Marketing Plan 2

Rock That Burger

Marketing Plan

Angela Alarcon

MAR 3803

Miami Dade College

December 13th , 2020

Prof. Arjune Singh

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. Excecutive Summary

II. Situation Analysis

III. SWOT Analysis

IV. Marketing Goals and Objectives

V. Marketing Strategy

VI. Marketing Implementation

VII. Evaluation and Control

VIII. References

I. EXECUTTIVE SUMMARY

Rock that burger is family owned and operated. It all started with the Yellow Submarine Food Truck back in 2009. We wanted to bring to the City of Miami the food truck trend well known and accepted in other cities of the U.S. In 2012 , we decided to open our first brick and mortar with a fresh new look and a name that will represent what we wanted to offer, a place where you can eat the best burgers and hotdogs while enjoying a Rock and Roll atmosphere . We changed the name to Rock That Burger because had to create a new concept due to restrictions forced by the landlord about the Yellow Submarine name, the shopping center already had a Subway restaurant and we were not able to sell our subs anymore. As a result of this enforced restriction, we had to star from zero and create a new customer base.

This marketing plan has been developed with the purpose of positioning Rock That Burger as the prime burger restaurant in the Kendall area and the city of Miami, Florida. It will also provide the information necessary to understand who our target marker is, what their specific needs are, and how we can satisfy those needs.

Managing a successful quick-service restaurant requires paying complete attention to its internal environment. Customer traffic, cost control and profitability concerns are part of the internal environment at Rock that Burger.

Constant changes in preference involving what consumers want to eat present serious challenges for our business. Through market demographics, we can have a better understanding of the identifying characteristics of our current and potential customers.

The fast food industry was performing well until 2019, in 2020 it has faced many challenges due to the Covid-19 (coronavirus pandemic). This situation has abruptly put a halt on everything including closure of restaurants and disrupted supply chains. Rock That Burger as a quick service restaurant is adapting to this changed scenario. We are focusing on delivery and take-out to cater to the needs of our customers. We have concentrated in the use of digital technology to create an online order option through our POS System provider to help us sustain demand and sales during the pandemic and after.

II. SITUATION ANALYSIS

Rock That Burger is on its eight year of operation. The restaurant has been well received, and marketing strategy is now crucial for the continued success and future profitability. We did not have a marketing plan when we first opened the restaurant and we consider it has been long overdue to implement one. In order to grow as a business and be able to open new stores in the city, we need to attract new customers so we can generate more sales.

At Rock That Burger we offer a variety of specialty burgers and hot dogs. Our basic market need is to offer individuals, families and take-out customers fresh, creative burgers, hot dogs and side dishes. We use premium quality meats and cheeses, and the freshest vegetables.

The burger restaurant industry has performed relatively well over the past five years, with the employment rate falling to the record lows, and per capita income increasing, it is assumed that customers will spend more money to eat away from home. The industry has experienced increased competition from the broader food service market; nevertheless, burger restaurants still represent the largest segment of the market. Economic slowdowns caused by the Covid-19 (coronavirus pandemic) have reversed the course of the industry and decreased demand drastically. It is of utmost importance to put in practice a marketing plan to create more business opportunities during this difficult economic time.

A. Internal Environment

These are a few factors that constitute the internal environment of our business:

· Staffing and retention difficulties – Steady employee turnover in restaurants is an issue that most restaurant business owner face. Teens and adults are difficult to retain in an industry with long ours, low pay salaries, and unglamorous conditions.

· Labor costs – One of the challenges in quick-serve restaurant management is running a profitable operation. Rising labor costs leads to a low profit margin.

· Our limited menu offerings provide few options for modifying the menu.

· Because we are a quick-service restaurant, our prices must adjust to those of the industry. This means we must operate with narrow profit margins, and it is crucial that our management team controls food and labor costs.

B. Customer Environment

The profile for Rock That Burger’s customer environment consists of the following geographic, demographic and behavior factors:

Geographics

· Our immediate geographic target is the Kendall area in Miami, FL with a population of approximately 75,000 people.

· Residents within a 5-mile geographic who want to eat good burgers and hot dogs.

Demographics

Rock That Burger is associated with using the best quality ingredients and home-made recipes and providing exceptional customer service. We capture the attention for burger seekers of all ages.

· Individuals and families

· Ages 15 and up

· Millennials and Gen Z

· Professionals working close to the location

· College students

· People who tend to eat out several times a week

· People who tend to frequent higher quality burger joints

Consumer Behavior Factors

Taking into consideration consumer behavior is essential when marketing Rock That Burger as consumers make buying decisions daily.

· Cultural Factor - We are located in the city of Miami with the highest Hispanic population in the country and even though we are targeted as an All American burger restaurant it is important that we offer the Hispanic community in Kendall a little bit of the Latin flavor.

· Social Factor - Consumers are highly influenced by members of their families. Kids often influence the buying decisions of their parents; we target these types of consumers by offering a kid’s menu.

· Personal Factor - Customers who enjoy quality meals and outstanding customer services. Customers value the appearance and presentation of their food. For businesspeople, they prefer things that are done fast and are less time consuming.

· Psychological Factor – Consumers take into consideration health concerns regarding fast foods.

Market Needs – What Consumers Want

Rock That Burger provides its customers with a wide selection of high-quality specialty burgers and hot-dogs. We seek to fulfill the following factors that are important to our customers:

· A wide choice of burgers, hot-dogs and side dishes.

· Customers want access to our restaurant with minimal wait and have the option of dining in or take-out.

· Customers look for excellent customer service.

· Products that are competitively priced relative to other burger restaurants.

Market Trends

Nowadays, the restaurant guests are more sophisticated in several different ways. These are the market trends that apply to Rock That Burger:

· There is an increase in the preference for high-quality ingredients, consumers are learning to appreciate quality over quantity.

· Presentation is an element of the culinary experience that is becoming more common. Even for a casual burger restaurant, customers are learning to appreciate this aspect of the restaurant industry.

· Americans are becoming more conscious of their health, and customers are requesting more healthy options when they opt to eat out.

· Consumers look for a large selection of food items, avoiding restaurants with a limited menu.

· 46% of consumers want more chicken burgers, with 42% wanting more turkey burgers. We need to expand our meat variety and vegetarian options for those who are not beef eaters.

C. External Environment

There are many external factors that influence fast food or quick service restaurants including the following:

· Competition – We face national and local competition. Our national competitors include Burger King, McDonalds, Shake Shack, Five Guys, among others. Our local competitors include Latin house, Bocas Grill, Miller’s Ale House and more. Direct competition with our national competitors is difficult because they offer cheap menu items. Regarding our local competitors, we are the only burger restaurant in the Kendall area that offers a wide variety of specialty burger with the freshest ingredients.

· Legal and Regulatory Issues – The attitude of the government towards small businesses directly affects our performance as a restaurant. There are regulations related to wages, hygiene and food quality that we must comply with.

· Economic - During recession times and low economic activities, fast food restaurants must adjust to the situation by offering low priced menu items and discounts.

· Social – Health and lifestyle changing trends influence the fast food industry, restaurants are more pressured to include low – calorie options. The Covid-19 pandemic has influenced people’s lifestyles, instead of dining in customers are ordering online for delivery or pick-up.

· Technological – Social media has become an important approach to engage with customers, it is a necessary tool to create brand awareness, collect feedback and keep informed about the competition.

III. SWOT ANALYSIS

The SWOT analysis provides a description of the key strengths and weaknesses within the company, and the opportunities and threats that affect Rock That Burger.

Strengths

· Rock That burger offers a variety of high-quality specialty burgers and hot dogs with home-made recipes using the best and freshest ingredients at affordable prices.

· High customer loyalty among repeat customers.

· We offer excellent customer service.

· The company is financially stable and debt free. We make enough profit from our operations to pay our regular business expenses and feel confident in the long-term financial success of our business.

Weaknesses

· Rock That Burger is still a weak brand in Miami. Even with almost a decade of operations and history, our lack of advertisement has not helped us position the restaurant as a strong brand in the city.

· Bad location. Our restaurant has poor visibility, it is not easily seen from the street. The area does not see a lot of foot traffic which makes it difficult to attract walk-in customers.

· High employee turnover. Replacing and training new staff has become expensive for our company.

· Limited menu items offered at the restaurant forced by landlord restrictions.

Opportunities

· The restaurant market is a growing industry, Rock That Burger can expand with the implementation of a marketing plan.

· Increasing sales opportunities in delivery and take-out orders.

· Add new product lines to attract more customers.

· More restaurants are opting for online marketing. Rock That Burger can offer customers ease of ordering and comfort.

Threats

· Intense competition from local restaurants. Rock That Burger faces competition from local and national burger restaurants.

· Changing economic scenarios reducing customers income spent on dining out.

· Change in consumers eating trends. Consumers are opting for healthy lifestyle options; this is a factor that Rock That Burger needs to take into consideration if we want to attract a new niche of customers.

· Local regulations make it difficult for small business to expand and open new stores.

Rock That Burger has potential to become a well know Burger restaurant brand, the company is strong in offering a variety of specialty burgers and hot dogs with unique flavors and excellent customer service. The restaurant has been well received by consumers and has loyal customer base which is a good tool to get the word out and refer it to new customers. Another strength Rock That Burger has is that it is financially stable and debt free, this leads to the opportunity of opening new stores. The restaurant has some weaknesses that needs to pay attention to in order to grow as a business, we are still a weak brand in Miami and need to advertise the restaurant more. Our location does not help us to attract new customers as there is not much foot traffic and not enough visibility. We need find ways to reduce employee turnover, this could be done by hiring more mature and responsible employees. We have given the opportunity to high school and college students, but they do not like for stay at the same job for long. One of our weaknesses that cause major impact on our profitability is that we offer limited menu items, we cannot reach to more consumers offering only burgers and hot dogs. We seek opportunities in the growth of the restaurant industry, the increase in sales due to delivery and take-out preferences by customers. Changing economic scenarios and local regulations are threats that directly affect Rock That Burger. Adjusting our prices and complying with regulations help the restaurant overcome those threats. We need to adapt our menu to the ever-changing consumer trend due to cultural factors and healthy lifestyle options.

Developing Competitive Advantages

In order to develop a competitive advantage, Rock that burger needs to offer high quality foods and service by ensuring that the procedures taking place in the preparation of our food are safe and rigorous. We need to have a secure supply chain; our suppliers need to be selected based on their ability to comply with our specifications and quality control. Another way to develop our competitive advantage is to hire and train highly qualified employees that understand our company values, organizational culture, and comply with our operational standards. These employees are trained to prepare the best quality foods and offer outstanding customer service. The quality of our food and service is what measures our competitive advantage, management and staff need to be open to consumers feedback and take the corrective actions necessary in order to keep improving our quality.

Developing a Strategic Focus

Our strategic focus is to use advertising to create brand awareness and promote our products. We need to continue building our customer base and customer loyalty that we can use as referrals. Rock That Burger also needs to continue focusing on customer satisfaction by offering the best quality, affordable prices and excellent customer service. In order to keep our customers happy, we will continue offering a place with a clean environment that people feel satisfied to dine in.

IV. MARKETING GOALS AND OBJECTIVES

The current marketing objectives at Rock That Burger are to maintain a positive, steady growth each month, generate sales of at least $30,000 per month, and experience and increase in new customers who will turn into long-term customers.

Our marketing goals:

· Improve brand awareness among consumers in the Kendall area and the city of Miami.

· Position Rock that Burger as the premier burger joint in Miami, FL.

We will achieve these goals and objectives by selling the best burgers in town, aiming attention to quality, excellent customer service, and cleanliness standards.

The message that Rock That Burger wants to communicate is that we offer the freshest, most creative, reasonably priced burgers in Kendall. We will implement a direct mail campaign to communicate directly with consumers, this will include our restaurant menu, and discounts offered.

V. MARKETING STRATEGY

Our target market can be divided into the following categories:

· People who dine in by themselves

· Groups of people such as families or friends who enjoy dining together

· Consumers who prefer to order delivery or take-out to eat at their home or a different location other than the restaurant

These categories can be divided into Millennials and families. Millennials are those born in the 80s and 90s, this group of people account for 80 million of our population. Millennials visit restaurants about twelve times or more each month, and they spend most of their income on dining out. Families represent another extensive target market for Rock That Burger, they look for value, convenience, and speed of service.

Product

We can analyze the product of our company through the following criteria: variety, quality and design. Rock that Burger might be lacking in variety because our menu is mainly composed of hamburgers and hot dogs. It is however flexible as we offer side dishes and milkshakes. Even though we only sell hamburgers and hot dogs, we offer diversity within these two products. Our product consists of specialty burger and hot dogs with different topics, each named after rock songs. The customers also can rock their own burger or hot dog which means they can choose any toppings they would like.

As for quality, this is our main core value. We offer the freshest ingredients and best quality products. Our burger patties are made fresh every day, never frozen.

Design is representative of the Rock vibe and atmosphere we want to offer our customers. Our logo colors are black and red, which we associate with the Rock music genre. We use classic brown paper bags for deliver and pick-ups with the restaurant logo stamped on them

Pricing

Fast food restaurants are commonly perceived as cheap, some of our guests may think our prices are high for the product we offer. We want our customers to understand that even though we sell burger, hot dogs and fries, the quality of our product is worth the price. As we offer high quality products, this leads to higher selling prices. This decision might decrease demand, but we are a value-oriented business. We offer discounts for new customers and are currently working on a customer loyalty program.

Promotion

We are in critical need to advertise our business. We can use banner ads, direct mail campaigns, and increase promotion through social media. Word of mouth is our most loyal advertisement tool and it is what has helped us bring in new customers without any advertisement.

VI. MARKETING IMPLMENTATION

We will start implementing our marketing plan by hiring an advertisement and design company in January 2021. We understood we could not continue implementing internal marketing activities and having our management and staff manage the business’s social media and advertisement.

These are the activities the external marketing firm will be implementing:

· Community manager

· Personalized design of the company’s brand

· Personalized design of the business for Facebook and Instagram

· Optimization and integration of social media

· Weekly or monthly advertising agenda

· Monthly report of social media activities

· Create paid ads on social media

We have a budget of $400.00/ monthly to implement this marketing activities. We are looking to improve brand awareness and promote our products. We are aware that offering an excellent product is not enough to make a business profitable, marketing is essential.

We will be adding new items to the menu to cater to the vegan and vegetarian consumers, we are in the process of trying new recipes and decide which are worth selecting. We plan to add these new items within the fourth and fifth month of the coming year 2021. We must look for the best quality vegan and vegetarian patties and or create our home-made recipes, we also need to buy the best quality vegan cheeses and bread. Rock That burger is also in the process of improving the kids’ menu options and create our own happy meal. We have learned from our major national competitors Burger King and McDonald’s that happy kids, happy parents.

Rock That Burger needs to star implementing these marketing strategies the earliest possible, the company is facing a crucial time in making the decision if we want to expand the business and open new stores in other locations of the city or just stay with the Kendall location.

VII. EVALUATION AND CONTROL

The evaluation factor of the marketing plan implemented at Rock That Burger can be analyzed by the increase in sales, new customers acquired, and the business’s profit margin. The evaluation of the plan also includes customer satisfaction as a qualitative factor. Our management team will look at the marketing plan data to examine whether the business is achieving its strategy marketing objectives from the date the tactical activities were implemented.

Rock That Burger will implement marketing plan controls by monitoring:

· Revenue in a monthly and annual basis

· Expenses in a monthly and annual basis

· Year-end financial statements

· Market share

From the Rock That Burger Team:

Andres Alarcon - Master Chef

Angela Alarcon – Assistant Manager

Flavio Alarcon – President & Manager

REFERENCES

https://www.restohub.org/operations/promotion/restaurant-marketing-plan-ideas-strategies/

https://notesmatic.com/2016/09/fast-food-industry-pestel-analysis/

https://learn-us-east-1-prod-fleet02-xythos.content.blackboardcdn.com/5c1754ad402d4/2757142?X-Blackboard-Expiration=1607904000000&X-Blackboard

https://www.restaurantbusinessonline.com/marketing/burger-standouts-detail-their-marketing-strategies

https://smallbusiness.chron.com/internal-external-factors-affecting-quickservice-restaurant-management-42303.html