Scenario Summary

In this scenario, you are a marketing consultant to a small business owner, Sammy Winder. Mr. Winder has worked his whole life in the restaurant business, and 6 months ago he was tired of working for someone else and decided to open a new restaurant/bar/jazz club.

Lately, Mr. Winder's Blue Note Café is not doing well. The initial buzz of opening his jazz club has subsided and his restaurant is often only half full on Friday and Saturday evenings; if this continues, he may be forced to close his restaurant. He needs your help!

As with most young businesses, Sammy has limited capital to invest in a marketing plan, so he has asked you, his good friend, to create a marketing plan that will drive traffic to his restaurant on a limited budget.

Your Assignment

You have been a marketing professional for several years. Sammy Winder is a good friend and needs your help and expertise. You have been hired by Mr. Winder to develop a low-cost marketing strategy to increase sales and save his newly opened restaurant.

Key Player

Be sure to listen to Mr. Winder as he describes his problems; listen for clues on ways you can differentiate his business and create excitement for the potential customers.

Most importantly, be creative! Guerrilla marketing campaigns are most successful when the marketers think outside the box with ideas to create awareness and loyalty.

Transcript

Hey buddy, great to see you again! Thanks for dropping by the club...you still enjoy jazz music don't you? This place has the best local musicians in town...many of these guys learned their trade at our local university! Anyway, I know you are a big shot at that marketing firm downtown, and I really need your help.

My business is failing. It makes no sense, since I have a great restaurant, reasonable prices, and amazing entertainment, but for some reason, I can't seem to attract business.

We opened 3 months ago, and for the first few weekends, we had to turn people away. Everything was awesome...then, the crowds disappeared.

I know that we have a great place, but where was everyone?

We did some surveys to solicit feedback to determine if we have any problems. The results pointed out that we have no real issues. As a matter of fact, the results confused me further-the people overwhelming loved our club.

We found that they loved the atmosphere; the food was great; and most of all, the customers all stated we were the only place in town that you could dance to jazz music, while enjoying a great meal. It was a "romantic paradise" one person said. One couple even got engaged on our dance floor!

So what happened...I just don't know?

It is frustrating; we have a great place so I really could use your expertise in generating a buzz about our place.

How can we get more customers to know about our brand? I know if we can get more awareness of our club, this restaurant will take off. Of course, I have very little money so we can only spend about $1,000 a month on marketing.

Could you put together some strategies for us to follow in the next 3 months to increase sales? I also need a detailed budget to show to my investors.

I really appreciate your help!

Enough business for now-you look hungry, let me call the waiter over here and get you the house special...you will love it.

Activity

According to the American Marketing Association, marketing is "an organizational function and a set of processes for creating, communicating, and delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships in ways that benefit the organization and its stake holders."

As such, you must use your knowledge of marketing to create a plan, with a budget of just $1,000 per month, to increase customers for Mr. Winder's restaurant. As you will find in our textbook, you will need to utilize a grassroots campaign to drive more customers to the Blue Note Café.

When new companies form, they are cash strapped. As an entrepreneur, you must be creative with your resources to make your capital stretch.

You will need to learn about guerilla marketing tools and techniques-which act as nontraditional, grassroots, and captivating marketing ideas-that gain consumers' attention and build awareness of the company for little money.

Your proposal should be three to four pages in length with a detailed list of your strategies, as well as a detailed budget for a 3-month marketing campaign. In your budget, be sure to do research and outline the various costs of your plan.

Reread your textbook and do some secondary research on guerilla marketing. In your research, find out what other companies are doing to create a buzz with a limited budget.

Be sure to think about all the inexpensive ways to market to people in a local community in order to increase awareness and promote the Blue Note Café brand

Review and complete the Week 3 You Decide.

You will get to showcase your knowledge and understanding of guerilla marketing, when you assist a newly created local restaurant and club in creating a buzz and increasing sales.

You will submit a three- to four-page marketing strategy proposal for the owner of the start-up.