final edgewater marketing plan
TRANSCRIPT
Edgewater Marketing Plan
Kannah Creek Edgewater BreweryMarketing for winter months, Events and Social Gatherings
Authors:
Duncan Alger, Lauren Bush, Laruen Elliott, Courtney McGinnis
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Contact Information
Contact: Katlin Birdsall
Marketing Coordinator (970) 243-0702
Kannah Creek Brewing Company (970) 243-3659
Edgewater Brewery
Hours: Sunday-Thursday 11am-10pm and Friday & Saturday 11am-11pm
Address: 905 Struthers Ave. Grand Junction, CO 81501
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Table of ContentsContact Information…………………………………………………....Pg 2
Situational Analysis………………………………………………….....Pgs 4-7
SWOT Analysis…………………………………………………………Pgs 7-9
Goals & Strategies……………………………………………………...Pg 9
Marketing Implementation Plan………………………………….......Pgs 10-12
Evaluation & Controls…………………………………………….......Pgs 12-16
Executive Summary……………………………………………………Pgs 17-19
Work Cited………………………………………………………….......Pg 20
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Situational Analysis:
The mission that Edgewater strives to maintain is its focus on creating an environment that
everyone can feel comfortable in, whether it be the employees or the customers. With
knowledgeable staff, friendly service, and incredible scenery, this location has a competitive
advantage unlike any brew house or restaurant in town. Along with strengths comes weaknesses.
It is our job to conduct the marketing plan for Edgewater and make it stand out from the rest.
Different than even the sister-location, Kannah Creek Brewing Company located on 1960 North
12th St. Grand Junction, CO 81501 just across from the Colorado Mesa University campus.
Choosing a name is a long, thoughtful, and well-researched process, and it is also something that
could make or break a business immediately. A name should have meaning and help potential
customers understand what the company does and the products they are selling. Kannah Creek
Brewery had the name come to them, thanks to the actual Kannah Creek which descends from
the melting snowpack atop the Grand Mesa. This water is a very important source of water and it
needs little treatment, because its pure origins create safe drinking water standards. Water is
essential for beer (accounts for 90% of its volume). Its mineral content affects a beer’s ultimate
flavor profile and supports the yeast which turns the sugar into alcohol. The name is perfect for
the brewery, because it is simple and has great history behind it, which interests its customers.
As a marketing group we wanted to establish two main factors when it came to the
situational analysis and those two factors are the internal and external environment. Meaning
what internal factors are harming the business and what internal factors are proving successful
for this company. External factors focus on what Kannah’s main competitors are and what
external factors are helping them, such as location, brand name and so forth. Understanding these
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two factors will ultimately help the organization's capabilities, customer relations, and business
environment. Kannah Brewery Edgewater is a fantastic restaurant, bar and venue for events. We
specifically wanted to focus on the events, special occasions and social gatherings that take place
at the Edgewater brewery as well as increasing revenue over the winter months compared to the
last years. To better understand our situational analysis we took a look at five main aspects of the
analysis; those being our competition, the political forum of the geographical area, economical
factors as well as a social cultural vision of our product and a technological view of our market.
After looking at these five main aspects we discovered there are many local restaurants and bars
in Grand Junction but there are much fewer local breweries, and even fewer that have a full
service restaurant and bar with event space. Kannah Creek Brewery Edgewater brews their own
beer on site and serves up amazing food to go along with it. But the part that really attracted us
as a group was the location. Tucked away just off Main Street Grand Junction by the river and a
great bike riding location is Edgewater. On a whopping 3 acre lot with over 1,500 feet of lawn
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space, you could not have a more perfect location to host incredible events. So our goal is to help
them market, promote, advertise their events and how to attract new customers, larger crowds as
well as retain their current customers.
With this situational analysis, which is basically our starting point, we want to be clear,
concise, knowledgeable, focused and realistic about our product. We know we face many
challenges in the way of competitors such as Palisade Brewery, Ale House, Rockslide Brewery
as well as many others. This brings me into our next subject which is the market size. Since we
are focusing on a smaller market segment we have to specialize our product and service even
more. This means getting a leg up on the competition in order to out market our competitors.
Edgewater’s event staff and facility is unlike any in town, it is much more event based where as
other breweries focus more on their restaurant and bar facilities. For example in September alone
they already have more than ten events in place such as the Botanical Gardens Concert, Firkin
Fundraiser, Red Fox Cellars Pairings and many beer festivals and tastings in other locations.
They also offer an onsite tour of their brewery and give a free tasting at the end. On the lawn
they offer amenities such as corn hole, lawn games, a small stage for live music as well as tents,
chairs and tables for larger and more formal events.
We wanted to mention their locally brewed beer such as the Lands End Amber Ale and
the Standing Wave Pale Ale which both won national and international awards for their taste.
This is one, if not the main attraction for Kannah Creek Edgewtaer. Many customers will travel a
long way just for the beers listed above as well as the other specialty beers they brew. This takes
us in to our target market, beer consumers. That is the basis for the majority of Edgewater’s
events and their customers’ preference. Specifically our group wants to help market, advertise
and promote more beer events, tastings and festivals that can cater to Colorado Mesa students
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that are 21 and above. Kannah is also a huge part of the local community. One big way that
Kannah Creek contributes to the community is by giving back. Every year they give back to the
local community and in the last two years they hosted the monthly Firkin Fundraisers as we
stated earlier, where they were able to raise almost $20,000 for 24 different local nonprofits. One
of their biggest moments of giving back put them on the market for doing good deeds and
succeeding tremendously, and that moment was last year with the inaugural bottling of the
Crossed Irons Irish Ale. Kannah was able to raise $1,058 for the Colorado Chapter of the Terry
Farrell Firefighters Fund.
SWOT Analysis:
When we were looking at the SWOT Analysis for Edgewater Brewery we wanted to
weigh the risks and rewards of the business and how we could ultimately get a higher reward for
the marketing skills of the Edgewater Brewery. This analysis is basically an analytical
framework that can help your business face its greatest challenges and find its most promising
new market. This analysis will lead to business awareness and is the cornerstone of any
successful strategic plan and enables organizations to identify both internal and external
influences. Outside of business, other organizations have found much use in the method's
guiding principles. For example, community health and development, education, and other
groups have used the analysis. The SWOT's primary objective is to help organizations develop a
full awareness of all the factors, positive and negative, that may affect strategic planning and
decision-making. This goal can be applied to almost any aspect of industry. The following are
strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats that we found specifically for the Edgewater
Brewery.
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Strengths:
• Patio/grass space• Different than other Kannah• Can host a wide variety of events• Brew house• Indoor bar• Outdoor stage• Kannah brand name• Marketing for events• Event schedule
Weaknesses:
• Location• Not a strong college influence• Shuttle system for college students or mav rides (Thursday-Saturday) • Cater to a different age demographic• Not large indoor space
Opportunities:
• Could have more frequented event eg: live music once a week, student deals, family events.
• Could have events hosted by college (offer discount) • Cater events at college use Edgewater name• Market more on campus (have campus rep)• Punch cards for college kids
• Involved in pub night• Do something like CD does with flip night• Team up with other locations do a world beer tour or pub crawl/discount theme• More deals• Student saver
Threats:
• Other bars in town• Cheaper prices• Different menu at other Kannah • Far from campus• Other venues in town with catering businesses• Pub night• Concerts • Places that offer live music
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Goals and StrategiesGoals:
The most important goal is to create a marketing plan and propose events that are successful for
Edgewater Brewery. It is important that Edgewater trusts our techniques and has faith in us to
plan events for their business.
1. First, developing new markets to increase sales by at least 5% in the upcoming one year
period. Edgewater is hoping to keep revenue steading during the winter. It is difficult for
them to retain a large percentage of sales when the outdoor lawn isn’t being utilized. The
marketing director stated, “Sales drop significantly during the winter months and we put
on almost no events during the winter.” By increasing sales by at least 5% for the 2015-
2016 winter season could be a large contribution to Edgewater.
2. Second, Edgewater can increase their market share by attracting business from their
competitors such as Alehouse, Rockslide Suds Brothers, and Peach Street Distillery.
3. Third, by developing awareness of what Edgewater has to offer through advertising,
promotions, and events, this can bring in more business for different target markets.
Edgewater can follow some of the tactics that Kannah employs.
4. Fourth, it would be most beneficial to Edgewater to create a brand and offer something
specific. Something that differs or coincides with brewery. Here we are focusing on
events and utilizing their open lawn space.
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Strategies:Ultimately, we would like to boost customer confidence and create a brand. By creating a
brand we can leverage emotions and establish a passionate connection between customers and
Edgewater products and services.
1. The first strategy to be successful in reaching our first goal is to create events to get
people to Edgewater. By hosting large events this can ultimately reach our number one
goal of increasing revenue by 5%. This is a reasonable increase based on their 15%
growth in the past year.
2. The second strategy to reach our second goal is to help Edgewater offer something that
no other brewery and pub in Grand Junction offers. Fall, winter, spring or summer it
doesn’t matter what season, people will always want to come to Edgewater because of
this specialized product or service.
To be able to reach our third goal, we need to get a younger target market to be more
aware of Edgewater. A big setback is that Edgewater is far away from campus and where a lot of
college age students live. By reinforcing events through the college with live music, pub nights,
etc., Edgewater can excel. Kannah Creek just celebrated their ten year anniversary in October on
their outside patio and they are involved in various brewing events. Edgewater could do the same
celebrating different events on their outdoor lawn and being more involved in hosting different
occasions to utilize their space. In completing our fourth goal of creating a brand, we are pulling
everything together in our other objectives: creating events, boosting revenue and customer
confidence. By being successful in these areas, we will be able to meet all of our goals.
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Marketing Implementation Plan
The strategic marketing process consists of three phases: planning, implementation and control.
When created effectively, this process ensures the success of an organization’s marketing
strategy. When you focus on the implementation phase of the process, which is the putting of the
marketing strategies and plans into action, there are ways to help make this step as successful as
possible. After completing our SWOT analysis as well as our situational analysis and identifying
our goals and strategies for our marketing plan, our next step is to implement these ideas and put
them into action. Our main goal for Edgewater is to increase sales, revenue and events during the
winter months when sales typically decrease and profit tends to go down. Another goal of ours is
to come up with more events, specifically events that would attract college students that are 21
and over and retain the current customers. In order to achieve these goals we have put in place
certain strategies to achieve them, and progress reports on how the goals are being achieved in
order to track the progress and movement of the task.
Goal #1: Increase revenue, sales and number of events from November-March.
We are going to achieve this by hosting a number of events at the Edgewater Brewery. We came
up with several marketing events that can help increase the number of customers and more
specifically, college students 21 and above that are attracted to Edgewater.
Event # 1: The first event we planned is having CMU's SnowSlay Club host an event at
Edgewater. SnowSlay is a skiing/snowboarding club that has a large ski-snowboarding ramp.
This event would bring in customers interested in skiing and snowboarding as well as University
students by setting up a mini jump and grind rail in the outdoor Edgewater space. We thought we
would offer a college special that would interest students. The event would take place from 3-6
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pm during Edgewater's' Happy Hour. Additionally a pint of Edgewater's' choice would be on
'sale' at $3. Bring your ski and snowboards and come on down to ride the jump and rail, don't
forget to sign the release waiver! In order to implement this event we would receive acceptable
dates from Katlin, the marketing director at the Edgewater Brewery. We would then get into
contact with the SnowSlay Club and make sure they are on board. Marketing purposes would
take place by SnowSlay handing out flyers at Colorado Mesa University, flyers at The Point our
on campus bar, marketing at Kannah Creek Brewery, and the 4 of us using marketing techniques
through word of mouth, social media, and certain locations around the city.
Event # 2: The second event we are wanting to plan is a ski and gear swap. This would
attract a large amount of people during the winter months due to the fact that we have a large
population of individuals in this town that are interested in skiing and snowboarding as well as
other winter sports. We would start by again gaining approval from Katlin, the Director of
Marketing at the Edgewater Brewery. After we have gained approval we would then contact
individuals as well as notify and market to the community for gear to donate and/or sell at the ski
swap. We would then set a date for this specific event. By setting the date far in advance this will
give us time to gather gear, get the proper equipment and staff to run this event and give us time
to market correctly. Marketing can take place around CMU campus, specifically the Outdoor
Program and their connections. Outdoor retail stores could also be a great tool in marketing
efforts, such as posters at stores such as REI, Loki, and Summit Canyon Mountaineering. This
event would give us a rise in number of customers during the winter months, raising sales and
revenue.
Event # 3: The third marketing technique we have in place is not necessarily an event
but rather a deal or discount for students of Colorado Mesa University. The idea we have is a
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beer game, similar to the ones they have at Old Chicago's. It would consist of having a beer card
for students. Any time after 9pm students would get any pint for 3 dollars and after 9 purchased
beers they would receive their 10th beer for free, again after 20 beers they would receive a free
appetizer the third and final prize would be after their 30th beer they receive a free Kannah
Creek Edgewater brewery pint glass. After their final prize if they continue to bring their card
they would receive a 10% discount on beer and well liquors. This would be called a Kannah
Creek student Pass or a Student frequent drinker’s card. This would increase sales and revenue
during the winter months because it would get students in the door and continuing to come back.
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Evaluation & Controls
Control:
Control is the way that we catch failures in implementation or strategy. The company may have
implemented poorly, set the wrong marketing mix, aimed at the wrong target market, or done
poor initial research. When it comes to Edgewater Brewery we do not think that is the case,
however we feel that there are definitely areas they can improve. For example when it comes to
setting the marketing the mix we believe there is a huge market of customers that the brewery is
passing up the opportunity on, that group being college students that are 21 or older. Resetting
the marketing mix and including this new market segment could enhance their customer base,
bring in more revenue, profits and increase their branching out of age diversity, not to mention
the fact that it could make their brand loyalty rise by introducing some of their loyal customers in
this market segment to other options involving the company. Control is not a singular thing, but a
host of tools for making sure that the company is on track. There are five main types of
marketing control systems, those being Annual-plan control, Profitability control, Efficiency
control, Strategic control and marketing audit. Its aim is to ensure that the company achieves the
sales, profit and other goals established in the beginning of the year. We plan on implementing
these control systems into our marketing plan in order to successfully control and regulate The
Edgewater Brewery's goals, challenges, market segments and much more. Starting with Annual
Control.
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Annual Control:
The basis of annual-plan control is managerial objectives—that is to say, specific goals,
such as marketing and profitability, which are established on a monthly or quarterly basis, in this
case over the winter months. Organizations typically use five tools to monitor plan performance.
The first is sales analysis, in which sales goals are compared with actual sales.
I. Sales analysis: (comparing sales targets to actual sales and accounting for
discrepancies). So for this we will compare sales of the previous year and off that, we will
project possible sales during the winter months, specifically (October through February). We will
take into account all the extra event and marketing done for Edgewater in this upcoming year.
II. Market-share analysis: (comparing the Edgewater's "sales" with those of its
competitors). The Brew house should also compare its own sales to the total sales in the local
market and to sales within its "market segment" (neighboring businesses, businesses which share
its similar ideals, same-size Breweries, etc.).
III. Expense-to-sales analysis: demonstrates the range of costs - both explicit and hidden
(implicit) - of achieving the company's sales goals.
IV. Financial analysis: calculates various performance ratios such as profits to sales
(profit margin), sales to assets (asset turnover), profits to assets (return on assets), assets to worth
(financial leverage), and, finally, profits to worth (return on net worth of infrastructure).
V. Customer satisfaction: is the ultimate indicator of tracking goal achievement. The
company should actively seek, facilitate, and encourage feedback, both positive and negative by
creating friendly and ubiquitous complaint and suggestion systems with their customers and
locals.
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Profitability Control:
Profitability control and efficiency control allow a company to closely monitor its sales,
profits, and expenditures. Profitability control demonstrates the relative profit-earning capacity
of a company’s different products and consumer groups. For this specific marketing plan we will
not be diving that deep into the process but what we plan on providing for Kannah Creek
Edgewater is a marketing campaign that will offer marketing techniques and tools that will help
increase their sales, profits and market segments. This will then supply them with a basis for
what to compare to in the future. Many companies are frequently surprised to find that a small
percentage of their products and customers contribute to a large percentage of their profits but
this is the case for majority of business in this field.
Efficiency control:
Efficiency control involves micro-level analysis of the various elements of the marketing
mix, including sales force, advertising, sales promotion, and distribution. We believe this will be
the biggest impact we serve for the Brew House as well as events. For example, to understand its
sales-force efficiency, Edgewater may keep track of how many sales a server or bartender makes
each day, how much each sales is, and how much each sale costs and generates in revenue. Also
what items are sold, what time of day and who was the customer.
Strategic control:
Strategic control processes allow managers to evaluate a company’s marketing program
from a critical long-term perspective. This involves a detailed and objective analysis of a
company’s organization and its ability to maximize its strengths and market opportunities.
Kannah Edgewater is a very young company so it is hard to judge their performance and revenue
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off of just two years, when the company is still working out the kinks so to speak, however once
Edgewater establishes a clear and controlled basis for all their marketing, advertising and
promotion campaigns they will be able to then involve a detailed and objective analysis of their
organization.
Marketing audit:
The marketing audit is, in some respects, the raw material for the strategic control. Its
role is to periodically make sure that the marketing plan emphasizes Kannah Creek Edgewater's
strengths in ways that are compatible with shifting market sentiments, current events, fashions,
preferences, needs, and priorities of relevant market players. Especially within the local market,
it is important to focus on similar business but you have to relate them to a local sense, you
cannot compare Kannah to a small brewery in Boston because it is not the same market and has
completely different aspects of the way they do business, so always compare your business to
local and similar companies. This helps to identify marketing opportunities and new or potential
markets.
Evaluation:
The evaluation step of a marketing plan focuses on analyzing quantitative and qualitative
metrics associated with the implementation and strategy. Quantifiable metrics are those to which
numbers can be attached, such as the numbers of sales leads obtained, customers reached and
dollar amounts achieved. But we wanted to focus more on the evaluation of the marketing,
advertising and promoting of Kannah Creek Edgewater. The qualitative factors, meaning
customer satisfaction is still very important but from a marketing standpoint we want to put an
emphasis on how we can attract these customers so we can satisfy them. Evaluating the
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marketing plan means looking at the data and examining whether or not the company achieved
its strategy objectives from the implementation phase. So our goal is next year after we have
given this marketing plan to the Kannah Creek Edgewater marketing staff, we want to see if they
have implemented some of our marketing strategies and advertising objectives to complete these
overall goals of increasing revenue during the winter months, hosting more events during the
winter and introducing a new target market of college students 21 and over. If they did do this,
the steps can be replicated for future success. If not, changes can be made to improve
performance and results for future years.
Executive Summary
Since winter is the season we are currently focused on the most to bring in more revenue,
it is important to be wise when choosing the dates to host one of the pitched events. One of our
goals is to bring in more people that are 21 and up, most of them being students at the university.
It is important to be aware that we want to host events that a lot of people can attend, so choosing
a date in the middle of December won’t be very smart since most students that we are wanting to
draw in will be on break.
Edgewater is currently doing well throughout the rest of the year with bringing in
customers, because of the event space they have to offer. That space is their biggest advantage
when it comes to competing with the other breweries and restaurants in the local area. Ale house
tends to use their outdoor area quite often for events, but their space is smaller than what
Edgewater has to offer. The larger the event that Edgewater can hold, the grander it will be
which will help bring in more potential customers.
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Marketing for these events will also remind students about the brewery and catch more
interest from people on and around campus. One big reason for why people come to Grand
Junction is because it is an active small city. Edgewater is located in a phenomenal area next to
the river and behind Main Street. Students are able to make it to the bars on Main Street, so we
are sure that if they knew about the events being put on at Edgewater they will go that small
extra distance to spend their money on something that is active and fun all while enjoying cold
beers.
Students listen to other students when it comes to planning what to do for the night or
weekend, so it is our job now to put Edgewater in their mouths. We have the upper hand,
because if Edgewater is to work with us by putting on one of these events they will instantly
have a larger crowd attend during the winter, helping us succeed at our revenue goal. It is very
possible to achieve our goal for the winter season and to make Edgewater the “hot-spot” year
round.
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Work cited
Edgewater Brewery. (n.d.). Retrieved October 30, 2015, from
http://www.kannahcreekbrewingco.com/edgewater-brewery/
Effective evaluation and control plan. (n.d.). Retrieved November 3, 2015, from
http://annmacapanas.weebly.com/effective-evaluation-and-control-plan.html
Grunert, J. (n.d.). Why Are Implementation, Evaluation & Control of the Marketing Plan
Necessary? Retrieved November 3, 2015, from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/implementation-
evaluation-control-marketing-plan-necessary-75170.html
Situational Analysis in Marketing: Examples, Definition & Format. (n.d.). Retrieved October 30,
2015, from http://study.com/academy/lesson/situational-analysis-in-marketing-examples-
definition-format.html
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