With the success of Kudler Fine Foods (KFF) in the in-store party business, it believes it can now take that same success into the catering business. When a store takes on a new idea such as this, marketing becomes very important. This paper will look at the marketing mix, in particular the four P’s (product, price, place, and promotion) and how they will help KFF promote its new service and who it will market/promote its new services to.
The market research that KFF has used is based on questionnaire data (Kerin, Hartley, Berkowitz, Rudelius, 2006). KFF asked between 53-66 customers (depending on the question/statement) to respond to statements about KFF services. The statements related to price, service, knowledge of the customer service representative and overall satisfaction with the store. The feedback was largely positive for both years (2006, 2007) that the market survey was done. As far as the value of the research, it is valuable as a tool to determine whether or not the philosophy of the company in terms of how it serves its customers is the right approach and according to the research it is (University of Phoenix, 2008). It is tough to evaluate the market research as a whole without knowing whether or not the customers are repeat customers or have just been there a couple of times. Also if KFF is going to be going into the catering service business, it would have behooved it to ask customers how they feel about KFF possibly catering a party at a home or business event. More importantly, it should have asked whether people would pay for it. When performing market research, it is important to focus on the initiative being concentrated on at that time (Kerin, 2006), in other words, if KFF is interested in providing a catering service, it should concentrate its research interest in finding out the interest of potential customers. When it comes to the type of research, the market survey is a good idea, however if KFF was able to get customers on a mailing list, so that they can send surveys through e-mail, it would be able to reach a larger base.
The four P’s as it relates to KFF’s catering service are as follows. The product is the food and general service offered by KFF at selected events/parties. In KFF’s case if the food is good and the service is satisfactory, then people/businesses will request KFF to come back. If not, then not only will KFF not get repeat customers, they will not have the word of mouth from satisfied customers. The price is the money KFF will charge for its catering service. At the moment KFF is increasing its marketing efforts toward its catering service in order to be able to charge more for the food and the service (University of Phoenix, 2008). The way KFF is promoting is catering service is to post flyers in its stores advertising its catering. KFF plans to start having clerks put flyers in the bag of customers leaving the store until 10,000 flyers have been distributed (University of Phoenix, 2008). When KFF gets it website developed, it plans to link to information on its catering service. The place is wherever the gathering that needs catering takes place, usually a party in a home, office or church.
Kudler should ask the customers what products it should offer. There are many ways that a company can find out what customers want. One way is observational data (Kerin, 2006), Kathy Kudler can actually watch the consumers eat the food provided and get their immediate reaction. She can also monitor conversations about the food to see what changes may need to be made, if any. Market research similar to what was done in 2006 and 2007 with a focus on the catering service and the food provided is also a good way to determine whether or not KFF is on the right track with the food it serves. An idea that may be under the radar, but can still be important is to find out either through observation or when making the appointment for the catering asking how many children (18 and under) are going to be there (because of KFF’s target market, very few parties, if any will be marketed with kids in mind first, except for maybe proms if KFF wants to expand its horizons). Obviously kids are going to have differing tastes than adults, so this is an opportunity for KFF to expand on the foods it provides to parties and in its store in general.
Benchmarking (Reh, 2008) is a good way to decide the price of the food provided by KFF. While benchmarking is about much more than setting price (its more finding out what companies set standards in your industry), if KFF is able to compare its product with the ones provided by other food stores/restaurants and see what they charge for its food, then KFF will have something to go on. KFF is benchmarking Nordstrom department stores (University of Phoenix, 2008) in terms of how it provides service, now it needs to find a food store to benchmark in order to compare prices. Another way is to perform some sort of market research (a questionnaire similar to the one KFF already uses for its market surveys would seem to work well here) on how customers feel about the price of the catering service. That is especially important if KFF plans on raising the prices of its catering service. A question asking if KFF’s catering service is provided at a fair and reasonable price would be an example. As far customers who are looking into having KFF cater for them for the first time, a different twist on the same question would suffice. An example may be “how do you feel about paying ‘x’ amount for us to cater your wedding?”
In terms of a catering service, the place is where the actual service, in terms of serving food would take place. That place would usually be a house, a church; a school or any building a party/wedding/funeral may take place. The difference in place between KFF’s catering service and its regular business activities is for the most part the service/product provided by KFF takes place inside the one of its three stores (University of Phoenix, 2008) as opposed to the catering which takes place outside of the store.
There are various ways that Kudler can market its new catering service, a few of them are already being done or are in the process of being done. Other ideas may be to post flyers outside of schools in the weeks leading up to the prom. Another idea is to post flyers outside of churches or provide flyers for business offices. According to Kerin, a key aspect of marketing is two parties with unsatisfied needs. KFF’s need is to make money and its hope is that people and/or businesses have parties that need to be catered and posting flyers in places where catering may be needed eventually is a great way to get clients. As stated earlier, another idea is to get a mailing list for customers. Because the relationship between Kathy Kudler and her customers works well in this instance, because she can just ask her customers for their e-mail address if they are interested in future promotions from KFF. Another way may be a sweepstakes, similar to what WWE did earlier this year (Clark, 2008). KFF could have a giveaway through a sweepstakes and get e-mail address or mailing address that way (you would need them anyway to give away the prize).
Because KFF’s target market is financially well off people in their late 30’s to early 40’s (according to KFF’s intranet site, the average age of their customers is 39), the Internet can be used as a way to have the client order food or set up appointments online. Another thing about the client base of KFF is that they are for the most part working people who may not have time to always come in to get KFF’s product, KFF has an opportunity to use its Internet site to not only further build a relationship with existing (yet busy) customers, but to build a base of other customers outside the immediate area of the three stores.
One way that KFF”s decision to go into catering meshes with its other major plan to use local organic growers is that because using local growers will save money on paying providers and transportation that funding could be used to market the catering service to new customers. Another way that it is compatible is KFF can offer healthy and natural foods in a catered environment, which is not always the case with catered food at parties (www.datamatixgroup.com, 2008). The type of food that KFF provides, especially if grown locally and organically appeals to its consumer base (as opposed to not appealing to kids and teenagers who are outside of its consumer base and would very rarely be catered to on most occasions by KFF). KFF not only has a chance to expand its business with its catering service, it also has the chance to expand its marketing horizons in an attempt to sell its new plan to its consumer base and the general public as well. There is also an opportunity for KFF to grow its consumer base by using the Internet and catering parties that appeal to people outside of its consumer base (or at least parties that will include people outside of its consumer base). Possibly its most important opportunity is that KFF has a chance to provide healthy catered food to its customers, which is a rarity in the catering business.
Clark R, WWE touts Million Dollar giveaways winners, http://www.wrestlinginc.com/news/2008/610/vince_mcmahon_326602
Kerin, R.A., Hartley, S.W, Berkowitz, E.N; Rudelius W, Marketing, University of Phoenix, MBA/502-Managing the Business Enterprise Web site.
Reh, How to Use Benchmarking in Business, http://management.about.com/cs/benchmarking/a/Benchmarking.htm
datamatrixgroup, Fast Food Quality and Catering Conference, http://www.datamatixgroup.com/conferences/profile.asp?id=481
