Foundations Of Marketing

When planning a marketing campaign:

·         Separate your company’s actions and policies from what are perceived to be industry standards.

·         Take the risk out of buying for the client.

·         Market differently to different groups and individuals.

·         For social catering, stress entertaining and status.

·         For corporate catering, stress sales results and employee happiness.

·         Teach the business of catering to your marketplace.

·         Always answer the question of WIIFM (what’s in it for me) in your marketing.

·         Use testimonials; they are especially powerful in marketing catering.

·         Try to deliver more then you promised.

·         Be aware that in most cases, caterers are not taken seriously by those who want to buy catering.

·         Ask your current buyers what they like best about your service and what they like least.

·         Ask your current buyers what they would do if they owned your company for a day and could change anything they wanted.

·         Talk with your staff. Ask them what they would do to make the company better—then listen to their answers.

·         Figure out how you can get a detailed demonstration of what and how your closest competitors do with their catering. Why not purchase some catering from them, without letting them know it’s for another caterer?

·         Take an honest inventory of where your company stands in the “mind of the buyer” in:

Overall image.

Knowledge of your product/service.

Sensitivity to buyer wishes.

Enthusiasm for catering.

Professionalism.

·         Decide which product lines of your business you need to market first.

·         Develop small marketing programs first; wait until later for the mega-dollar promotions. Remember what General George Patton said, “A good plan today is better than a great plan tomorrow.”

·         Think of your business from the buyer’s point of view.

·         Decide which part of your business is ripe for a change.

·         Live by the motto that every product or service can be improved.