Target Market Strategy

in order to target market effectively, you’ll need to know exactly who purchases your products and exactly how to to reach them. And acquiring that kind of knowledge requires some research and planning on your end.

Our target market consists of the gay community that loves to go out and have a few drinks with their friends. Our slogans and commercial cater towards men only in a very flamboyant fashion.
Every business has many types of clientele, and each acts differently at differ­ent times. Once you understand what customers are doing—and why—you can spot certain actions and apply value to them. A data warehouse to collect data from various channels will provide the underlying information needed to segment your customers.

Situation or SWOT Analysis

"Strengths include internal capabilities, resources, positive situational factors that may help the company to serve its customers and achieve its objectives (55)."
Strengths

• Being part of the Phileas Fogg product line, gives it a strong name people already know.
• This product healthy, tasty, and a conversation starter 
• Has a great commercial that introduces the product in a familiar way to viewers.

"Weaknesses include internal limitations and negative situational factors that may interfere with the company’s performance (55)."
Weakneses

• People might hesitate to try the product
• There are competitors in the same business

"Opportunities are favorable factors or trends in the external environment that the company may be able to exploit to its advantage (55)."
Opportunities

• "Producing a product or service and making it available to buyers requires building relationships not just with customers, but also with key suppliers and resellers in the company’s supply chain." as it says in chapter 10. We have the opportunity to have a fully American Made product by creating relationship with packaging companies and local farms around the US.

"Threats are unfavorable external factors or trends that may present challenges to performance (55)."
Threats

• Being new in the market.
• Reliant on businesses accept and stocking our product.
• Finding bars that are willing to carry our product.
• Targeting only Homosexual men narrows our market.

Objective

"Each company must find the game plan for long-run survival and growth that makes the most sense given its specific situation, opportunities, objectives, and resources. This is the focus of strategic planning—the process of developing and maintaining a strategic fit between the organization’s goals and capabilities and its changing marketing opportunities." stated in Chapter 2.
Our companies objective is to be in every local gay bar on the west-coast, considering the gay population gets larger and larger as you move closer and closer to the Pacific Ocean. We plan to help bars sell more beer and alcoholic beverages by keeping our joint customers thirsty and in need of a drink. In the long run we plan to sell in Liquor stores so that our fans can enjoy the snack from home, pushing our product nationwide. "Each company must find the game plan for long-run survival and growth that makes the most sense given its specific situation, opportunities, objectives, and resources. This is the focus of strategic planning—the process of developing and maintaining a strategic fit between the organization’s goals and capabilities and its changing marketing opportunities (39)."

Business Mission Statement

We believe snacking should be healthy and fun, we provide a fun & spicy conversation starter good for any bar-type environment. We have created a new and healthy way to snack while partying through the night.   "New products are important—to both customers and the marketers who serve them. For customers, they bring new solutions and variety to their lives." as it states in Chapter 8. 

Week 8 EOC: The Pitch & Adventure

The Pitch: Thai Lime & Chili Almonds go great with a nice Singha Lager or Tequila if you're brave! This savory bar snack has a great salty flavor to keep your customers thirsty and just enough heat to keep them munching throughout the night. They are a perfect snack for the bar because your cost stays low and the shelf life is fantastic!

The Adventure: I caught interest in this snack because at every table and in front of every filled bar stool sat a bowl of these spicy nuts. I had a very heated time trying to sneak this recipe out of the "Happy Nights" Pub in Chaing Mai because the chef there didn't like me to begin with, let alone want to share his best selling item's recipe with me, but I was motivated to get that secret formula and if that meant spending 4 hours and $200 getting belligerent drunk with the bartender, that is what I did. After a long night and about 15 drinks the bartender finally broke and I scribbled the recipe on a wrinkled napkin. Although I had gotten what I came for the chef caught a glance of me speaking with the bartender and writing on a paper. The chef dropped everything he was doing, grabbed his 12 gauge, and chased me a quarter mile down the road. Luckily I spotted the Sheik Istana hotel, hopped in the guest elevator, and finally lost the chef.

Week 5 EOC: B-to-B

The definition of Buying Behavior, says Superprofesseur.com, “is the decision processes and acts of people involved in buying and using products.”  There are four different major factors that influence a consumer’s buyer behavior; cultural, social, personal, and psychological.  Consumers develop product/brand preferences depending on these factors. “An individual and a consumer is led by his culture, his sub-culture, his social class, his membership groups, his family, his personality, his psychological factors, etc. And is influenced by cultural trends as well as his social and societal environment” –  Perrau posted on theconsumerfactor.com. A consumer will go through a decision making process when purchasing a product.  This five-stage process consists of problem recognition, information search, evaluation of alternatives, purchase decision, and post purchase decision. The adoption process and the diffusion process are heavily relied upon when it comes to the growth rate and total sales level of new products.  “The rate (speed) of adoption depends on consumer traits, the product, and the firm’s marketing effort.” – studymarketing.org.  The diffusion process recounts the procedure in which different members of the target market often accept and purchase a product. Business markets are marketplaces where organizations purchase products for resale, or for use in manufacturing another product.  Now that we have looked at what influences us as individuals, business buyer behavior will be described.  The stages of the business buying process are problem recognition, general need description, product specification, supplier search, proposal solicitation, supplier selection, order-routine specification, and performance review.

Week 4 EOC: There's an App for That

Induconnects, the Instant Messenger organized by professional industry, to make networking that much easier!

After doing some light research I found a company, called Linkd In, they are an online networking site that allow you to "link" with people you're interested in working with. Showing all of there professional contact information and Job Title. They recently went Mobile and released an app for android and iPhone users.