Know-How Exchange : Strategy

Hi, Julie,

One suggestion before going into the explanation: Why not go to your b-school and ask them if a student would like to take on a project? If you don’t have a b-school, the psychology department, statistics department, and/or the math department can be valuable in some stages of this.

With any marketing endeavor, the key is establishing the customer needs, the competition, how well the competition meets those needs, and craft a product that meets the needs better than the competition. Additionally, given the customers, you need to determine what influences and motivates them – what they read, listen to, how they think, etc – and craft a message around that and in the right outlets to get the message out to them. I believe you are working with two market segments – students and faculty. Their needs, influences, and motivations will probably be different.

To start this, let’s select the students, because the opportunity is probably larger – more students, more customers. I might suggest the following:

1. Look for survey results available within the university system on students for demographics – likes, lifestyles, etc. I would suspect that there are some around. This can be the basis of your understanding of the influences and motivations. Check the following places: Administration, departments mentioned above. If they don’t have anything, then the departments above can help lay out a survey for you and analyze it.
2. Next, do the same for the needs and competition with respect to food service. Questions should involve arriving at where they eat, why they choose where they eat, and the good and bad points of these solutions. Again, lean on one of the departments for help designing this survey and analyzing it.
3. Based on the analysis, develop ideas on how to improve the food service and how to get the message across. This would be a good point to employ some focus groups. Recruit a panel of students to discuss food service – both competition and yours. Invite them to suggest what would motivate them to eat on campus and how to get the message across. Put the concepts you came up with in front of them and ask them to rate them and to make suggestions on how to improve effectiveness.
4. From these results, finalize the food service concept and design a promotional campaign. Put together a comprehensive schedule for the launch. Monitor the success with follow-on surveys.

The faculty process is similar. What you may come up with is that making an environment for both students and faculty to be attracted to might not be possible. What you could consider, if this is not too cost prohibitive, is two separate offerings.

Julie, I hope this helps you!

Wayde

Julie, we have worked with Universities before, and my colleagues’ comments are on the right track -- and Conrad's observations very insightful! You don’t want to promote the meal plan until you determine why it is being shunned.

Why waste money promoting a “product” that is not meeting the needs of the target audience – particularly when the target audience is already aware of the product, and its current “value” is not valued (apparently)?

So what are the issues? Is the food quality or selection options? Is it location, environment, availability (time), or cost? Is it social environment? Is it the perception of eating on campus vs. off campus? Is plan flexibility and the refund policy? Who is your competition? You really need to identify the reasons why they are NOT going (and where they DO go).

But even that’s not enough! You need to determine what features, changes, or additions will bring them back.

These are two completely different issues, and the data addresses two different goals – “What’s wrong?” and “What needs to change?”

Additionally, you have two major audiences – students and faculty. They resulting data should reveal some differences between the two groups.

The research doesn’t have to be difficult. I would suggest three methods:

1) Online Survey – to determine primarily what is lacking. You should have the email addresses for all students and faculty, and with a request from the appropriate dean, you should be able to get a statistically significant response.
2) Focus Groups or Council – to determine what is wanted. We would suggest several 3-4 facilitated sessions, perhaps one with faculty only, one students only, upper class, etc.
3) Personal calls to other 3-5 Universities of similar size and with a similar retail restaurant environment. How have food service departments (and the marketing departments, too) at other universities addressed this challenge?

Here are a few pointers (primarily for items 1 & 2 above:
* Good questions count. The right questions asked in the right way make all the difference. Asking key questions differently – individually and in a ranked list – may change the outcome or give a different perspective.
* Choose participants carefully. You want a representative headcount that can add value.
* Good facilitators matter. A seasoned facilitator knows how to direct the focus group most productively and further develop questions.
* Incentives help. A drawing for online participation, and monetary incentive or gift certificate for focus group participants helps.
* Analysis is key. The data needs to be compared effectively and the results, implications, and recommendations carefully presented.
* Action! What actions will you take? It won’t just be promotions – you may discover that the University needs to make significant changes to ensure the meal plan is an attractive alternative.

Additionally, the University will need to consider it’s mission and emphasis, ultimately deciding how badly and why they want a meal plan to succeed. Are they are in the food business or the education business? What is driving this desire to sell more meal plans (too much waste, not using services efficiently, etc.)? Perhaps if major changes are not possible, the answer may be as simple as scaling back food services – or outsourcing it to vendor food service company.

So research will drive the direction of the promotions campaign AND will enable it to be successful. When the research and recs are in, you’ll also finally have something to really talk about as you (1) have determined what your student/faculty audience really needs and wants, and (2) have made great changes in your “product” to satisfy those needs (or have determined very quickly if the University is willing to make changes at all!, thereby better understanding the possibility for marketing success).

It will be difficult to be successful if the motivations and needs of the target audience are not known. Find out!

Best of luck. Cynthia