retailers, or other organizational customers to stimulate immediate sales. These efforts can attempt to stimulate product interest, trial, or purchase. Examples of devices used in sales promotion include coupons, samples, premiums, point-of-purchase (POP) displays, contests, rebates, and sweepstakes. . Read More