Lachlan Larson

Principles of Marketing

Executive Summary

With Americans spending an average of 1,100 dollars per year on coffee alone, why wouldn’t one

want to invest in that business. Which is exactly what the new coffee shop in Pequot decided to do.

Within the last year Grounds Crew Coffee put up shop right off the corner of 371 and Patriot Avenue. I

have had the pleasure to experience the new coffee shop in Pequot Lakes. However, over the course of

many coffees, and time spent at their coffee shop, I have realized not many people know about their great

coffee shop. Which is why I decided they need a change in their marketing technique. Over the course of

this project I have laid out a new promotional strategy focused on the following, target audience,

advertising objectives, advertising budget, the message, media, advertisements, and impact. All of which

I will be reiterating on, and why my promotional strategy will be effective for their company.

With the new increase in specialty drinks like, lattes, cappuccinos, and frappuccinos, pretty much

anything that has espresso in it, there has been a shift in the coffee marketplace. Before this market shift

the main coffee drinkers would be the baby boomers of the world, most of them drinking non-espresso

Ucoffee. With the use of demographic factors, I was able to single out two generations, Millennials and

Gen Z. With the location of Grounds Crew Coffee being only 5 minutes away from Pequot Lakes High

School, it’s a no-brainer who our target audience should be.

Next, we need to consider our advertising objectives. With advertising objectives, one needs to

be specific with their target audience, desired change, and time period. With this said I decided to use the

DAGMAR approach. With using this approach, I came up with the following objectives, increase sales

by 10 percent within the next two months, and increase social media followers by 75 followers comined

within the next two months.

 Now that we have our advertising objectives included, we can move on to our advertising budget.

An advertising budget is important to keep in mind because although marketing is useful, a company

can’t spend all their economic profit on just advertising, there needs to be money left for implicit and

explicit costs. However, being Grounds Crew Coffee is a start up company their marketing budget will

not be much. Therefore, I have decided to take fifty percent of the budget, although it seems like a lot, it

isn’t much because the budget itself isn’t an abundant amount.

To convey the message of my promotional strategy I will use advertising appeals also known as a

reason for people to purchase the sought out coffee from Grounds Crew Coffee. Appeals are a bit general

so one can develop subthemes, or mini campaigns. However, my main appeal will be convenience. I

chose this appeal because I thought it would be a good fit being the coffee shop is only five minutes away

from the high school, and it has a drive-thru window. I then decided to subtheme on ethos or credibility,

reliability, and trust.

With my appeals decided I was ready to pick out my media strategy. Or the media mix that I

thought would be best used for my promotional campaign. I decided my media mix based off audience

selectivity and reach. With audience selectivity I have the ability to reach a defined market, or in my case

my target audience. Next, we have reach, with this we can reach new customers, or customers that have

never heard of us. My promotional strategy combines these two factors to create a total of three ad

locations. The three ad locations consist of social media, primarily Facebook and Instagram, outdoor

media, and lastly alternative media such as posters at Pequot Lakes High School. This is when reach

comes into effect. On Facebook and Instagram one can boost a post to then get more exposure on other

social media users accounts. The outdoor media will consist of an outdoor billboard, if there is room in

the budget, or smaller outdoor yard signs on 371 and Patriot Avenue to attract our target audience heading

to school. Lastly, I would like to put posters around the high school, or/and on their news/advertisement

TVs. With these three ad locations and media mix factors I can combine media to promote Grounds

Crew Coffee and reach our target audience.

 Ultimately, we need to be able to measure the effectiveness of my promotional strategy for

Grounds Crew Coffee. With marketing objectives, they have to be measurable so that we can tell if the

objective was met or not. Grounds Crew Coffee can measure the success rate or whether the objectives

were met by three things. These three things would be sales, followers, and people reached.

Overall, my promotional strategy for Grounds Crew coffee consist of the following, target

audience, advertising objectives, advertising budget, the message, media, advertisements, and impact.

With the combination of the items above, I have created a promotional strategy for a local coffee shop

that was not receiving the appropriate amount of sales or exposure. In the end, my promotional strategy

will increase the amount of sales, and the overall knowledge of the new coffee shop. This then in turn

with result in the completion of my marketing objectives.