What is Integrated Marketing Channels (IMC)?Integrated marketing communications (IMC) refers to integrating and coordinating the company’s many communications channels (Promotional Mix) to deliver a

MKT 113: Final Project Part I Final Submission

Tip Top Bakery Product Overview

Anastasia Bo

SCHOOL NAME

Tip Top Bakery has been in business for over 20 years and has five locations in New Hampshire. It has a successful breakfast and lunch business making custom orders. To accommodate its growing lunch business and respond to increased competition, the owner has decided to start selling pre-packaged “to go” sandwiches. One of the primary target markets of the bakery is businesspeople, so Tip Top hopes that the new offering will appeal to individuals without time to have a sit-down lunch but who are still looking for a high-quality lunch product.

To help the Tip Top Bakery decide how to best market its new offering, a SWOT analysis on the product is recommended. The bakery can use this to identify how it can leverage its strengths to best take advantage of the opportunities in the market.

Figure 1: SWOT analysis for Tip Top Bakery

The Tip Top Bakery has several strengths to highlight in its marketing activities. The bakery has a good reputation for serving healthy and delicious sandwiches, its lunch items are priced in line with competing bakeries, and it is known for using fresh, local ingredients. These strengths correlate well with the opportunities identified in the SWOT. The first opportunity is the trend to eat healthy, local foods. Tip Top already has a reputation for serving this type of food and should be able to transfer that to the new product. The second opportunity is the trend for shorter lunch breaks. Tip Top has already noticed an increase in the number of people who ask for custom-made sandwiches “to go.” It can take advantage of this with its new product.

The primary target market for the new “to go” sandwiches is business professionals. This makes sense given that the bakery already has locations in the business districts of Manchester, Portsmouth, and Concord. For the new product, it is recommended that Tip Top begin by rolling it out only in its locations in Manchester. If successful, it can expand to its other locations. Manchester has over 11,000 businesses located within the city (Manta, 2015), and the bakery’s two locations are easily accessible by many of these businesses. Additionally, research shows that more than two thirds of Americans buy their lunch every day (Wolters Kluwer Law & Business, 2015), which also demonstrates a need for this new product. Further demographic research reveals that according to the PRIZM segmentation, three of the five primary segments in the Manchester area have professional jobs, a high level of homeownership, and high household incomes (The Nielsen Company, 2015). Thus they can spend a little extra on lunch. This data indicates that working professionals will be a great market segment target for Tip Top.

The working professionals market is an important one for Tip Top. This group primarily own their own home and have a professional white-collar job and an above-average household income. In addition, two of the top segments in this area are over 55 years of age (The Nielsen Company, 2015). This age group seeks convenience, as they tend to feel very rushed during the business day. Those in the over-55 set also feel a need to be healthy in their food choices, so they may be more discerning in their choices. In addition, this target market demonstrates two key wants in the bakery’s favor. The first is the want to support local businesses over large chains, and the second is their want to eat out for lunch for social reasons. The social aspect of going out to eat, even just going with a coworker to get takeout, is one of the most commonly mentioned reasons for buying lunch (Berman, 2014). The bakery’s new product fulfills all of these wants and needs.

Tip Top Bakery should focus on two primary marketing strategies to promote its new product: social media and in-store promotion. There are many ways the bakery can use social media to promote the new product; however, it is specifically recommended to develop a Facebook page that includes coupon offers or discounts for people who “like” its page. To encourage current followers to try the new product, Tip Top should promote it through pictures and information on daily specials. The bakery should also create an Instagram page where it can cross-post the photos from Facebook. As the algorithms for who sees posts on Facebook pages become more restrictive, using Instagram can help Tip Top reach a broader audience. The second online approach recommended is to use coupon sites such as Groupon and review sites such as Yelp. These channels could help to bring in people who are in the bakery’s target market but who do not yet visit the bakery. The second recommended marketing strategy is in-store promotion. The bakery already has a large clientele for breakfast and sit-down lunch; it can inform its current customers about the new product through signs on the doors and table tents at the register and on the tables. In addition, it could offer a percentage discount for a “to go” lunch if customers brought in their receipt from a previous purchase from that day. This would encourage folks who came in for coffee or breakfast to return for lunch. Both suggested strategies rely heavily on the price element of the 4 P’s by offering coupons or discounts off of the new product.

The Tip Top Bakery should avoid a television marketing strategy. Although local television potentially could reach the target market, the high cost and the limited ability to track the response to the ad limits its usefulness to the bakery. If this marketing strategy was to be used, it should focus on the product itself, presenting the benefits of the new “to go” lunch options. It could include a price discount; however, since this marketing channel is passive, it would need to be a sale or a day of discounts rather than something specific to the person. Use of television does not make sense for the bakery regardless of the type of messaging used.

The Tip Top Bakery has a great opportunity with its new “to go” lunch product to reach new customers and create an enhanced loyalty among its current customers. By focusing the initial strategy on the target market of working professionals around its Manchester locations, Tip Top will be able to gauge the new product’s success before rolling it out to all of the locations. The new product fills a need and will be able to capitalize on the reputation of the bakery, two factors that will increase the likelihood of its success.

References

Berman, J. (2014, March). Buying your lunch is a terrible idea. The end. No more debates. The Huffington Post. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jillian-berman/why-buying-your-lunch-at-_b_5020896.html

Manta. (2015). Companies in Manchester. Retrieved from http://www.manta.com/mb_51_ALL_CQE/manchester_nh?ftoggle-frontend-prod-on=abTests.revenue.responsive_12162014_control&utm_expid=82789632-30.8Ue3RXoXRoWAwC0cgSs_wg.1&utm_referrer=https://www.google.com/

The Nielsen Company (2015). ZIP code look-up. MyBestSegments. Retrieved from http://www.claritas.com/MyBestSegments/Default.jsp?ID=20&pageName=ZIP+Code+Lookup&menuOption=ziplookup#

Wolters Kluwer Law & Business (2015). Survey finds American workers spend an average of $3000 a year on coffee and lunch at work. Employmentlawdaily.com. Retrieved from http://www.employmentlawdaily.com/index.php/news/survey-finds-american-workers-spend-an-average-of-3000-a-year-on-coffee-and-lunch-at-work/