Week 10: Promoting without discounting

In week 10, we were asked how we plan on promoting our Bar, without jeopardizing the integrity of the venue by throwing out discounted coupons and deals.

I for one, plan on hiring a social media manager or even do the managing myself, i will have a twitter account, a facebook page, a instigram, a pub blog, and possibly even a youtube channel.

Inside each media website, will be links to all the other sites, and i will also pay for the advertising of each media website through individual companies. For example: for 5$ a day, on facebook, i can gather about 20-40 people on my page each day, i can do the same on twitter.

For two, I plan on advertising in the news papers, and might even hire a sign holder, to dance around on the corner of my lot, so People that are driving by will be sure to see it.

Finally, I plan on having a monthly or by-monthly themed party, where i bring in live musicians, dancers, catered food, and lastly discounted drinks. This will be costly, however, only doing it once a month or once every two months. It should be affective at bringing in loyal customers who will be happy to return on a regular business day.

week 9: The Great Mission Statements

In week 9 we were asked to pick three mission statements in which we liked and describe why and what we liked about each one.

"A company’s mission should not be stated as making more sales or profits—profits are only a reward for creating value for customers. Instead, the mission should focus on customers and the customer experience the company seeks to create."

The first one im picking is, Michael Sherman, I like how it leaned towards the local community, and how it sounds as if he wants it to really give back and contribute to the community. This bar sounds like a nice place to kick back and relax with some friends

The second one im picking is, Jose Mayorga. Myself, personally being a sports fan, I found myself instantly pulled into the idea of having a stadium experience. It sounds like it would be rather tricky to set up, however, once down would most definitely be a cool experience.

The third and final one that I chose, is Kattie Gomez. I really liked how she has a place and product that can offer something for all kinds of people.

Week 8: Creative Content

In week 8 we were asked what our creative content for the bar that we will be doing our final project on. This is what I have come up with.

Here at Create A’ Cocktail’s, that is exactly what we plan to do. Our mission is to provide the local people of Las Vegas, Nevada, a unique experience at a moderate price. We view ourselves as being partners with our customers, our employees, our community, and our environment. We aim to become a regionally recognized brand name that provides a fun, safe, casual, and comfortable drinking experience like no other.

Our location is on Losse and Craig, close to Nellis Air Force Base. We plan on appealing to the military members in the area and their families.

Along with the originality of our drinks, our food also brings a splash of creativity to the mix, instead of a traditional “Bar & Grill”, the grill aspect will be turned into finger food that can be ordered and set out for the party to enjoy

Implementation Evaluation Control

On the tenth and final part of our marketing plan project, we were asked to describe our implementation evaluation control.

“Evaluation is also very important. Many companies fail to evaluate their sales promotion programs, and others evaluate them only superficially.”(Marketing: An Introduction for Education Management Corporation. Page 438)

In today's highly competitive business environment, budget-oriented planning or forecast-based planning methods are insufficient for a large corporation to survive and prosper. The firm must engage in strategic planning that clearly defines objectives and assesses both the internal and external situation to formulate strategy, implement the strategy, evaluate the progress, and make adjustments as necessary to stay on track.

“Formal evaluation forces management to develop and communicate clear standards for judging performance. It also provides salespeople with constructive feedback and motivates them to perform well.”(Marketing: An Introduction for Education Management Corporation. Page 426.)

The way in which the strategy is implemented can have a significant impact on whether it will be successful. In a large company, those who implement the strategy likely will be different people from those who formulated it. For this reason, care must be taken to communicate the strategy and the reasoning behind it. Otherwise, the implementation might not succeed if the strategy is misunderstood or if lower-level managers resist its implementation because they do not understand why the particular strategy was selected.

“Marketers should study buyers to find out how they actually evaluate brand alternatives. If they know what evaluative processes go on, marketers can take steps to influence the buyer’s decision.”(Marketing: An Introduction for Education Management Corporation. Page 154)

The implementation of the strategy must be monitored and adjustments made as needed.

Evaluation and control consists of the following steps:

1. Define parameters to be measured
2. Define target values for those parameters
3. Perform measurements
4. Compare measured results to the pre-defined standard
5. Make necessary changes

   
Following these steps are crucial in our company’s success.

Marketing Mix - Price

For the ninth part of our marketing final, we were asked to come up with an estimated price plan for our bar.

“The price at which total revenue equals total cost and profit is zero.”(Marketing: An Introduction For Education Management Corporation. Page MN2)

There are a lot of numbers that had to be crunched for the “price” portion of this bar marketing plan. Below you will see some of the costs that I estimate will go into the creation of, Create A’ Cocktail’s.

The Price for the location I plan to take over is $1.9M.

My monthly rent for the location will be $5000

My planed income for Create A’ Cocktail’s is $30,000

It would take 380 months or 31 years to have Create A’ Cocktails paid off in full

The price for my alcohol will be roughly $1000 a month.

I plan on making a 800% profit off each bottle.

When I buy my alcohol in bulk I can get a case of 20 bottles for 20$ a bottle

There are roughly 40 shots in a bottle of alcohol.

Each shot is 10$, or 400$ for a bottle.

I will employee roughly 10 people.

My rates will go from minimum wage (the dishwashers and bussers) to a maximum of 18$/ hour. (The management) Everyone else (the bartenders and waitresses) will be in between, depending on how long they have been with us.

3 employees at minimum wage working 40-hour weeks will be

 $3,840/monthly

5 employees working at “ in between “ wages working 40-hour weeks will be $8,800/monthly

2 management working at “ top “ wages working 40-hour weeks will be $5,760/monthly

Total cost of employees monthly – $18,400

Spending - 5,000 + 1,000 + 18,400 = 24,400/month

Profit - $6,600/month

“In general, a dollar markup is the difference between a company’s selling price for a product and its cost to manufacture or purchase it. For a retailer, then, the markup is the difference between the price it charges consumers and the cost the retailer must pay for the product.”(Marketing: An Introduction For Education Management Corporation. Page MN3)

Marketing Mix - Distribution

On the eighth part of final project, we were asked to put together a distribution plan for our bar. There are many ways that a company can be successful by using correct distribution planning.

“Producers of convenience products and common raw materials typically seek intensive distribution—a strategy in which they stock their products in as many outlets as possible. These products must be available where and when consumers want them”(Marketing: An Introduction For Education Management Corporation. Page 323)

For Create A’ Cocktail, our distribution plan is for “First Timer” (the first time this person has been to Create A’ Cocktails) we will give them a free T-shirt with our name and logo on it. Hopefully this person will take it home, wear it around their friends, and by tell their friends what a great experience they had at our bar.

“By contrast, some producers purposely limit the number of intermediaries handling their products. The extreme form of this practice is exclusive distribution, in which the producer gives only a limited number of dealers the exclusive right to distribute its products in their territories.”(Marketing: An Introduction For Education Management Corporation. Page 324)

We plan on making deep, loyal, happy partnerships with our suppliers. We will buy in bulk and continue to do so, even if our products are not necessarily selling right away. We will stockpile our alcohol, because we know it will eventually be bought. If we can constantly get good deals on our alcohol in bulk from our loyal suppliers. We will do what is necessary to keep our connections.

“In some markets, the distribution system is complex and hard to penetrate, consisting of many layers and large numbers of intermediaries.”(Marketing: An Introduction For Education Management Corporation. Page 324)

Marketing Mix - Promotion

“The selling concept is the idea that consumers will not buy enough of the firm’s products unless it undertakes a large-scale selling and promotion effort.” (Marketing: An Introduction for Education Management Corporation, page 65)

There are multiple ways in which a bar can help promote itself to sell more drinks, receive more loyal customers, and ultimately make more money. Whether it be through social media advertising on websites like Twitter, facebook, instagram, youtube, or through the strategies at the bar itself.

Through social media, for a low cost price, I can manage and run a campaign, where thousands can see the advertisement and webpages for my bar.

Here are some promotion strategies that are commonly used to increase the amount of drinks that are sold and profit gained.

Drink Tokens-Have one night a week (or month) where tokens are purchased from a non-bar cashier and all drinks must be purchased from the bar with tokens. They can be sold individually or perhaps only in $10 or $20 bundles (at a discounted per drink price or not). Tokens can be printed to indicate they are only redeemable on that night each week, which has many tertiary benefits such as: tokens sitting on dressers at home will build repeat business on a targeted slow weeknight, and the constrained redemption window means more tokens will become souvenirs that never return.

Drink Token Bundles-This can be a periodic special or something that is always available. The idea is a simple volume discount up sell. Let the customer decide between paying $4 per drink one at a time or paying $30 for a bundle of ten tokens (25% discount). While this presents a modest value proposition to an individual patron who frequents the place, it will attract large groups who can take advantage of the shared buying power. Additionally, the larger the increment of the bundle, the larger the unused remainder is going to be that walks out the door (and may never return).

Cover charge includes drink tokens - bundling a free drink or two into the cover charge is a staple value-proposition that many bars utilize today, especially in entertainment venues. Using drink tokens just improves this already profitable souvenir-quality drink tokens where X% will walk out the door as extremely high-margin souvenirs (not to mention the free marketing aspect). Tokens can even be customized for particular events as commemoratives.

Free Drink Token with food purchase - another long standing up sell is to bundle a free drink with your meal purchase. It’s simply upping the value-proposition to the customer while only marginally increase the costs by adding a high-margin product to a low margin one. Give a drink token instead of a forced drink and that benefit becomes more attractive to a good percentage of your food customers as the token is: 1) transferrable to a friend for non-drinkers and designated drivers, 2) time shifting to another time for those that simply don’t want another drink right now, and 3) just a really cool souvenir for tourists and local collectors.

Free Appetizer tokens- tokens, while traditionally used as drink coupons, work equally as well when used as food tokens. Try a 2 for 1 appetizer special where the customer gets one appetizer and one token good for another later that day or on another day. Just like with bar tokens, the portability of a token and its ability to transfer the time of an incentive translate into a huge value add to the customer plus a good percentage of the tokens walk out the door and never return. And if they do return, they typically bring a customer with money in his/her pocket and likely a group of friends in too.