Blue Ridge Honey Company Marketing Plan

Created by:

Lauren Sellers, Julie Woodward, Justin Gahring,

Cori Kempshall, and Megan Mclendon

December 2015

Mary Norman

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1 Executive Summary

Blue Ridge Honey Company is a family business located in northern Georgia

dedicated to producing sustainable, high quality honey that is pure, natural, and non-pasteurized from our local hives. We are a privately owned company

that is inspected and approved through a third party Food Safety and Quality Audit conducted by NSF Cook & Thurber. We sell our honey through farmer’s

markets, online, wholesalers and retailers. Along with honey, the Blue Ridge

Honey Company provides beeswax and offers pollination services.

We are differentiated through our locally unique types of honey, our Bee

School, and selling our bees post honey season to groves to help pollinate

their crops. With these differentiated points we intend to expand our business further with our current customers as well as developing untapped segments.

We aim to increase our brand awareness by increasing our social media presence. Our company aims to expand our distribution network to include

more organic and local stores. This will help us reach our goal to increase our

business to business sales.

In the following document, we will discuss in depth the surrounding industry

of the Blue Ridge Honey Company and how our products differentiate us in the competitive honey and sweeteners industries.

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2 Table of Contents

1 Title Page

2 Executive Summary

4 Goals and Objectives

5 SWOT Analysis

6 Situational Analysis

11 Marketing Strategies

14 Implementation

15 Calendar for Marketing Efforts

16 Budget

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3 Goals

Expand our distribution network of honey to new retailers

Increase brand awareness of the Blue Ridge Honey Company

Improve internet marketing and social media sites

Increase sales online, in store, and through retailers

4 Objectives

Expand brand awareness through social media with videos, written

updates, pictures, and online brochures

Increase our followers on various social media sites by 20% in the first

year

Expand our distribution network to include organic specialty stores such

as a few Whole foods stores in the Southeastern region

Improve in-store sales by 25% by utilizing localized ads to elicit foot traffic

to the store and promoting direct online sales

Increase business to business sales to include more local stores in the

southeast and increase shelf space within the established stores

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5 SWOT Analysis

Strengths

Reasonably priced

Bob was voted the 2003 Georgia State Beekeeper of the Year by the

Georgia State Beekeepers

Association

Selection of products other than

honey include bees wax and candles

Wide selection of honey from a

variety of seven plants and flowers

Unique product selection

Bee Keeping has positive

environmental benefits

Well established relationships with

retailers

Weaknesses

Threatened bee source

Colony Collapse Disorder

Limited diferentiation for the honey itself

Lack of customer awareness about product benefits

Opportunities

Expansion outside Southeatstern

Region

Expand distribution of honey to

include new retailers such as Whole

Foods and other organic supply

stores locally

Expand product line

Increase awareness for local honey

Increase amount of behives in their

production facility

Offer sending bees by the truckload

to groves for pollination purposes

Connect with local crafters in the

areas

Bee School expansion to further

promote brand

Education concerning how vital bees are to the ecosystem and food supply

Threats

Many widely known competitors

Substitute sweetneners

Cheaper production in China

Land restrictions

Limited differentiation in the honey itself

Cost of producting wax is high

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6 Situational Analysis

Macro-Level External Environment

Political, Legal, and Ethical Environment

o The honey industry has undergone recent political, legal and ethical dilemmas because of the drastic decline in the honeybee population. Many

officials believe the decrease in the population is because of insecticide use.

Because of the severity of this situation, the EU is regulating the amount and type of insecticides used near where the bees live and pollenate. Scientists

call the regulation of insecticides a precautionary principle because if not

handled promptly and properly the results for the bee population could be

drastic. This challenges the ethical context of beekeeping and the harvesting

of honey. The Blue Ridge Honey Company is doing everything to maintain a

healthy bee population while producing the best quality product possible .

Sociocultural/Demographic Environment

o The honey industry is struggling to expand because of the recent decrease in bee populations. This decline will lead to a decrease in supply and an

increase in prices for the final consumer. This increase in price will affect

those who purchase honey as a luxury and not a necessity. The Blue Ridge

Honey Company provides raw honey as opposed to processes honey. Our

products are appealing to the upper class, educated individuals who most likely purchase honey on a regular basis for health benefits or for typical

consumption. Our company distributes to the southeastern United States and will appeal to similar people in the individual market areas.

Technological Environment

o There are multiple emerging technologies on the horizon for the bee keeping

industry. The Smart Beehive Management System monitors hives to allow them to take timely precautions in preventing the most common threats to

their colonies. It records the readings on the Cloud and will contact you if a

problem arises. The technology decreases the bee mortality rate, boosts the

revenues of beekeepers, cuts their supplies and labor costs, and improves the efficiency of their operations. Opportunities in technology such as this could

not only prove lucrative, but also perpetuate the sustainability of bees for

future generations.

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Economic Environment

o The honeybee population in the US provides not only profits from the selling of honey, but helps increase the profitability of the entire agricultural sector.

Their pollination abilities help to increase farm income by about $8-14 billion annually. However, in the honey industry alone, sales have been

trending downward as honey production decreases. The decrease in honey

supply has lead to a drastic increase in honey prices over the past several

years. In 2006 the cost of honey per pound averaged about $2.90. In 2015

the price per pound is about $5.00. This near doubling in price has impacted consumers on the wholesale and private label markets.

Natural/Sustainable Environment o Honey production increased by 19% from 2013 to 2014 and the average

colony produced 15% more honey during those same years. Other agricultural industries depend on the bee industry for natural pollination

services. The honeybee is vital to crops across the globe for pollinating. If the

bee population decreases, pollination will decrease, which will eventually

lead to a decline in crops and an increase in crop prices for the final consumer. Bee colonies are capable of sustaining themselves as long as they

are given access to the proper environment. Because of their positive

relationship with local surroundings, bee keeping and honey production is a very sustainable industry.

o Over the years we have been involved in the pollination of alfalfa, almonds,

cranberries, cucumbers, apples, crimson clover, Dutch white clover, sweet clover, squash, pumpkins, pears, cherries, strawberries, sunflowers, radish

seed, cabbage seed, watermelons, cantaloupe, plums and more which

exemplifies our involvement in other agricultural industries in the U.S.

Industry or Competitive Environment

Competition o Blue Ridge Honey Company has a vast amount of competitors. These

competitors come in the form of retailers, honey makers, wax makers,

beekeepers, etc. One of these companies, Really Raw Honey, is based out of Baltimore, Maryland. They specialize in selling raw honey but they also sell

pollen and a book titled Bee Lessons. They differentiate themselves by

focusing on selling raw honey. None of the honey they produce is ever

processed; it comes straight from the hive. Really Raw Honey is packed on-site at the beekeepers homes and farms. When purchasing online, customers

have to keep in mind that they won’t ship in weather above 88 degrees

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Fahrenheit to preserve the integrity of their honey. Customers can also

purchase a 12 pack of Really Raw Honey from Walmart’s website.

o Savannah Bee Company, based in Savannah, GA, not only offers raw honey, but also artisanal honey and what they call everyday honey. They also sell a

wide range of other products as well including honey straws, 100% pure

beeswax candles, honey roasted coffee, and all sorts of other gifts and

merchandise. They also carry a wide variety of beauty products including:

beeswax hand cream, beeswax heel balm, beeswax lip-gloss, and honey body wash. Among their products they also offer an online Bee Education tuto rial,

to help educate in the wonder of bees. In the North Georgia area there are

several locations where you can find their honey: Out of the Blue; From Me 2

U; The Red Door; Whitmire, Carol; Rucker Horse & Pet; and Posh on Main.

Customers can also purchase directly from their website.

o Blue Ridge Honey Company also receives competition from every Walmart location as well as Walmart’s website. In Walmart locations consumers can

find a selection of what the Savannah Bee Company calls “everyday” honey. If a consumer is looking for a wider range of honey, all they have to do is go

to the webpage and there are several different offerings of natural and raw

honey. Unfortunately for Walmart many of those options can only be purchased as a 12-pack container of honey.

o Not only does Blue Ridge Honey Company compete with other honey

growers and retailers but also with other beekeepers such as the Bushy

Mountain Bee Farm in North Carolina.

Industry o The industry as a whole is experiencing a shortage of bees, leading to a

shortage of honey. Really Raw Honey had to increase their prices due to shortages of honey, increased beekeeper wages, and increases in packing and

shipping costs.

o According to beekeepers across the country, bees began acting strangely

since 2006. These odd behaviors include: not laying eggs, going queenless, or

inexplicably trying to make multiple queens. In that same year a beekeeper in

New York, Jim Doan, discovered that of the 5,600 hives he kept, all but 600 of them were empty. By 2007 beekeepers across the world were finding that

their bees had not just died but vanished, which would be later known as

Colony Collapse Disorder.

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Buyers

o Real world business negotiations have been changing rapidly with the advent of the computer and online Internet bidding processes. Traditionally, bulk

industrial honey contracts may have been negotiated between buyers and suppliers over a month-long period; today they may be resolved in a 30-

minute period. With a new type of buyer in both retail packed and industrial

markets the game has a new set of rules.

Suppliers o Honey producers, packers and marketers negotiate with buyers for sales and

with suppliers for equipment and input purchases. Honey buyers and industry suppliers have bargaining power that can affect honey industry

profits. This bargaining power may include:

o Negotiating honey prices down or delaying payments, o Having packers or producers maintain honey inventories at their own

expense,

o Increasing the quality standards for honey without increasing prices (e.g.,

demanding implementation of food safety systems like HAACP that may be costly to implement or specifying reductions in permissible maximum

residue levels), and

o Increasing the price of input supplies (or reducing the quality of supplies).

Internal Environment

Firm Structure and Systems o Blue Ridge Honey Company is a family business, owned and operated by Bob

and Suzette Binnie, located in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Northeast Georgia.

o Bob began commercial beekeeping in 1981 in Oregon and has been involved

in commercial beekeeping in seven states. He handles all beekeeping and

sales while Suzette manages the office, website, and shipping department.

Firm Culture o We are small and family owned company. We value employee input and

encourage feedback. Every employee is competent and is able to play multiple roles in the company.

Firm Leadership

o Bob Binnie is the owner and is very involved in all of the bee and honey

processes. He is a hands-on leader, role model, and is able to handle the demanding schedule of maintaining multiple hives and has a strong

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understanding of the big picture for the company. With his wife and her team

handling the logistics, he can focus on the bees and honey production itself.

Firm Resources o Blue Ridge Honey Company maintains a retail building in Lakemont, Georgia

along with beehives in Georgia and North Carolina. Our “Honey House” is a

large warehouse that also contains our extractor, cappings spinner, sump

tank, and other processing and bottling products where we bottle the honey

ourselves. We own many Bee hives, and other tools necessary to cultivate the hives. We also sell their products to retailers across Georgia and the

Carolinas. Our marketing resources include a social media presence on

Facebook as well as participating in honey competitions and multiple

festivals across the southern states.

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7 Marketing Strategies

Marketing Mix

Product

Honey o Honey is the Blue Ridge Honey Company’s largest tangible asset. Our honey

is produced locally and comes in over eight varieties, sometimes more depending on the seasons in which the bees are producing. The honey is then bottled and sold in the standard bear size, 16 ounce bottles, and 32 ounce bottles. They can be sold individually or by the crate.

Beeswax/Pollen o Beeswax can be used in making candles and beauty products. Blue Ridge

offers the wax in 1 ounce and 1 pound bars. Bees also collect pollen, which is a great source of protein and other nutrients. The pollen can be consumed by adding it to. This is offered a 7-ounce jar.

Bee Starter Kit o The starter kit includes a queen bee, a hive, and the bees for the colony.

These sets are also known as nucleuses or “NUCS” for short. This encourages local hobbyist to care for their own bees and produce their own honey.

Bee School o An intangible asset, people can learn how to handle and care for bees. They

offer classes on their bee farm on how to care for the bees and bottle/store honey and honey products.

Price

Blue Ridge Honey Company price our honey competitively to encourage buyers to compare their honey to other generic and name brand honeys. The unit price of honey has risen steadily over the past decade. In January 2006, honey was averaging $3.88 per pound. By mid-2011 the price was averaging at $5.04 and is now in November 2015 at $6.92.

Bob and Suzette Binnie, the founders of Blue Ridge Honey Company, started bee keeping back in 1981. Because they have been in business for over 30 years, they have the knowledge of the industry that allows them to optimize their honey processing and keep their prices low.

Honey o Honey Bear: $4.75 o 16 oz. Jar: $6.50 o 32 oz. Jar: $12.50 o Gallon Jug: $54.00 o 60 lb. Container: $235.00

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Beeswax o 1 oz. Bar: $2.00 o 1 lb. Bar: $12.50

Bee Pollen o 7 oz. Jar: $9.75

Bees and Starter Kits o Bee kits deposit $25 o Nuclear home kit deposit $35 o NUCS range from $144.00-$155.00 o Packaged Bees $99.00

Distribution

We have well established relationships with retailers such as Kroger, Walmart,

Quality Foods, Piggly Wiggly, and other smaller retailers in Northern Georgia, and

limitedly in Alabama, North Carolina, and South Carolina. We privately distribute through local farmer’s markets in various locations in the southeast. We also offer

shipping of our products via online to anywhere in the US and some locations abroad.

Promotion

We will pursue Smart ads online, Facebook promotions, newspaper print ads,

brochures, and an email newsletter to promote our products and services. See Implementation section for further details.

Market Segmentation

The market for honey, honey related products, and education on beekeeping can be

attractive to multiple segments of people. Often the consumers of our retail honey products are middle class females with a family. The consumers of our products

presented at farmer’s markets are young, health conscious people who are seeking raw honey without additives.

Target Marketing

Our target market is specifically people in the southeastern United States who are

locally minded and are pursuing some form of health benefits from the food they consume. Our product is desired by all ages of people. Because our products are

locally created, our product can generate relief for allergy sufferers of any age, gender, or race who consume our products in the southeastern region.

Positioning Our raw honey is collected straight from the extractor; it is entirely unheated,

unpasteurized, unprocessed honey. This process of collecting honey makes our honey healthier than other “commercial” honey with unhealthy additives. Therefore, we position ourselves as a healthy, natural sweetener option for young health conscious adults and for the aging population who seek the health benefits of raw honey.

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Marketing Strategies

Market Penetration Strategy

o This strategy focuses on investing in existing customers to gain additional usage of existing products. We will increase promotions for our existing

products through social media and other ads as well as emphasize more heavily on our newer offerings of classes and NUCS. We will increase our

supply to existing retailers in order to increase our shelf space to gain additional market share.

Market Development Strategy o This strategy will allow for expansion of the firm’s product line into

untapped markets. We will attempt to secure a contract with at least five Whole Foods stores in Georgia in the first year to enter into the organic food

stores market. We will also engage with additional stores such as Kroger to

sell our products to more of their locations.

Social Media

We could boost our customer reach by expanding their social media presence. By implementing this plan we could involve ourselves in the lives of younger

consumers who are beginning to become more aware of their health and the

importance of consuming and using organic products.

A major platform we use is our Facebook profile. This has spread word of our company and our products to places no one thought possible and has increased the number of consumers purchasing on the online storefront. Another social medium that would build relationships is Instagram. Younger generations are very involved with documenting their day to day lives and posting the pictures on Instagram. Our Company can demonstrate business, bee keeping, honey, and other products using the picture sharing database. With over 300 million users, this tool is a concept that can build relationships with consumers and instill value in the products by demonstrating the process of making the honey and other miscellaneous products.

Therefore, with the 1.19 billion active users on Facebook combined with the 300 million Instagram users, our online reach is nearly limitless. The digital age of

business is here and if companies do not adapt they will surely get left behind. Our

company is doing everything possible to expand knowledge of the social media

world, which at the same time is contributing to market expansion.

If these social media marketing techniques prevails as expected, a Twitter account

can be formed allowing for direct access and communication with customers all over the world.

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8 Implementation

Smart Advertisements: We will create online advertisements that will run from the months of January-March and July-September.

Local Newspapers: We will procure ad space to feature an ad with a picture, our company name, website information, and concise list of products. We may include a calendar of which farmers markets we will be in attendance.

Newsletter: These documents will include a calendar of farmers markets we will attend, class schedules, and where we will send bees to help pollenate groves for companies. These can include a brief history, tutorials, recipes with our honey, updates on any new products, new systems or procedures in honey production, etc.

Brochure: These will include where our products are available for purchase. Brochures will also advertise our bee classes, bee starter kits (NUCS), and include many pictures. There will be a calendar of which farmers markets we will attend. The brochures will be available in hotels, travel guides, welcome centers, etc.

o Online version of our Brochure will be available on our website and Facebook page.

Free samples: We will offer free honey sticks of our most popular honeys which will be provided at farmers markets and will be complementary in any shipments of our products purchased online.

Promotional Videos: These videos will include different aspects of the production process, tutorial videos, educational videos on the benefits of honey and an inside view on how our bees create the honey.

Facebook: We will post which farmers markets we will be attending and we will pay $5 to appear on the pages of people who have liked our page which will allow their friends to see our posts. We will feature videos on our page.

o We will feature a Recipe of the Month on Facebook using our honey and other products.

Classes: We will host classes on how to care for bees for aspiring beekeepers as well as how to extract honey from the hives they have purchased from our supply. We will host other classes to teach them how to make homemade candles with our wax.

SEO Campaign: This will run throughout the year to maintain a prevalent online presence on search engines.

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9 Calendar for Marketing Efforts

Annual Marketing Plan Calendar Blue Ridge Honey Company

JAN FEB MAR APR MAY JUN JUL AUG SEP OCT NOV DEC

Advertising

Online ads Smart Ads Smart Ads

Mobile text ads

Yellow pages

Print ads Local Newspaper Ads

Direct Marketing

Email newsletters opt in for emails Inform about the Bee School

Direct mail

Mobile QR codes

Collateral

Brochure Create Brocure Reprint with updated Info Reprint Reprint- Holiday brochure

Sell sheets

Promotional items Free samples

Video/multimedia Advertise School Video About bees Video about process holiday video

Public Relations

Press releases as needed about Colony Collapse Disorder around the globe or other news

Editorials

Social Media

Facebook Use $5 promotion updates weekly

LinkedIn

Twitter

Google+

Instagram Establish an account Post pictures in tandem with Facebook

Website

Content/landing page

SEO campaign

Mobile website

1st Quarter 2nd Quarter 3rd Quarter 4th Quarter

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10 Budget

Annual Advertising Budget

Type of Advertising Cost Per Year Total Per Year

Online Ads (Pay-per-click) $4,500 2 $9,000

Print Ads $200 9 $1,800

Email Newsletter $4,000 1 $4,000

Brochure $2,000 4 $8,000

Video/Multimedia $25,000 1 $25,000

Press Releases $6,000 2 $12,000

Facebook $5 12 $60

Instagram $0 - $0

Website Content Optimization $0 - $0

Total Annual Budget $59,860

Newspaper print ad price is based on local newspaper rates in Georgia

Brochure pricing is based on Kinkos.com offerings

Video and multimedia production is based on a local, professional production

company

Facebook promotional prices are based on their available website

information

All other prices are based on supplemented documents

Future annual advertising budget can be adjusted based on viewed results

and sales