Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Contingency Plans
Controls
When implementing our recommended marketing plan, the Demmer Center will first be able track how their media presence has changed. The Demmer Center should first start to track all of the traffic that they have on their website. If they started to track how many people on average went to the website before implementing the social media buzz, it will help them to understand if their actions are drawing more attention to the website.
The Demmer Center should also track the type of people that Like their Facebook page. This will help them to understand who is hearing about their business and with what type of media they want to hear more about the Demmer Center. As stated in the marketing plan, the Demmer Center should look to see if females and parents are following their Facebook presence. Parents will be looking for information about what other children are doing at the Demmer Center, and females will be looking to see if they would enjoy their experience there. Another control that the Demmer Center should use would be expanding their Facebook presence on other pages. They should 'Like' other pages on Facebook that focus on MSU and the surrounding area to expand their presence.
Similar to tracking online, the Demmer Center should keep track of the gender of new customers that show up to the center for the first time. This should help to understand if the marketing plan is attracting the new target market the center is targeting, as well as
Projected Financials
In the short run, the only spending incurred by the Demmer Center will be as a result of a advertising; since it will be on-campus, and possibly in collaboration with MSU Marketing (and therefore funded by the University), it will be very cheap to implement. The Center’s website was created internally, so the only cost is the creator’s time in condensing information. Additionally, social media startup and updating costs nothing but time, but work sharing will curb stresses and prevent the hiring of an additional employee for digital communication purposes.
In the long run, spending will be minimal, our strategy will have been refined and social media updates will have been continuous. So long as the strategy is properly executed and an increase in new customer rates, facility traffic and social networking traffic occurs, an increase in profit and active memberships is foreseeable.
Action Plans
Because of relative low cost of implementation, the managers of the Demmer Center are certainly capable of implementing and monitoring a marketing plan. We recommend implementing our proposed strategy in Fall 2011, when activity in East Lansing is at its annual peak. We expect that a complete sequence of tasks will take no more than three months, if a timetable is diligently followed. The results of our new marketing strategy should be measured with the following: new customer/trial rates, facility traffic, social networking traffic, and overall bottom line-- profit.
Month 1 surrounds the creation of digital connection to consumers. Because reaching and educating people is crucial to gaining new customers and achieving their objectives, the Demmer Center’s first action should be to “clean up” their website: condense information into fewer tabs, update the calendar regularly, and make group rates and package deals clearer. In an effort to further connect digitally to consumers, the Center should also immerse itself in social media, including regular Facebook status updates, an e-mail subscriber list, and Twitter account for the purpose of notifying followers of special rates, events and promotions. It is important that these be updated frequently and regularly. The next focus in Month 2 lies in creating buzz on campus and in the community. Campus and community events geared toward The Demmer Center’s respective target markets will be scheduled, social media updates will continue, and advertisements targeting the 20-29 year old female will be rolled out.
Finally, the focus in Month 3 is on collaborating with MSU’s Kinesiology department in order to create a KIN course revolving around shooting sports for MSU students. Beyond these three months, effort to retain customer loyalty is vital.
Marketing Strategy
The Objectives:
Our determined marketing objectives, target markets, and marketing mix rests on the Demmer Center’s vision of a recreational facility that is educational, fun, and available to nearly every age group. To reiterate, the objectives of this project are the following: gain new customers, connect digitally to customers, and connect further with MSU’s student body. An increase in student and family traffic, followers via social media, trial rates and profit are expected outcomes of our proposed strategy.
The Target Markets:
The Demmer Center deals with two market segments primarily. One is 20-29 year old college students in Ingham County for team sports and recreational purposes. The other consists of families in the area of indiscriminate family size, life cycle and social class for mainly recreational purposes. Both segments’ skill level may range from novice to expert. So, respective campaigns should be implemented for each target market, and the campaigns will have some overlap in the communication channel.
An unmentioned target market presented itself in our results: 20-29 year old females. Though 87.5% of female respondents had never visited the Demmer Center before, a 75% willingness to learn how to use a bow or firearm fell into our lap. As such, we are confident that a campaign targeting 20-29 year old females will prove to be successful.
The Marketing Mix:
Through our investigation we determined that the Demmer Center’s offerings (a.k.a. product), distribution and pricing do not need to be changed; their means of promotion is where potential improvement lies. In order to facilitate our problem-finding process after our meeting with Michael, we conducted a survey through Qualtrics for the purpose of estimating awareness and perception of the Demmer Center. The respondents to our survey were almost entirely comprised of Michigan State University students.
Our survey results highlighted, not surprisingly, a substantial lack of student awareness. We prefer to look on the bright side of this scenario: the potential for trial rates and new customers is great, especially within the scope of MSU. Students prefer to be communicated to through social media and on-campus events, so digital networking and on-campus events should be implemented accordingly. Digital communication will prove to be beneficial, including cleaning up of the Demmer Center website and regular participation in social media. Potential on-campus events may include shooting tournaments, classes taught in collaboration with Residential Life or a day at The Rock to garner attention. Collaboration with the Kinesiology department to create a new MSU course could prove to be beneficial as well, since students will have to rent equipment and use the facility for credit. In appealing to the 20-29 year old female target market, the Center should advertise their classes for women with a message that encourages them to empower themselves by gaining hands-on shooting knowledge and experience.
Other community events, such as competitions and workshops, should also be created for the purpose of attracting the Demmer Center’s familial target market. Places like the Hannah Community Center provide venues that attract Lansing-area residents that may otherwise be wary of traveling to campus. Social media updates may also be targeted toward families, informing them of promotional rates and events.
Objectives
Our objectives for this project focus mainly on getting locals to walk in the front doors and to educate them about the Demmer Center. Results from our survey show that 34 out of 42 people have never even been to the Demmer Center, so just over 80% of our survey population has never set foot in the Demmer Center, compared to 45% of our survey population telling us that they knew the Demmer Center existed. So people know it exists, but they haven’t yet had a Demmer Center experience.
Another situation brought about from our survey results is the population’s perception of safety at the Demmer Center; so, another main objective is to show how safe the Demmer Center is. In educating and advertising to locals about the Demmer Center, it is imperative that we position the Demmer Center as a safe place. We want families to see our positioning and be familiar with the fun and safe atmosphere that the Demmer Center has to offer.
One more objective is to make it convenient for people to find information about and connect with the Demmer Center. Firstly, we would like to clean up the website. They started off on the right foot by having a website full of pertinent information, but it is a little bit cluttered and confusing to navigate. Additionally, social media is a must: their Facebook page is new, but needs some more upkeep, especially in terms of regular status updates.
One final objective is to have the Demmer Center get affiliated with Kinesiology department here at MSU. The Kinesiology department has classes ranging from scuba diving to karate. Why not have a class where students learn how to shoot a bow or gun? Tapping into this will further increase MSU students’ awareness as they sign up for classes. 74% of our survey respondents indicated consideration of take a shooting sports class for credit. This tells us that a class is a great way to get your name out to our collegiate community and it would most likely get plenty of students that wish to enroll.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Key Issues
Have you ever visited the Demmer Center before?
Through meeting with Michael at the Demmer Center and our research we saw many key issues presented. The biggest issue is that the Demmer Center is making people aware of its existence and encouraging them to visit the center for their recreational purposes, as opposed to strict affiliation with organized team sports.
One of their biggest issues is getting people to buy memberships. A huge contributing factor to their lack of membership sales is that not a lot of people know what the Demmer Center is. If our marketing strategy is implemented, more attention (and therefore more memberships) from people in the surrounding area would result. Some of the memberships that the Demmer Center has right now are people who want to support the University, and are mostly MSU Alumni or family members of the Demmer Center staff. This is a problem because these people have memberships but do not even visit the Demmer Center at all. Therefore, they may be supporting the Demmer Center financially, but are not really supporting the business by giving their time or spreading the word about the Demmer Center to people they know.
Financing is another issue right now as well. The Demmer Center is a newer company and they have to pay the starting costs to get the company afloat in the long run. They are also on a Michigan State University loan, and are trying to make money to pay it off. Obviously, the absence of customers and memberships is making it difficult to make money to pay the starting costs and pay off the loans from MSU. One more issue that was pointed out to us by Michael himself was aesthetics of the buildings sign. The sign is a small, close-to-the-ground university sign that most people don’t even look at. Michael would like to replace it, but once again there are not enough funds, and signage is more of a secondary cost right now.
The Demmer Center community wants the center to be a family and friends atmosphere. The only problem with that is getting families over the issues of safety. However, our team witnessed that this facility could not be any safer. Without the families visiting, this means that kids aren’t coming in, which is a market the Demmer Center very much wants to come in and experience. They have shooting ranges for kids and friendly staff to help throughout the process, but if they don’t come in these resources can’t be used.
A drawback for many experienced shooters is that the Demmer Center only offers shooting of guns that have a .22 caliber rifle or less. Many hunters and shooters shoot much more powerful firearms. So, the “weak” firearms do not provide any real incentive to use the Center’s equipment for experienced shooters. When talking about shooting and archery, there aren’t any combination memberships for these two activities. There is only one for archery or one for the rifle range. That doesn’t allow someone to shoot both without buying both memberships, which can get pricey and will eventually drive valued, experienced shooters away.
One last issue is definitely the Demmer Center’s website. It is great that they have a website, but it is cluttered. They have too many links on their main page which impedes can confuse users and people that seek information about the Center, which can turn someone off very quickly. Additionally, the address on the website is correct, but when typed into MapQuest or Google maps, it takes you in the wrong direction. There is apparently no way to fix it, and for those wanting quick internet directions it is an inconvenience.
Performance Review
Priding itself on its capability to host a family experience, the Demmer Center’s new facility offers quality, up-to-date equipment, training, and education. They offer many classes ranging from basic pistol, rifle, bow fishing, or archery. In addition to learning how they use the shooting equipment, they offer hunter safety, exclusive training clinic just for women, and even a concealed pistol license (CPL) class to get your certification. Their problem isn’t what they have to offer, but that no one knows about it! They have so much to offer, but they are still doing below average.
Recently, the center has attempted many incentives to get people through the door. One promotion is called Dinner and a Shot, which is comprised of an afternoon of pistol, rifle, or archery and an evening at Gilbert and Blake’s for two. This is a great idea for people who are looking for something different to do on a Friday night instead of going bowling or to the movies. The next big promotion they offer is geared towards the guys and is called Shoot and Shave. You can get an old fashion barbershop straight razor shave and facial massage with two hours of shooting time. Knowing their target demographic mainly consist of young males, this is a wonderful promotion that gives you a little something extra to treat yourself with.
Despite their attempts to recruit members, they still are unable to get the community involved. They have amazing state-of-the-art facility that is underappreciated in the community. There are many simple ideas they may want to consider. For example, adding signs to make the building easier to notice from the street in order to draw new customers, as well as reorganizing their website. The Demmer Center has a very thorough site with a lot of information, fun virtual tours, and creative artwork, but it is a bit overwhelming. Organizing the information into something more concise and simplifying the navigation around the site may help to encourage future business. The last thing they may have considered is investing more time into social media. Their current Facebook page has 184 ‘Likes’ and is consistently updated with photos of tournaments and training, which is great. However, another way to get a younger market segment involved with their shooting range instead of alternative recreational sports is via twitter or blogging. Expanding from Facebook to other forms of social media may really help to market their business.
The Demmer Center has a lot to offer to the greater Lansing community. The various activities and classes are ideal for a broad range of ages and occasions. Not to mention, the state of the art facility is a safe and fun environment. Their performance isn’t lacking, but rather, people are unaware of their impressive performance. I believe that once the Demmer Center combines their creative promotional deals with more marketing efforts, people will discover for themselves this best kept secret of East Lansing.
Current Situation and SWOT Analysis
Starting with being open year-round, the Demmer Center currently serves as a facility for public shooting sports, educational courses, and a training site for shooting sporting teams. The location has two indoor firearm ranges that allow for customers to use small-bore, air rifle, and archery. The main purpose of the center is to offer a clean and safe entertainment for all ages. The facility is cleaner than a daycare and shooters as young as three can be exposed to the opportunity. Health and safety are the #1 priorities at the Demmer Center. Their firearm ranges utilize an air make up system that circulates the air approximately every 90 seconds. To ensure security, every new shooter will receive a safety briefing before engaging in gunfire. Another feature the center offers is an outside archery park that includes a beginner’s course and competitive ranges. For beginner archers to advance, the site will provide personal training in marksmanship from certified coaches and trainers. The center also houses and helps train the MSU club shooting sports.
The Demmer Center offers a unique way for your organization, business, or group of friends and family to have a fun, educational, and safe shooting experience. For an entertaining and secure experience, the Demmer Center provides customers with a personal trainer. Coaching for an Olympic style shooting is available, as well as personal one-on-one training. Great for all ages, the center tries its hardest to make shooting sports as entertaining and stress free as possible. Another benefit for coming to the Demmer Center is they offer archery and firearm equipment available for a small rental fee and safety gear is free. If you are looking for a way to use the facility other than for shooting, a large open common area provides a unique place for events, vendors, or award ceremonies. In addition, the site has two conference rooms that can accommodate up to 50 people with multimedia capabilities.
Executive Summary
The Demmer Center, located on our prized Michigan State University campus, is a self-proclaimed “training site for future national championship caliber collegiate shooting sports teams.” The meticulously kept, spacious facility houses small-bore, air rifle and archery firearm ranges, and even teaches safety and shooting classes. It has also been look toward its future, and now, managers are seeking expansion beyond shooters of national championship caliber. A new vision of fun and recreation for nearly every age group compelled the Demmer Center to offer classes to shooting novices, including families. The surrounding college town nestled in rural areas house plenty of potential customers with interests in hunting or self-defense, and the indoor facility is ideal for inclement, unpredictable Midwest weather. Our analysis to come surrounds the Demmer Center’s adaptable new vision, examines the market climate and potential consumers, and puts strategic actions and controls in place to aid in springing the Demmer Center’s marketing plan into action with minimal risk.
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