Canterbury’s Sandwich Shop: Marketing Strategy

Marketing Objectives

Discuss about the Canterbury’s Sandwich Shop.

Marketing strategy: Canterbury’s Sandwich shop is located in Canterbury- Bankstown, Sydney.

The Canterbury’s Sandwich Shop is located in Canterbury-Bankstown in Sydney. The shop has been in operation for the past two years. Recently, the level of competition in the Suburb town has increased with new entrants emerging in the market. The scenario has led the business to review its marketing plan. Based on its current market share and brand equity in the local market, the management came up with the following marketing objectives to maximize its operations and profitability (Burns & Bush, 2009).

• To obtain 40% market share in the Sydney’s Canterbury- Bankstown suburb town over the next two years.
• To be a local brand that enjoys strong ties with the community.
• To be considered as the most reliable, responsive and the cleanest Sandwich restaurant in Canterbury- Bankstown.
• To increase the contribution of 15% over the next two years.
• To increase the sales volume by 10% every month over the next two years for the current 1,000,000 units per annum.

The business will offer its sandwich products to fill two primary needs in the market. First, the market needs flavored and high-quality fast food at a low cost. To fulfill this market need, the Canterbury’s Sandwich Shop will provide quality sandwiches at a reasonable price. Likewise, there exist a niche between those who would like to wait for their lunch and those who want fast lunch (Lehmann & Winer, 2007). The business has enough space with café tables for the customers to sit and enjoy their meals. The move is meant to capture more customers from the traditional restaurants.

Product Offering: The Canterbury’s Sandwich shop will be offering a variety of fast food products such as sandwiches, soups, salads, chips, chili, sodas and cookies. The sandwiches are made from freshly toasted bread and special sweet mustard sauce (Reed, 2014).

Product Description: All the sandwiches are customized. The customers will enjoy toasted bread, and freshly sliced cheeses and meat. Some of the famous dishes that will be offered to the customers are the German snack, Swiss Delight, Spanish Conqueror, American Urban and the American Traditional.

Existing Competitors: Canterbury’s Sandwich shop main competitors include the downtown eateries, on-campus sandwich shops and fast-food restaurants (Cooke, 2014). The Canterbury-Bankstown suburb comprises ten sandwich shops, 20 fast food restaurants and over 30 on campus sandwich shops. Clearly, the business faces fierce competition in the market. However, with the unique sandwiches, the business is a step above its competitors. We mainly focus on the healthy aspect of the sandwiches. By providing healthy and tasty sandwiches, we are optimistic to gain a competitve advantage over other competitors and substitute products (Oliver, 1990).

The business considers price as a major competitive strategy. Under normal circumstances, consumers are more likely to visit sandwich shops that offer the products at a lower price. Therefore, in a move to attract more potential buyers, we will provide our sandwiches as reasonable and attractive prices (Hawkins, 2013). Although Canterbury’s Sandwich shop lacks the capacity to compete with well-established and bigger sandwich shops, we will ensure that the prices of our sandwiches are affordable as compared to other sandwich shops within the locality. To keep our prices lower and reasonable, we intend to contract with suppliers who will provide raw materials at lower prices which maintain the quality aspect (Lehmann & Winer, 2007).

Product Strategy

At Canterbury’s Sandwich shop, we use an all-inclusive payment policy because different customers prefer to use different payment options which are convenient to them. We offer different payment options which are deemed to be convenient to all of our potential customers. The following payment options are deemed fit;

1. Cash payment
2. Point of Sale (POS) Machine Payment
3. Online bank transfer payment option
4. Mobile money payment option
5. Cheque payment from loyal customers

For the people looking for tasty, fast and friendly sandwiches, the Canterbury’s Sandwich shop is a place to be. We have a clean seating environment with good food on top of fast and friendly services which are ideal for our customers (Lehmann & Winer, 2007).

To reach our targetted market share of 40%, and build brand loyalty and awareness, Canterbury’s Sandwich shop will provide promotions, event sponsorship, and advertisement in the local dailies. The Managing Director (MD) will act as the company’s spokesman to the community and target consumers.

• To increase the Canterbury’s Sandwich shop brand awareness among the 70% of the potential customers by June 2017. According to the brand awareness research conducted by the company, our sandwiches have 40% awareness among the targetted consumers.
• To promote the Canterbury’s Sandwich shop brand as a health among the customers.
• To achieve a 40% brand preference in the potential market by June 2016.
• To enhance brand publicity among the local consumers through integrated promotional mix methods (McColl?Kennedy, H.M. Yau, & Kiel, 2012).

Event sponsorship, advertisement in the local dailies, public relations, sales promotion, social marketing are the key, methods that will be used to promote the sandwich brand among Canterbury-Bankstown residences (Marketing Minds, 2012).

Several advertisement choices have been chosen. First, both the radio and television stations will be used to reach a large demographic. For instance, the 420 FM radio located in Canterbury will be used to reach 53% of the demographic. While, 420 TV Station will promote the brand among the local and Australian viewers. Both the TV and radio are considered to be an appropriate tool for advertisement because it will reach a larger geographical location. The targetted audience will be informed of the events organized by the company which would lead to enhanced brand awareness (Hollensen, 2015).

Second, the company will use press releases and magazines to reach the targeted customers who prefer reading over listening to radios or watching televisions. The healthy and quality aspect of the brand will be captured effectively to attract these consumers to the product (Ferrell & Hartline, 2010).

Third, social marketing will be applied as well. It is evident that most residents of Canterbury-Bankstown have joined social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram. The Canterbury’s Sandwich Shop has already launched a website, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest pages to interact with its customers (Jain, Haley, Ranjit, & Wickham, 2011). Digital media provides a two-way communication opportunity where both the business and the customers will exchange information about the brand among themselves. This is an effective way of creating brand loyalty. The sites will be used to share information about the brand, new products, existing products, organized events and engaging with the customers (Cooke, 2014).

Pricing Strategy

The company will engage in PR media with its MD as the key spokesperson Mr. Antonio Martins. Martins will publicly advocate and promote the company’s products through organized public events, interviews, and sponsored events (Desmond & Stone, 2007). For example, the company will engage in health awareness events and present its products as healthy friendly. In such events, Consumers will be encouraged to take photos with the business brand and post them in their Social media accounts. This is an effective way of promoting the brand among the consumers (Gupta, 2003).

Free samples: The company will use free samples to attract new customers. The method would allow the company to popularize its brand among the customers who have been using competitors’ sandwiches (Oliver, 1990).

The company will also use bonuses and premium offers to reward its loyal customers and in return increase its sales volume.

This is another method of promoting brand awareness. Product exhibitions and fairs will be organized at different market levels to reach different types of consumers. Such events will allow the introduction of new products or demonstrate the special features of the existing sauce products (Hawkins, 2013).

This is most effective when promoting an existing product in a competitive market for a short term. The technique will increase the number of time consumers spend while using the Sandwich brand (Burns & Bush, 2009).

The Sandwich brand and other products will be distributed directly to the customers. In other words, other distribution channels will not be used for the distribution purposes (Ferrell & Hartline, 2010).

The table attached below shows the implementation of the activities contained in the marketing plan. Each activity contains the start and completion date;

Activity	Start Date	Completion Date	Budget	Reponsibility
Canterbury Promotion	1/1/2016	30/6/2016	$700	Manager
Health event sponsorship	1/2/2016	31/5/2016	$ 400	Luke
Schedudling of business logistic	1/1/2016	1/7/2016	$600	Jack
Organizing special offers	1/3/2016	30/7/2016	$2000	Violet
Interior Decor	1/1/2016	31/5/2016	$100	Joshua
Hiring and Training Employees	1/2/2016	31/5/2016	$0	Nick
Radio and TV advertising	1/4/2016	30/7/2016	$1200	Manager
Others	1/1/2016	31/5/2016	$1000	Manager
Totals			$6,000

The performance of the marketing plan will be evaluated on an annual basis. Some of the evaluation metrics to be used are;

• The feedback obtained from the consumers
• Changes in the market share
• Changes in the overall brand sales.
• And, the brand’s performance about the competitors’ performance. 

Conclusion

The purpose of the proposed marketing plan is to increase brand awareness and sales of the Canterbury’s Sandwich brand. The report comprised of the marketing strategy and targetted market to which this sandwich brand will serve. The business as established that the existing sandwich products do not consider the health aspect and this is the market need to be fulfilled. The promotion mix to be used comprises of sales promotions, event sponsorship, and advertisement in the local dailies. By the end of the campaign, the business wishes to cover a market share of 40% and build brand loyalty and awareness.

However, with the current trends in the economy, consumers’ behavior, media, and competition, I recommend that the marketing plan be monitored on a regular basis. This would ensure attainment of maximum benefits from the plan.

References

Burns , A. C., & Bush, R. F. (2009). Marketing Research (6 ed.). New Jersey: Pearson.

Cooke, R. (2014). Go Big Or GoPro: How The GoPro Marketing Strategy Defines Content Marketing. New York: Walden University.

Desmond, J., & Stone, M. A. (2007). Fundamentals of marketing. London, UK: Routledge.

Ferrell, O. C., & Hartline , M. D. (2010). Marketing Strategy (5th edition ed.). Chicago: South-Western.

Gupta, S. (2003). Cutomers are assets. Journal of Interactive Marketing, 17, 9-24.

Hawkins, D. I. (2013). “Consumer behavior”: Building Marketing Strategy. ( 8thed ed.). Boston: Irwin.

Hollensen, S. (2015). Essentials of Global Marketing (2nd edition ed.). Essex, England: Harlow.

Jain, S. C., Haley, G. T., Ranjit , V., & Wickham, M. (2011). Marketing: Planning and Strategy (1 ed.). Australia: Cengage Learning.

Lehmann, D., & Winer, R. (2007). Analysis for Marketing Planning (7 ed.). Syndey: McGraw-Hill Education.

Marketing Minds. (2012, March 13). Retrieved April 27, 2016, from https://www.marketingminds.com.au/branding/apple_branding_strategy.html.

McColl?Kennedy, J. R., H.M. Yau, O., & Kiel, G. C. (2012). Marketing Intelligence & Planning. Journal of Marketing Practice: Applied Marketing Science, 8(4), 21 – 29.

Oliver, G. (1990). Marketing today (Third edition ed.). Prentice hall.

Reed, P. (2014). Strategic Marketing: Decision Making and Planning (4 ed.). Australia: Cengage Learning.