Industry analysis
Executive Summary
The report explores Zam restaurant starting with an evaluation of the restaurant business sector in Khobar city/region. It highlights how crucial it is to have a defined targeted market, which in this case is eighteen to thirty-five-year-old young adults. Marketing such a restaurant to such a young age group could be done relatively inexpensively through the help of social media. Finally, excellent customer care is crucial if Zam restaurant wants to succeed in the industry.
Introduction
Zam restaurant is located in Khobar, Saudi Arabia. It specializes in serving local indigenous gulf meals in its menu. The restaurant will mainly target young people who attend universities within the city (Rhou, Singal & Koh, 2016). Zam restaurant has a sitting capacity of fifty guests during any given time in the day. The restaurant operates from 7 AM to 11.30 P.M every day of the week.
Industry Evaluation
There was an absence of restaurants that cater to students and young professionals in the area. With such a large population in this city, there is a mostly untapped market in the food and hospitality industry. I, therefore, viewed this as an opportunity to gain a foothold in the restaurant business. There are numerous other restaurants within the area that cater to different clientele; however, there is room for another restaurant.
Target Market
The restaurant will mainly target young customers between the ages of seventeen to thirty years old. It will prioritize good customer care to increase the likelihood of repeat customers (Grosul & Ivanova, 2017). The customers will mostly be students and young professionals that have just started working. The targeted clients do not have a lot of disposable income, but what makes them attractive is their sheer numbers and size. The menu will thus be priced accordingly to make the food items affordable.
Employees
Zam restaurant will start by having four full-time employees. This number will increase depending on how the restaurant performs during its initial months operating. Extra workers will be taken on a part-time basis to ensure service quality gets maintained while keeping our running costs low (DuRivage, 2016). The part-time employees will mostly be sourced from local institutions of higher learning (Kauhanen & Nätti, 2015). It will be a great way to connect with the restaurant’s core clientele and make the brand more attractive to them.
Marketing
As a young business that targets young people, Zam restaurant will initially rely on the power of social media to make sure the city’s residents are aware it is about to open (Felix, Rauschnabel & Hinsch, 2017). It will do this by paying for sponsored ad posts on Facebook to appear on the Facebook pages of anyone that logs in within the larger Khobar region (Stephen, 2016). Doing this is relatively inexpensive and could effectively create a buzz on the ground while pushing the establishment’s name (Menon, Bharadwaj, Adidam & Edison, 2015). Another way through which the restaurant will be marketed is through handing out fliers around the city with a map pointing out its location (Hansen, McDonald & Mitchell, 2017). Later on, the management will buy slots in the local magazines as well as radio shows to reach a wider and more diverse audience (Kotler, Burton, Deans, Brown & Armstrong, 2015). Marketing the restaurant will, however be an ongoing venture and will evolve depending on a variety of factors such as profitability of the restaurant and effectiveness of the ways above.
Recommendations
Zam restaurant should sell its brand on high-quality customer care and avoid the temptation to offer food items cheaply on the menu. In the food and hospitality industry, patrons are won or lost on customer care. Customers would rather pay more for an item and receive excellent customer care than pay less and have to contend with poor customer care. The restaurant should nicely space the tables to ensure customers enjoy some degree of privacy if they want to have conversations with their dates without disturbing the next table. Having this level of privacy will attract both businessmen to hold their meetings at Zam and customers on casual dates.
DuRivage, V. L. (2016). New policies for the part-time and contingent workforce. Routledge.
Felix, R., Rauschnabel, P. A., & Hinsch, C. (2017). Elements of strategic social media
marketing: A holistic framework. Journal of Business Research, 70, 118-126.
Hansen, J. M., McDonald, R. E., & Mitchell, R. K. (2017). Marketing benchmarking,
triangulated isomorphism, and firm strategy. In Creating Marketing Magic and
Innovative Future Marketing Trends (pp. 533-543). Springer, Cham.
Kauhanen, M., & Nätti, J. (2015). Involuntary temporary and part-time work, job quality and
well-being at work. Social Indicators Research, 120(3), 783-799.
Kotler, P., Burton, S., Deans, K., Brown, L., & Armstrong, G. (2015). Marketing. Pearson
Higher Education AU.
Menon, A., Bharadwaj, S. G., Adidam, P. T., & Edison, S. W. (2015). Effective Marketing
Strategy-Making: Antecedents and Consequences. In Proceedings of the 1997 Academy
of Marketing Science (AMS) Annual Conference (pp. 224-224). Springer, Cham.
Rhou, Y., Singal, M., & Koh, Y. (2016). CSR and financial performance: The role of CSR
awareness in the restaurant industry. International Journal of Hospitality
Management, 57, 30-39.
Stephen, A. T. (2016). The role of digital and social media marketing in consumer
behavior. Current Opinion in Psychology, 10, 17-21.