Kudler Fine Foods - Marketing Research Paper

Kudler Fine Foods, owned by Kathy Kudler, is an upscale food store based in San Diego, California. The company initially opened its doors in 1998 and introduced additional stores in Encinitas, La Jolla, and Del Mar in 2000 and 2003. Each site boasts at least 16,000 square feet of footage and occupies prime real estate in an upscale shopping mall. The company stocks the very best selections of imported and domestic foods, including fish, beef, poultry, baked goods, produce, deli style meats, cheeses, and etc (Kudler Virtual Organization, 2008).

Objectives-Marketing

Since its very beginning, Kudler Fine Foods has experienced significant growth. Reportedly, Kathy Kudler would like to expand services to improve

operational efficiency and increase the customer purchases as well as develop loyalty among customers and increase profits from each customer visit.

Increased Services

The first of these strategies involves increased service offerings. Kudler Fine Foods has prepared three strategies to improve sales and profits. The company's owner hopes to increase profits at each site by hosting wine tastings and classes on how to prepare foods. This will help increase participation not only at these events, but even at the grocery stores (Kudler Virtual Organization, 2008).

Frequent Shopping Program

The next marketing strategy focuses on consumer loyalty. Kudler will improve sales and shopping experiences by offering customer loyalty programs similar to those used by Kroger, Wal-Mart, and CVS. With this offering, Kudler will be able to track the spending habits of each consumer as they build up spending points using technology built into their internal database. In this way Kudler can determine the buying habits of frequent shoppers and maintain inventories to meet their shopping needs and wants. This will help with the availability of items that need to be stocked for continued sales growth (Kudler Virtual Organization, 2008).

Improvement of Service

Finally, Kudler chose to develop software to help train employees in customer service using a strategy adopted from Nordstrom's Department Stores. Kudler Fine Foods will spend up to $92,000 to improve their software to effectively train employees (Kudler Virtual Organization, 2008). Kudler has also set aside up to 45,000 dollars for a novel shopper relationship management structure known as a CRM.

Importance of Marketing Research

In 2007 Kudler increased customer loyalty by offering high-margin services. Kudler has found that understanding customer purchase patterns helps to provide a much more efficient operation. New customers can be won by maximizing social networks in addition to word of mouth. New selling functions will help the expansion of services and programs to increase loyalty and profitability for long time customers and also gain high-margin customers as well.

Tactics and Strategies

An integrated marketing communications plan, or IMC, is important when developing tactics and strategies for a company. Kudler Fine Foods is a quality food store, which allows it to demand high prices for quality food. In order to have customers pay such a high price for good quality food it is critical that the business excel in other areas, such as customer service. The company has committed to maintain its focus on high quality brands as new tactics and strategies are developed. Kudler believes that this mission will allow her company to succeed using these new tactics and strategies plan.

Psychographics and Demographics

Kudler Fine Foods created its marketing strategies by using demographics and a science known as psychographics. "Demographics measure characteristics of individuals or households, such as age, sex, place of residence, or family income. Persons who have certain of these characteristics in common are grouped" (Wikipeda, 2010). "Psychographics measure attitudes, beliefs, and lifestyle characteristics" (Wikipeda, 2010). Demographics and psychographics are a key element when implementing IMC.

Competitive Intelligence and Analysis

Competitive Intelligence (CI) is important for Kudler Fine Foods because this helps keep an eye on the competitor. This will in turn help Kudler stay ahead of their competition and the moves that they will make. This will also involve tactical collection and integration into the information infrastructure, analysis and distribution of the information (AuroraWDC.com, 1995-2000).

Kudler Fine Foods is an establishment that has consistently increased growth over two the last 12 years. Kudler Fine Foods has prided themselves in bettering the quality of their customer service, marketing research and also beating out the competition. Kudler has increased their services, training programs and marketing overviews. Kudler is striving to be the best in its market and in the world by researching the competition and listen and offering valued services to there consumers.

References

Kudler Virtual Organization (2008). Marketing Overview. Retrieved on September 5, 2010 from University of Phoenix, Resource, MKT/463 Marketing Web site: https://ecampus.phoenix.edu/secure/aapd/CIST/VOP/Business/Kudler/IT/KudlerITDatabases001.htm

Wikipedia.org. (2001). Demographics. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_page

Kudler Fine Foods, owned by Kathy Kudler, is an upscale food store based in San Diego, California. The company initially opened its doors in 1998 and introduced additional stores in Encinitas, La Jolla, and Del Mar in 2000 and 2003. Each site boasts at least 16,000 square feet of footage and occupies prime real estate in an upscale shopping mall. The company stocks the very best selections of imported and domestic foods, including fish, beef, poultry, baked goods, produce, deli style meats, cheeses, and etc (Kudler Virtual Organization, 2008).

Objectives-Marketing

Since its very beginning, Kudler Fine Foods has experienced significant growth. Reportedly, Kathy Kudler would like to expand services to improve

operational efficiency and increase the customer purchases as well as