Marketing Strategy Creation for OPG

Marketing Driven Strategy
In a market driven strategy the customer is the focal point, which means that everything the bar and grill does should be oriented towards benefiting the customer in some way. To know what OPG can do to benefit the customer, it has to determine its distinctive capabilities. These would be the strengths it possesses as identified in its SWOT analysis. It would also include opportunities identified in the same analysis. Then comes the step of matching customer value with the bar and grill’s capabilities and to ask whether leveraging the pub’s resources would help to create customer value. If there is a match and the pub can do it, the steps should lead to superior performance and a successful marketing driven strategy.
Positioning is key to this process and as Trout and Rivkin (2006) argue, a company must differentiate or die, which is what OPG aims to do with its marketing strategy. Using customer benefits and product characteristics as a marketing positioning strategy is the way to go for OPG. OPG’s strengths are its location and its food. Its location in the community is perfect for the demographic and it feels like a neighborhood pub and that it is truly part of the neighborhood, having grown up organically with the neighborhood: it is a place that gives the neighborhood its sense of identity and people like that about the pub. Its foods is also great and people love coming there for the beer, the food and the fact that it is in great location that is convenient and easy to get to for all the locals. Its opportunities are another aspect: there is an opportunity for it to open a beer garden and really hit it out of the park with the locals. There is also the opportunity to start up a brewery, which would be great for the pub. And then there is the great idea of expanding its kitchen services so as to provide full-scale catering for people in the neighborhood. Each of these ideas creates customer value and thus positions the company well with respect to its resources and what it can do.
Product-Market Boundaries
The pubs and breweries in the area all satisfy a generic market need, but none of them really provide that holistic customer need, which is a place that they can call their own. Breweries are big now because everyone in this demographic enjoys craft beer, so if the pub can offer their own craft beer it ups the pub’s value in the eyes of its customers and gives customers yet one more reason to be loyal to the pub, to buy pub merch, and to promote the pub by word of mouth and social media marketing, i.e., user generated content. User-generated content is free for the pub and is also one of the most effective ways to market because of the role that social media influencers play in the lives of consumers today (Dhar & Chang, 2009; Lim, Radzol, Cheah & Wong, 2017).
In terms of value chain strategy, the pub would add value to its product line by brewing its own beer and differentiating itself from the pub across the street in that way. It would also enhance its reputation as a legitimate outpost for a good time in the community, as the community is filled with craft brew loving customers. The differentiation advantage of brewing beer and of having a beer garden would put OPG at the top of a short list of best pubs in the neighborhood. Its food and location already put it near the top but opening a brewery and creating a beer garden would create even more value for customers.
Then expanding into catering for big events would also improve its standing in the community, especially as it could sponsor local events and kick start raising awareness about its catering service in this way. The more value it adds to the community by showing that it shares the community’s interests since it sponsors them, the more value it creates for itself.
Marketing Segmentation Strategy
Demographic
The demographic segment is concerned with age, gender, occupation, and ethnicity of customers (Lin, 2002). The demographic of the community consists of young professionals in their 20s and 30s, some with small families but most with local jobs downtown who are squarely in the middle class and who like to go out for beers with friends still. The ethnicity is white and the gender is 50/50 mix of men and women. This is the perfect demographic for what the pub has to offer.
Geographic
The geographic segment tells where consumers come from (Lin, 2002). These consumers are all local and come from the community. Some come from other parts of town but the majority of them live nearby and like the pub because it is within walking distance, has great food, offers a good time and place where all their friends can meet.
Behavioral
The behavioral segment looks at the consumer’s status as a consumer—frequent vs. random, etc (Lin, 2002). Most of the consumers at the pub are frequent, but some are random first-time customers. The pub is very much a neighborhood hot spot but because its reputation is good others from other parts of town randomly stop in to try it out. Thus, the pub has a good and growing reputation that it needs to leverage.
The marketing strategy thus needs to build on the demographic, geographic and behavioral characteristics of the consumer. Consumers like familiar and they also like trying new things, so the pub can be that familiar place by being friendly towards locals and it can also offer up new things on the menu and from the beer selection when it begins brewing.
Customer Relationship Management Strategy
Customer relationship management (CRM) is an important aspect of the service that is provided because relationships are what matter most in any business. The goal of OPG with respect to CRM is to promote the sense that everyone in the community can call OPG home. The idea is to get the community to see that OPG is theirs and that they are the ones who built it, which will thus increase their sense of having a stake in the pub and of wanting to see it do well. When the customer feels like he is truly part of the business he ups his patronage and becomes a loyal consumer. For OPG that means developing and adopting a strategy orientation towards the customer of the customer always being right.
The role of technology can play a big part in supporting CRM primarily because so many people are actively using technology already today. Technology like cell phones and iPads are ubiquitous and every person has them nowadays and moms are almost never without theirs. Thus it is a good idea to connect to people in the neighborhood via social media.
One of the best ways to connect with them is to use social media platforms like Instagram, where pictures and videos and posts can be made with little bits of information passed on to those who follow on the site. One idea to facilitate the customer relationship management process is to use Instagram to host a competition among customers of who can post their best corn hole designs or their best OPG merch ideas. Another would be to tweet on Twitter their best idea for an OPG original brew and the winner would get to name the beer or have the beer named after him. It is a promotional activity that gives customers in the community a chance to engage and feel valued by the pub while having fun with something the customer cares about—craft beer.
This is also a way to get all customers using the same social media site, which allows for better customer relations management. Instead of searching all over social media, from Facebook to Twitter to YouTube to Snapchat and so on, the pub can focus everyone’s attention on Instagram and manage customers directly from its Instagram page. Instagram becomes everyone’s go-to source for information from the pub and any questions can be posted on the page and the pub can answer them. Instead of having to juggle various accounts and interact across several platforms the pub can focus on just one account.
Another opportunity for CRM is to use influencers on Yelp who will come into the store and enjoy beer, food and the environment and then go and write a positive review of the pub and post it on Yelp. This can be done by reaching out to Yelpers who have a habit of always posting positive reviews of places and inviting them to enjoy a complimentary dining experience at the pub in exchange for a review posted on Yelp. The more positive reviews the pub gets online the more favorable its image can be for other customers who are looking for something new to try.
Strategy for Collecting Information about Potential Customers
Using social media for CRM also provides a way to collect information about potential customers. Big Data is here to stay and the pub needs to be using Big Data heuristics in order to identify where traffic is coming from to its website and who is interested in reviews of its restaurant. It can use social media to collect information about potential customers based on who follows the pub online and who is liking posts or taking part in social media challenges.
Selling functions used by organizations to increase buyer response from marketing strategies include the 4 p’s of the marketing mix—product, price, place and promotion. The pub already has a great place: its location is superb. Its products are well-reviewed but could be even better if it becomes a brewery of its own craft beer, opens a beer garden and gets its catering service going. Price has never been an issue because its prices are very competitive, almost to the point where they may be too low. However, low pricing is not an issue because the loss is made up for in sales volume, and low prices keep customers happy. Promotion is where the pub could stand to improve its marketing strategy, and promotional activities include communication via social media, sponsoring local events, and getting user generated content. One idea for user generated content is to offer a weekly free meal for whichever user posts the best collage of eating out and enjoying a good time at OPG on OPG’s social media account. The more collages that come the better it is for OPG and it will show how everyone there is always having a good time and it will encourage people to come back for more. It also lets users have a good time by taking fun pictures and sharing them.
In conclusion, OPG’s marketing strategy has to focus on applying its strengths and creating customer value. It should pursue the opportunities identified in the SWOT analysis, and it should focus on getting user-generated content on its various social media sites.
References
Dhar, V., & Chang, E. A. (2009). Does chatter matter? The impact of user-generated content on music sales. Journal of Interactive Marketing, 23(4), 300-307.
Lim, X. J., Radzol, A. M., Cheah, J. H., & Wong, M. W. (2017). The impact of social media influencers on purchase intention and the mediation effect of customer attitude. Asian Journal of Business Research, 7(2), 19-36.
Lin, C. F. (2002). Segmenting customer brand preference: demographic or psychographic. Journal of Product & Brand Management, 11(4), 249-268.
Trout, J. & Rivkin, S., (2006). Differentiate or die. In The marketing Gurus (ed. Murray). NY: Penguin.