The present marketing plan is developed to provide the Cold Stone Creamery franchisee with the clear road map of actions connected with ratifying the franchise agreement and carrying out all the branding, promotion, and advertising activities connected with it. This marketing plan inquires about the industry background, outlines the main activities the franchisee should adopt, establishes the people responsible for them, and specifies timeframes and budget for those activities. Finally, success evaluation techniques are also stipulated in this marketing plan.
Introduction
Cold Stone Creamery is one of the leaders of the United States market of ice cream and food (Cold Stone Creamery, 2009). Therefore, it is a potentially profitable step to franchise the company and obtain the right to produce and distribute the goods under the label of Cold Stone Creamery. For us, as a new company in the ice cream market, it is a chance to develop and establish our market share in the ice cream industry of the US (Franchise Direct, 2009). For these purposes the following marketing plan is designed as the comprehensive tool for developing our further activities as the Cold Stone Creamery franchisee.
Business Summary
Market Background
Cold Stone Creamery operates in the US food market, whose ice cream division is a rather developed one, and presents wide opportunities for franchising. Cold Stone Creamery was acknowledged as the #1 franchiser in the US market in 2007, and has been developing its positions since that time (Daszkowski, 2009). The main competitors of the Cold Stone Creamery in the market are Ben & Jerry’s, Dunkin, and Marble Slab (Cold Stone Creamery, 2009). The market is overall characterized by the strong competition and progressive advertising and marketing techniques implemented by the above stipulated market players to compete in the ice cream industry.
Costumer Base
The ice cream market has the wide and permanently increasing customer base that amounts to over 3 million people around the country. Cold Stone Creamery alone enjoys the loyalty of over 200,000 customers according to the most recent data provided by its official web site in 2009 (Cold Stone Creamery, 2009). The customers in this market always look for the best quality and are attracted by familial offerings made by the major market players. Franchising Cold Stone Creamery allows the franchisee to increase the customer base by relating its products to the worldwide famous brand (Franchise Direct, 2009).
SWOT Analysis
Drawing from this, a company aiming at franchising such a famous brand as Cold Stone Creamery needs to be aware of the main strengths and weaknesses this step might bring it, as well as the opportunities and threats it might face in the ice cream market (Table 1):
Table 1: SWOT Analysis for Cold Stone Creamery Franchisee
Target Market Considered
The US market of food on the whole and ice cream in particular, the target market for our company, is rather highly developed. According to Cold Stone Creamery (2009), the ice cream industry reports annual joint sales of over $21 billion and the figure is on the permanent growth. The market also is one of the key employers in the USA with currently over 500,000 people being involved in ice cream industry manufacturing and trade. The customers in this market demand the high quality of goods based on the strong competition observed, and the task of out company is to use the advantages of franchising Cold Stone Creamery for its development in such market conditions (Cold Stone Creamery, 2009).
Goals
Logo and Branding
The first point in developing the franchisee of Cold Stone Creamery is to create the logo of the new company and conduct the branding thereof. The logo of the franchisee should integrate the elements referring to Cold Stone Creamery but at the same time be original not to confuse the loyal company’s customers. The branding should be carried out using the assistance Cold Stone Creamery provides for its franchisees, according to Franchise Direct (2009), including the staff training, advertising help, and Internet promotional activities. Creation of the logo and branding of the franchisee should be carried out in strict compliance with the franchising agreement.
Advertising
Advertising is an important point for both the branding of the new franchisees and the overall development of this company’s market position. Cold Stone Creamery provides respective services to each of its franchisees and includes the payment for those services into its franchise fee that amounts to $42,000 (Daszkowski, 2009). The advertising policies of the franchisee should include local advertising, extensive advertising that includes local and countrywide advertising, branding, and promotion, and grand opening advertising. Initial advertising fee Cold Stone Creamery established is $5,000, while each franchisee has to allocate 3% of its annual sales to the company for its subsequent advertising assistance.
Web Presence
Web presence is another important point the in the franchisee branding as far as the Internet is the most accessible and influential information source of today (Franchise Direct, 2009). Drawing from this, the goal of the franchisee of Cold Stone Creamery is to develop an easily accessible and attractive web page from which both the list of the company’s offerings and its affiliation with Cold Stone Creamery should be obvious. The web site of the franchisee should be simple in operation and should provide its visitors with full information on the company, its product range, and online order options.
Marketing Strategies
The marketing strategies needed for reaching the above outlined goals of the Cold Stone Creamery franchisee should include the following items:
- Use the franchisee brand and the logo of Cold Stone Creamery to develop the joint logo of the newly established franchisee in 2 weeks;
- Carry out the competition among logo designers to ensure the selection of the best logo for the company;
- Conduct the joint, with Cold Stone Creamery, branding and advertising campaign by launching media promotion;
- Develop the properly designed web page of the franchisee to provide the customers with online order options and access to the full company’s profile;
- Carry out an attractive grand opening ceremony.
Implementation Tactics and Timeframes
The following specific steps should be taken to practically implement the above listed marketing strategies. The timeframes and people responsible for the tasks also should stated (Table 2):
Table 2: Implementation Tactics and Timeframes
Budget
Respectively, the following financial details of the marketing activities discussed above should be established (Table 3):
Table 3: Marketing Plan Budget
Evaluation of Results
The results of the proposed plan will be monitored according to the sales rates of the franchisee as traced in dynamics over 6 months after the franchise agreement is signed and the marketing plan proposed is implemented. The mark of the success of the plan will be at least the 20% growth of sales rates observed. The monitoring of the results will be carried by the marketing department very 6 months through the documentation review and surveys of the customers’ opinions on the changes, either positive or negative, they observe in the franchisee’s work over the period.
References
Cold Stone Creamery. (2009). Making Wishes Come True.
Daszkowski, D. (2009). Cold Stone Creamery Franchise Review. Web.
Franchise Direct. (2009). Cold Stone Creamery Franchise Profile. Web.