Exam paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Exam paper - Essay Example In this regard, the 30,000 residents of the suburb will form part of the clientele base, and more during the summer when most students of UD will not be in session. Indeed, Mike has evidence that sales are higher during the summer. For this reason, the resident of this suburb should also be part of the initial marketing strategy. In addition, the franchise should develop future marketing plans with an intention of ensuring that they created customer loyalty with the Delawareans living in this suburb. In effect, Mike will have customers in his Scoop Shop all year round. The area where the franchise plans to locate its operations is undergoing developments and changes. In this case, the franchise will have a few competitors at the introductory stage. However, Mike’s shop will offer more products than those offered by these competitors, which makes his products differentiated. In this case, a marketing strategy that the franchise will design at first must aim at publicizing these differentiated products and creating an impression that customers will experience more value for their money. In addition, the strategy must sustain value to ensure that the franchise had a long-term sustainability advantage due to expected future direct and indirect competition. In effect, the marketing strategy should aim at creating a customer base that was loyal and making it challenging for new competitors to venture into the same market. The franchise has set its grand opening for the months of February, March, and April. During the month of April, Ben & Jerry will hold the Free Cone Day, which is the only promotion it has mandated. During the designing of the marketing strategy, Mike should take advantage of this day and ensure that the grand opening culminated with this day. All along, the franchise should project itself as an organization that operated in an environmental and socially conscious approach, which goes hand-in-hand with the hippy image of Ben & Jerry. The fran chise has a potential to grow due to the opportunity it offers in terms of catering services. Although this is not in Mike’s immediate plans, it would be important for Mike to launch the catering services during the promotion period so that he can start acquiring a customer base for this service. In this regard, Mike will establish the service in the initial launch, which will be cheaper than launching it later. Qn. 2 Statement of the Franchise’s Objectives Mike’s franchise is getting into a mix of existing and new market. Consequently, his objective in the first six months of business should aim at maximizing the market share for his franchise, which he will have to capture from the existing direct and indirect competitors. In line with this, it is evident that the franchise’s target population is aware of the products that Mike intends to introduce to the existing market. In this regard, 70% of a random sample of adults in the US between the age of 18 a nd 64 years old was aware of the ice cream sold by Ben & Jerry. On the other hand, Mike’s other objective in the first six months should not be a revenue-oriented one since he is bringing differentiated products into the market. In this case, he has hot beverages, which most of his potential customers are not aware that a Scoop Shop sells. Hence, the franchise sh