Kudler Fine Foods is a retailer dealing with food products. The retailer deals with local products and foodstuffs from other countries. Kudler Fine Foods is located in San Diego, and owns three stores within the environs of the city.
The company has been doing well in the sale of food products in the geographical area it operates. In addition, Kudler Fine Foods has developed a new marketing plan in an effort establish innovative marketing.
For the marketing strategy to succeed, the company has been doing research on their customers in order to realize success of its marketing projects.
In the light of the success of the methodologies used by Kudler Fine Foods, research has proved to be an important tool in developing any sales promotion plan. In the following discussion, the importance of research in marketing strategies and tactics is highlighted with Kudler Fine Foods in focus.
In order for an organization to succeed in marketing its products, a significant change is needed in the methods or approaches used in marketing. In this essence, marketing strategies and tactics involve change of the current methods.
This change is accomplished by implementing the recommendations of a market research project. In market research, information about the customer is obtained and recorded.
In addition, the methods used by competitors in marketing and the nature of the market are examined, and the data obtained is analyzed to help the managers of a company decided on the counteractive measures to be implemented.
Research helps a business organization to identify and explore new markets by attracting new customers. The organization in question has to identify the customers and categorize them in order of their importance.
This way, the managers of the organization are able to focus marketing power on the most important customers.
Researchers at Kudler Fine Foods suggested that the company should adopt new methods to emerge as a powerful competitor in the market. Their recommendations were that since the company dealt with expensive food, it could hold demonstrations of how to prepare some of the products for a meal.
Apart from familiarizing the customer with their products, Kudler Fine Foods was able to acquaint potential customers to the stores. This strategy would help the company make the customers keep in mind the particular store when they go about shopping for food.
To develop interest in customers, Kudler Fine Foods demonstrated the culinary procedures of preparing foreign food products. Furthermore, acclaimed food experts were present and were used to demonstrate the procedures.
People attending the parties organized by the company were encouraged to bring others such as friends along for the experience.
Apart from the innovation of holding educative parties at Kudler Fine Foods, other methods were recommended after examinations of research findings.
Researchers found out that the operating hours of the stores in a day were best suited for the company staff rather than for the customer. A survey indicated that more people did not approve the set operating hours at Kudler Fine Foods.
Presentation of the food products at the food stores was also not attractive to the customers according to the survey. While the customers judged that the quality of the food products was fair, they disagreed on the presentation of the same products.
The research also revealed that some workers at the stores lacked courtesy while dealing with customers. An examination of the reports presented by the survey reveals that the customers were generally of the opinion that the services and commodities offered at Kudler Fine Foods were of good quality.
However, the customers expressed concern that the company was selling their products at exorbitant prices. Although the quality was good enough for the customers, there was a feeling among them that the prices were too high.
Another finding of the survey is that the company did not focus in individual groups of customers. Researchers found out that the company did little to offer specific products for different groups of customers. The company implemented corrective measures based on the results of research on general customer population.
For the company to outdo its competitors, its research and planned solutions to marketing problems must be kept as intelligence information. This will enable the retailer to enjoy the fruits of its innovation long before competitors become aware of the new tactics.
While Kudler Fine Foods has done extensive research and put itself on the course of reform, there is necessity to keep the reasons for its changes secret. Much of the information on the research the company conducted and the solutions that were formulated for the emerging issue has become available to the public, workers and competitors.
While it is important for the customers to know that the retailer is working to improve its services to the public, it is also important for Kudler Fine Foods to keep the details of its intentions from the competitors.
If competitors get information regarding the strategies that Kudler fine foods is intending to implement, a war for customers and customer loyalty could ensue. Such a competition may divert the efforts of the company from keeping a balance between profit and customer loyalty to engaging in costly wars.
In this essence, the company and its competitors may enter into a price war and a costly sales promotion competition. Thus, competitive intelligence is important for the company to make use of its findings in research.
For some of the sales promotion plans such as the introduction of tickets to encourage customers to attend parties may not be suitable for classification as secret information.
However, internal changes to the type of stock on retail should not be announced before the actual changes take place. Customers can be informed of the new products after implementation of the changes. This will prevent competitors from stocking identical commodities.
There are other areas that the company could have investigated and streamlined as a part of the effort to increase its sales and expand customer base. An investigation of the various customer groups should have been conducted to establish the type of distribution channel suitable for the respective customer groups.
This means that the company would modify its food products to make them suitable according to the variation of customer groups. In addition, the culture of stereotyping the customers could be avoided.
This is evident from the fact that the company did not recognize the variation of customer preferences while it did its research. The researchers looked at the market as a homogenous entity instead of treating it as a composition of various groups.
The company has established a significant level of popularity for its commodities and services among customers. However, to implement changes to the methods of operation and tactics in marketing and distribution, the company must conduct an analysis of the market, and separate the customer population into distinct groups.
The company failed to implement this aspect of market research. In the analysis, customers can be separated into various groups or classes that can be dealt with separately.
This will enhance customer satisfaction in relation to products sold by Kudler Fine Foods and services offered at the stores.