Marketing Plan
THE RENEWED FAMILY TABLE
A meal planning service for working families.
Ali Messina & Layal Khocheiche
Madonna University
Dietetics Senior Seminar
November 2014
WHO WE ARE We are Madonna University Dietetics students working to put together healthy,
simple meal plans for working families. Based in the Dearborn/Dearborn Heights, MI are, we
specialize in halal meals and everyday eating, all while following the USDA MyPlate guidelines.
Our goal is to increase the number of families that cook and eat their meals as a family at
home, rather than in a restaurant where portion sizes are distorted and the food is not nearly
as healthy. Today, more and more families have both parents working and kids have a million
and one activities they take part in; there is hardly any time to sleep, let alone cook and eat
together—we aim to change that. By planning healthy weekly meals and providing a
shopping list to help guide and minimize trips to the grocery store, we hope that more
families in this area will be able to eat at home together.
SWOT ANALYSIS
STRENGTHS
WEAKNESSES
- research based
- still learning/students
- organization/planning skills
- no business experience
- educated in nutrition
- prompt/timely
OPPORTUNITIES
THREATS
- families tend to have both parents working
- Qudoba, Chipotle healthy, “fast food”
- life in generally busy in the US
type alternatives to cooking at home
- Halal foods are becoming more prominent
- The Fresh 20 online meal planning
in the US
service
- people are following more healthy/specific
diets
MAJOR STRATEGY FOR MARKETING In a world where we rely more and more on technology,
we have chosen to market our meal planning service through a website and a twitter account.
The website tells all about who we are and what we do and includes a sample days’ meal
plan and shopping list for both the halal and everyday eating plans. This will ensure that
prospective clients know what we do and it will also let them know how they can get into
contact with us. Additionally, as part of our service, we will minimize expenses to the clients by
meeting them at a local coffee shop or restaurant of their choice; this will hopefully encourage
repeat clients. Finally, the twitter account; this is where we will post healthy eating and cooking
tips and chronicle some of our healthy recipes and what the finished product will look like. We
hope that this will encourage families to cook at home and to become one of our clients;
especially when they can see how easy and affordable it can be.
MARKET RESEARCH In order to determine if there is a market for this type of service we chose
to simply ask around—discussing the idea with family and friends. This helped us to decide on
a price point for our service. Additionally, we would like to distribute a survey to our target
audience, specifically those that frequent Super Greenland Market and Meijer in
Dearborn/Dearborn Heights. The surveys would be relatively brief, and this would hopefully
encourage people to fill them out. The questions follow:
1.
How much time do you take to plan meals, generally? 0-2hrs, 3-5hrs, 5+hrs
2. How long does it take you to grocery shop for healthy foods? 1-2hrs, 3-5hrs,
5+hrs
3. How often per week do you find yourself making multiple trips to the grocery store
for meal prep? 0-1, 2-3, 4-5
4. Do you follow a halal diet?
5. How much would you pay to have pre-planned meals and shopping lists each
week? Under $10, $10-$20, $30-$50
MEASURABLE OBJECTIVES In order to ensure that we are not wasting our time with this
business venture we have concluded that we will need to do extensive marketing to get our
name out into the public. However, we outlined the following objectives to ensure that we do
not wait too long to get out, if this ends up being the case:
1.
In order to make this our sole income, we will need to have at least 15 clients each; at
least 30 clients per month—this should be done by the one year mark.
2. If we do not have at least 10 clients per month after 6 months, we either need to get out
entirely, or adjust our strategies.
ACTION TASK In order to best market our business, we chose to put together a website. For
this to work best to our advantage, we must get things done in a timely manner. Therefore,
we put together the following planning/executing schedule for our website:
TASK
PERSON
RESPONSIBLE
Assess target audience/plan mission Layal & Ali
DATE
10/13/14
Website design Ali
10/20/14
Add contact info Layal
10/20/14
Sample meal plans
Halal
Everyday eating
Layal
11/03/14
Ali
Edit/finalize website design and content Layal & Ali
11/10/14
REVENUES/EXPENSES Our chief expenses in running this business include internet and phone
service—which is not being taken into account because we will already each personally have
internet and phone services, additionally, there will be gas required for traveling to meet
clients, and finally paper and ink for printing. As far as revenue goes, our only source will be
the fee of $10 per week for meal planning/shopping lists. We decided upon this price by
asking family and friends the survey questions; the conclusion was that while the service is
valuable, $10 is the most anyone is willing to pay for someone else to do it for them. Finally,
based on our expenses, we will need at least 3 clients per month; however, this would hardly
be worth the work. Therefore we have concluded that having at least 13 clients would allow us
to make $500 per month—this may not be enough to live on, but it would be a good start.
The expenses and revenues are broken down below.
Expenses:
Gas for traveling to meet clients
$40/month
5 ink cartridges = $64; covers 2 months
$32/month
3 reams/1500 sheets = $25; covers 2 months
$12.50/month
TOTAL: $84.50/month
Revenue:
$10 per week for meal plans and shopping lists ($40 per month on average)
CLIENT COUNT REVENUE
NET PROFIT
13/month $520 approx.
$435.50
15/month $600 approx.
$515.50
20/month $800 approx.
$715.50
30/month $1200 approx.
$1115.50
TIMETABLE FOR EVALUATION After three months of operation, we will assess whether or not
we are making money based on the number of clients after the first month and the number
that have returned. If we do not have at least 15 clients per month, we will need to reevaluate
the marketing strategies and our image. Once these have been reworked we will assess after
another three months. Afterwards, we will assess our company based on the objectives set up
at the opening of our business as stated above.