Location:
One of the major concerns with Sugar Berry is their location. The store is situated on East Grand River between Saginaw Highway and Highway 127. This location allows it to be frequented by Michigan State University’s students and by the local neighboring community. However, because its middle range between the two target markets, it makes it hard for the store to penetrate each market. Also, its position on East Grand River makes it hard to reach when traveling west on Grand River. The store is located right past where Grand River and Saginaw Highway merge, making it difficult to cross five lanes of merging traffic to reach the plaza where Sugar Berry is located. Patrons traveling on West Grand River may also find it difficult to reach the store as well, due to the one way road. If a customer is craving frozen yogurt, they must make the conscience decision to visit Sugar Berry due to its difficulty to get to on a road that most people may not drive by on a daily basis. This makes the store lose out on drive-bys who may see the store and just decide to pop in for a special treat. In addition to the trouble of getting into the Sugar Berry driveway, the sign on the storefront is rather small and hard to read. Each letter of the Sugar Berry name is a different color, so it is attention grabbing but hard to read. Many of the businesses on the road have a sign next to the street in addition to the sign on their store fronts, however Sugar Berry's is only on the front of their store.
Awareness:
Sugar Berry opened last November and is still looking to gain awareness in the surrounding communities. Being a new business, they need to get their name out to the public and encourage patronage. So far Sugar Berry has struggled to do so. Most students at Michigan State University have never heard of the store and Sugar Berry is also striving to break into the local neighborhoods still. They have a great product to offer that is unique from other local ice cream shops, but getting people into the store to try it is the biggest challenge to overcome. Many of Sugar Berry’s customers bring repeat business to the store, but getting them in there for the first time is the toughest part. Sugar Berry can bring awareness to their store through social media, the internet, flyers, and advertisements.
Website:
In today’s society, practically every business has a website where consumers can seek out additional information. Sugar Berry has yet to implement a website for their store. This is a major problem, because they could use it to advertise their store and its social media sites, the flavors they’re currently serving, provide basic store information, nutritional information, etc. People rarely use the yellow pages anymore and turn to the internet for finding out information. By Sugar Berry not having a website, they are losing out on a chance to communicate to their customers. The website doesn’t have to be anything elaborate, but just a place where consumers can log onto see information about the store. They do have a Facebook page, however it does not show up when you search "Sugar Berry East Lansing" on google. Many adults and parents do not have a Facebook page, which makes it hard to penetrate that part of our target market.
Flyers/ Brochures:
Sugar Berry has not done enough flyering in the local community or created brochures to advertise their products. This is a relatively cheap way to advertise and spread awareness of the store. Flyers could be passed out at local sporting events, schools, neighborhood homes, or around Michigan State’s campus. Brochures could also be prepared to display the great nutritional properties of the frozen yogurt and fruits offered by Sugar Berry. Inside the store, Sugar Berry has great signage and information about their products, but creating smaller versions of these signs to pass out to consumers is important to spreading the word about the store and getting people to stop in and try their products.
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