Marketing Strategy of Fultons ice Land - Case Study Example

? Fulton's Ice Land Case Study Contents Fulton's Ice Land Case Study Contents 2 Introduction 3 Fulton’s current strategy 3 Recommendation 5 Reference 7 7 Introduction Fulton’s Ice Land is an indoor ice skating ring offering conventional hockey rink in the northern US city. The city recreation department offers outdoor rinks but not on a regular basis because of the fluctuation in weather. Steve Fulton who is the manger of Fulton’s Ice Land skating runs a successful hockey program but Fulton expects to increase profits by trying to expand and improve the public skating program. Therefore Fulton is trying to adopt some strategies which would increase its profits. Fulton’s current strategy To evaluate the current strategy of Fulton’s ice Land, the 4Cs of marketing is taken into consideration. The 4Cs includes Customer Value, Cost, Convenience and Communication (Crandall, p.57). Fulton’s Ice Land offers indoor staking with a conventional hockey rink surface. Steve operates the staking program and runs a successful hockey program which is accompanied by decent profits. Steve wants to expand his business so that he could allow 700 people at one time in the public session. Steve has 14 public staking session in his ice skating but unfortunately it has not attracted many customers. Out of which the public sessions hold on Saturday and Sunday afternoon has been the most successful, which has recorded an average of 200 people during the winter session. This session has mainly attracted the kids dropped by their parents for many hours and also attracted few family groups. But the public session operated on Friday and Saturday evening were the biggest disappointment for Steve. This session attracted the age group of 8-14 years and only a handful of young and teenage couples affecting the environment which Steve expected to create for the dating couples and the old patrons. Later Steve limited this session for people of age group above 14 years so to get a better environment for the young crowds. In order to make the skating fun and relaxing Steve installed few lights and music which encourage people to skate to the beats of the music and couples to skate together. Steve basically tried to attract the couples and was successful. Steve hired a local radio disk jockey which attracted many young crowds and couples. Steve realized that it was hard changing the attitude of the people and most of its customers on the weekends belonged to age group of 13 and less. Thus Steve’s effort to attract the teenage and couples did not generate a positive response. Steve’s motive of expanding his public skating program was assumed to attract as many as 700 customers in a public session instead of limiting the use of ice to 12 to 24 players per hour. Steve plans to charge $200 an hour plus concession sale, the two hour public skating would be charged at a rate of $5 per person which would yield up to $3500 for two hours plus a higher concession rate. By operating a large public skating session Fulton expected to earn a profitable turnover. Fulton’s evening session on Friday and Saturday were rated at $5 per person and $1.50 for skate rental. Steve has invested more than $3000 in lighting and about $9000 in promotional activity mainly promoting the rock music radio station which proved to be a failure. Steve operated 14 sessions out of which the public session on Saturday and Sunday were the most successful. The people could choose a session as per their convenience. The kids and families usually arrived more on Saturday and Sunday during the winter. Fulton Ice Land is situated in the northern part of USA, which is attracted by many Ice Skating rinks; therefore Fulton’s introduction of 14 public sessions would be convenient for the people to choose as per their timings and enjoy the winter with families and friends. Steve used radio as a means of communication in promoting its new offerings, which did not deliver a desired result. Steve spent almost $9000 in promoting the session over rock music radio station. The sales representatives managed to reach the teenagers all over the town and also offered a free skating for the tonnages but it was unable to attract the teenage crowd. Recommendation Steve the manger of Fulton’s Ice Skating Rink, wanted to attract the teenage population for its weekends evening session which did not happened. Instead a large amount of crowd between the age group of 8-14 was seen in the weekends. Steve promoted his campaign through radio which did not attract the target audience. Communication is the heart of any form of promotions and Steve has missed that while promoting its weekend’s evening sessions mainly targeting the couples. The service offered by Fulton Ice Land was accepted by the people well and mainly the kids and family had a good time in spending their weekends particularly in Saturday and Sundays. Steve must broaden the target market not just restricting to teenagers but also to the young crowd as Fulton’s Ice staking experienced a good amount of footfall within the age group of 8-14 years. It has been seen that sessions on Saturday and Sunday were the most successful as compared to the evening session on the weekends which was mainly for the teenage and couples. The thought of advertising the session in Fulton’s Ice Land in a rock station seems to attract quite a lot of people including couples, but the end result was disappointing. The main problem with the promotional tool was Steve communicated through radio which the teens did not listen much to it so radio was not an effective means to communicate to Steve’s target group and as a result no one responded to the free skating session offered by Fulton Ice Land. Thus a proper understanding of the teenage mindset was necessary which would help in analyzing whether the target group used radio as a means for their information. Therefore it is recommended that Steve to use other forms of communication and not just only radio. Distributing pamphlets near school, colleges advertising about the free skating session would have yield a much more positive result and the cost would have been much less as compared to radio. In order to attract the crowd, Steve can conduct creative programs such as theme sessions mainly on the weekends-Friday and Saturday which would allow the couples and the youngsters to take part and dance in their chosen attire. This would solve the issue of Fulton’s Ice Land of attracting less number of crowds on the evening sessions and let Steve experience a good number of the target crowd in the evening sessions of Saturdays and Sundays. Again this theme session should not be conveyed to the audience by way of radio rather a poster in the central area of the state or areas near school and college which would let the target group know about such kind of ice skating being offered. Therefore it is recommended to Steve Fulton to not just concentrate on one target group on the weekends, rather divide the weekends into two groups one for the couples and one for the young crowd who are usually seen on weekends. A special theme session can be conducted on the weekends-Friday for the young crowds and on Saturdays mainly for couples. This way both the groups would experience the theme session specially offered for the evening session to generate crowd. The themes can be set as according to the preference of the crowd which would allow many people to come and enjoy the ice skating with a pinch of differentiation on it. Therefore Steve can induce crowd by introducing the theme session on weekends special and generate a good return. Reference Crandall, R. Marketing your services: for people who hate to sell. McGraw-Hill Professional. 2002. Read More