Tamarind Restaurant’s Marketing Plan

Executive summary

Marketing can be defined as a process of interesting potential customers and clients in your products and services (ward, 2008). The word ‘process’ is the key word in this definition, it involves researching, promoting, distributing and selling your products or services. Marketing plan outlines the specific actions ones intend to carry out to achieve the objects of marketing which is to impress the potential customers and clients in the product or services ones interests to sell to them.

In this paper we will try to understand how marketing can be used by small business to develop their businesses, express ourselves to the concepts and strategies in marketing, public relation customer service and advertising which are vital in designing a successful business marketing plan. We shall identify a certain business and use it to develop a marketing plan for that business meant to develop and maintain a successful business.

Tamarind mission is to provide a classic combination of indisputable knowledge with a unique experience and tradition that holds world wide recognition. The restaurant employs a differentiation strategy and offers her guest with sophisticated fine dining experience, discrete service and tantalizing foods that only few can compete with ensuring that guest come for more.

The restaurant is located along Carzon Street at the neighbourhood of MayFair &St James. It offers excellent Indian cousines in a casual elegant style. It has charming and experienced staffs which is capable of steering the restaurant into a higher level ground.

Situation Analysis

Tamarind is close to entering its thirteenth year of operation¹. The restaurant establishment is accommodating with frequent customers of mostly Indian origin. The restaurant however lacks diversification reaching out to the inhabitants who are the Britons. To change this scenario it needs a marketing plan for its continued success and future profitability. The business offers excusive varieties of Indian cuisine plus other different types of traditional foods. The basic market need is to offer different groups of individuals with fresh and attractive cuisines specific to satisfy the need of the target customers. Use of segmentation method to identify these categories of people would be the initial step.

Market Summary

In the restaurant business, marketing is defined as the process of getting the right products and services to the right customers at the right time and place and at the right price. (Alonzo 1995, Pp 146).He argues that and quotes” A restaurant without a marketing plan is like a ship without a rudder” (pg 146). With a marketing plan a business is guaranteed to achieve its goals. Tamarind documents information of its potential customers who frequent its business and tries much to gather more information about them to better understand who is served, their specific needs, and how it can communicate well with them. It builds a team spirit that brings out the best performance from everyone and focuses their efforts on the achievement of the restaurants goals².

Market demographics, Market treads, and Market needs

The geographical area of target for Tamarind is the town of Mayfair. It intends to utilise all the resources to ensure that the locals need are met. It aims increase it’s sales revenue, establish a marketing budget and plan to increase customer base.

The target market of the restaurant has both young and old people. They include workers all kind college students, visitors, etc. To segment this population to meet their needs would establish a good market analysis, the age of the target group, their lifestyle, where they live, their gender family structure, their income, employment status, what motivates them and how they spend their spare time.

The over all objective of the Tamarind hotel was to increase sales by over 40% in this fiscal year 2008. Having this objective the company had to identify its strength and weaknesses which will enable it to lay out its strategies. The strengths identified were, its strong management team, excellent food and drinks, and customer care service. The weaknesses of Tamarind restaurant were its lack of seating capacity and lack of proper advertising.

When developing a marketing strategy, the company understands the following basic reasons. That people purchase goods and services to satisfy themselves, solve problems and make they feel good.³ Businesses on the other hand buy products and services to increase revenue, maintain status quo, and to decrease expenses.

SWOT Analysis

Strengths

• Strong management team
• Excellent variety of food and drinks
• Excellent customers care services
• Affordable food prices
• Unique style of dinner occasions.

Weaknesses

• Lack of proper advertisements
• Loss seating capacity
• Low customer base.
• Lack of brand identity.

Opportunites

• Increasing population
• Changing lifestyles of people
• Presence of specialised agencies for marketing.

Threats

• Competition from competitors
• Maintaining customers base
• Operational costs.

SWOT Analysis Description

SWOT analysis of the company was prepared and it showed the companies strengths and weakness pointing out the opportunities and threats the company need to look at. The weakness of the company should not be a setback to the company but an opportunity to utilise to realise their success.

They need to use their strengths to expand more and increase customer base by exploiting the opportunities that awaits them. The increasing population and changing lifestyle of people would be an opportunity to Tamarinds as more people seek to satisfy their different needs. Foods and drinks designed to target their different needs would be worth to consider. Threats can also be turned into opportunities if the company first understand them and rake measures to protect the restaurant from fall.

A detailed plan of action was developed that involved developing a new advert that appealed to specific age groups. Another tactic was to offer early bird specials to attract people before they go to work to gain an additional turnover. In addition to organising of proper night dinners for specific target groups lets say 18-40 years at a reasonable price.

The plan for Tamarind is to be implemented through a timeline laid down by the management. The period to achieve the 40% increase in revenue was within a period of one year. Advertisement of the companies’ services is done externally promoting the same internally. The records of the outcome are to be kept carefully adjustments for specific actions to be allowed as the implementation is being carried out. This adjustment should only be made after observing the bad points of the action. The good points are reinforced as good features by correcting the flows.

If the results are to be successful in increasing revenue and customer base, plan should continue. Modification would only occur when the market plan achieves a moderate contribution to the objective. Termination of the plan occurs only when it yield absolutely no contribution.

Discussion and Conclusion

All successful marketing programs are based on an in-depth knowledge of prospective customer’s wants and deeds. The programs consists of market research product and concept development, packaging, pricing, advertising, sales promotion & personal selling strategies..

Normally it is the uniqueness of your service that will put you at the edge of marketing. It is how the customer will benefit best from your service or product which he or she could not have got from another equivalent business. A business plan that tries to address special needs of its customers will however stand out to make the business succeed.

Bibliography

Alonzo RS. 1995. Upstart Guide Owning & Managing a Restaurant, Dearborn Trade Publishing Group.Inc.

Kotler, P & Keller K. 2006. Marketing management, 12th Edition, Prentice hall New Jersey. Web.

Levi, K. 2007. The elements f effective marketing plan- Business branding. Web.

Tamarind restaurant. Web.

Ward, Susan. 2003. “The key to marketing” The marketing Plan. Web.