Edgewater Marketing Plan

Kannah Creek Edgewater BreweryMarketing for winter months, Events and Social Gatherings

Authors:

Duncan Alger, Lauren Bush, Laruen Elliott, Courtney McGinnis

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Contact Information

Contact: Katlin Birdsall

Marketing Coordinator (970) 243-0702

Kannah Creek Brewing Company (970) 243-3659

Edgewater Brewery

Hours: Sunday-Thursday 11am-10pm and Friday & Saturday 11am-11pm

Address: 905 Struthers Ave. Grand Junction, CO 81501

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Table of ContentsContact Information…………………………………………………....Pg 2

Situational Analysis………………………………………………….....Pgs 4-7

SWOT Analysis…………………………………………………………Pgs 7-9

Goals & Strategies……………………………………………………...Pg 9

Marketing Implementation Plan………………………………….......Pgs 10-12

Evaluation & Controls…………………………………………….......Pgs 12-16

Executive Summary……………………………………………………Pgs 17-19

Work Cited………………………………………………………….......Pg 20

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Situational Analysis:

The mission that Edgewater strives to maintain is its focus on creating an environment that

everyone can feel comfortable in, whether it be the employees or the customers. With

knowledgeable staff, friendly service, and incredible scenery, this location has a competitive

advantage unlike any brew house or restaurant in town. Along with strengths comes weaknesses.

It is our job to conduct the marketing plan for Edgewater and make it stand out from the rest.

Different than even the sister-location, Kannah Creek Brewing Company located on 1960 North

12th St. Grand Junction, CO 81501 just across from the Colorado Mesa University campus.

Choosing a name is a long, thoughtful, and well-researched process, and it is also something that

could make or break a business immediately. A name should have meaning and help potential

customers understand what the company does and the products they are selling. Kannah Creek

Brewery had the name come to them, thanks to the actual Kannah Creek which descends from

the melting snowpack atop the Grand Mesa. This water is a very important source of water and it

needs little treatment, because its pure origins create safe drinking water standards. Water is

essential for beer (accounts for 90% of its volume). Its mineral content affects a beer’s ultimate

flavor profile and supports the yeast which turns the sugar into alcohol. The name is perfect for

the brewery, because it is simple and has great history behind it, which interests its customers.

As a marketing group we wanted to establish two main factors when it came to the

situational analysis and those two factors are the internal and external environment. Meaning

what internal factors are harming the business and what internal factors are proving successful

for this company. External factors focus on what Kannah’s main competitors are and what

external factors are helping them, such as location, brand name and so forth. Understanding these

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two factors will ultimately help the organization's capabilities, customer relations, and business

environment. Kannah Brewery Edgewater is a fantastic restaurant, bar and venue for events. We

specifically wanted to focus on the events, special occasions and social gatherings that take place

at the Edgewater brewery as well as increasing revenue over the winter months compared to the

last years. To better understand our situational analysis we took a look at five main aspects of the

analysis; those being our competition, the political forum of the geographical area, economical

factors as well as a social cultural vision of our product and a technological view of our market.

After looking at these five main aspects we discovered there are many local restaurants and bars

in Grand Junction but there are much fewer local breweries, and even fewer that have a full

service restaurant and bar with event space. Kannah Creek Brewery Edgewater brews their own

beer on site and serves up amazing food to go along with it. But the part that really attracted us

as a group was the location. Tucked away just off Main Street Grand Junction by the river and a

great bike riding location is Edgewater. On a whopping 3 acre lot with over 1,500 feet of lawn

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space, you could not have a more perfect location to host incredible events. So our goal is to help

them market, promote, advertise their events and how to attract new customers, larger crowds as

well as retain their current customers.

With this situational analysis, which is basically our starting point, we want to be clear,

concise, knowledgeable, focused and realistic about our product. We know we face many

challenges in the way of competitors such as Palisade Brewery, Ale House, Rockslide Brewery

as well as many others. This brings me into our next subject which is the market size. Since we

are focusing on a smaller market segment we have to specialize our product and service even

more. This means getting a leg up on the competition in order to out market our competitors.

Edgewater’s event staff and facility is unlike any in town, it is much more event based where as

other breweries focus more on their restaurant and bar facilities. For example in September alone

they already have more than ten events in place such as the Botanical Gardens Concert, Firkin

Fundraiser, Red Fox Cellars Pairings and many beer festivals and tastings in other locations.

They also offer an onsite tour of their brewery and give a free tasting at the end. On the lawn

they offer amenities such as corn hole, lawn games, a small stage for live music as well as tents,

chairs and tables for larger and more formal events.

We wanted to mention their locally brewed beer such as the Lands End Amber Ale and

the Standing Wave Pale Ale which both won national and international awards for their taste.

This is one, if not the main attraction for Kannah Creek Edgewtaer. Many customers will travel a

long way just for the beers listed above as well as the other specialty beers they brew. This takes

us in to our target market, beer consumers. That is the basis for the majority of Edgewater’s

events and their customers’ preference. Specifically our group wants to help market, advertise

and promote more beer events, tastings and festivals that can cater to Colorado Mesa students

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that are 21 and above. Kannah is also a huge part of the local community. One big way that

Kannah Creek contributes to the community is by giving back. Every year they give back to the

local community and in the last two years they hosted the monthly Firkin Fundraisers as we

stated earlier, where they were able to raise almost $20,000 for 24 different local nonprofits. One

of their biggest moments of giving back put them on the market for doing good deeds and

succeeding tremendously, and that moment was last year with the inaugural bottling of the

Crossed Irons Irish Ale. Kannah was able to raise $1,058 for the Colorado Chapter of the Terry

Farrell Firefighters Fund.

SWOT Analysis:

When we were looking at the SWOT Analysis for Edgewater Brewery we wanted to

weigh the risks and rewards of the business and how we could ultimately get a higher reward for

the marketing skills of the Edgewater Brewery. This analysis is basically an analytical

framework that can help your business face its greatest challenges and find its most promising

new market. This analysis will lead to business awareness and is the cornerstone of any

successful strategic plan and enables organizations to identify both internal and external

influences. Outside of business, other organizations have found much use in the method's

guiding principles. For example, community health and development, education, and other

groups have used the analysis. The SWOT's primary objective is to help organizations develop a

full awareness of all the factors, positive and negative, that may affect strategic planning and

decision-making. This goal can be applied to almost any aspect of industry. The following are

strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats that we found specifically for the Edgewater

Brewery.

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Strengths:

• Patio/grass space• Different than other Kannah• Can host a wide variety of events• Brew house• Indoor bar• Outdoor stage• Kannah brand name• Marketing for events• Event schedule

Weaknesses:

• Location• Not a strong college influence• Shuttle system for college students or mav rides (Thursday-Saturday) • Cater to a different age demographic• Not large indoor space

Opportunities:

• Could have more frequented event eg: live music once a week, student deals, family events.

• Could have events hosted by college (offer discount) • Cater events at college use Edgewater name• Market more on campus (have campus rep)• Punch cards for college kids

• Involved in pub night• Do something like CD does with flip night• Team up with other locations do a world beer tour or pub crawl/discount theme• More deals• Student saver

Threats:

• Other bars in town• Cheaper prices• Different menu at other Kannah • Far from campus• Other venues in town with catering businesses• Pub night• Concerts • Places that offer live music

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Goals and StrategiesGoals:

The most important goal is to create a marketing plan and propose events that are successful for

Edgewater Brewery. It is important that Edgewater trusts our techniques and has faith in us to

plan events for their business.

1. First, developing new markets to increase sales by at least 5% in the upcoming one year

period. Edgewater is hoping to keep revenue steading during the winter. It is difficult for

them to retain a large percentage of sales when the outdoor lawn isn’t being utilized. The

marketing director stated, “Sales drop significantly during the winter months and we put

on almost no events during the winter.” By increasing sales by at least 5% for the 2015-

2016 winter season could be a large contribution to Edgewater.

2. Second, Edgewater can increase their market share by attracting business from their

competitors such as Alehouse, Rockslide Suds Brothers, and Peach Street Distillery.

3. Third, by developing awareness of what Edgewater has to offer through advertising,

promotions, and events, this can bring in more business for different target markets.

Edgewater can follow some of the tactics that Kannah employs.

4. Fourth, it would be most beneficial to Edgewater to create a brand and offer something

specific. Something that differs or coincides with brewery. Here we are focusing on

events and utilizing their open lawn space.

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Strategies:Ultimately, we would like to boost customer confidence and create a brand. By creating a

brand we can leverage emotions and establish a passionate connection between customers and

Edgewater products and services.

1. The first strategy to be successful in reaching our first goal is to create events to get

people to Edgewater. By hosting large events this can ultimately reach our number one

goal of increasing revenue by 5%. This is a reasonable increase based on their 15%

growth in the past year.

2. The second strategy to reach our second goal is to help Edgewater offer something that

no other brewery and pub in Grand Junction offers. Fall, winter, spring or summer it

doesn’t matter what season, people will always want to come to Edgewater because of

this specialized product or service.

To be able to reach our third goal, we need to get a younger target market to be more

aware of Edgewater. A big setback is that Edgewater is far away from campus and where a lot of

college age students live. By reinforcing events through the college with live music, pub nights,

etc., Edgewater can excel. Kannah Creek just celebrated their ten year anniversary in October on

their outside patio and they are involved in various brewing events. Edgewater could do the same

celebrating different events on their outdoor lawn and being more involved in hosting different

occasions to utilize their space. In completing our fourth goal of creating a brand, we are pulling

everything together in our other objectives: creating events, boosting revenue and customer

confidence. By being successful in these areas, we will be able to meet all of our goals.

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Marketing Implementation Plan

The strategic marketing process consists of three phases: planning, implementation and control.

When created effectively, this process ensures the success of an organization’s marketing

strategy. When you focus on the implementation phase of the process, which is the putting of the

marketing strategies and plans into action, there are ways to help make this step as successful as

possible. After completing our SWOT analysis as well as our situational analysis and identifying

our goals and strategies for our marketing plan, our next step is to implement these ideas and put

them into action. Our main goal for Edgewater is to increase sales, revenue and events during the

winter months when sales typically decrease and profit tends to go down. Another goal of ours is

to come up with more events, specifically events that would attract college students that are 21

and over and retain the current customers. In order to achieve these goals we have put in place

certain strategies to achieve them, and progress reports on how the goals are being achieved in

order to track the progress and movement of the task.

Goal #1: Increase revenue, sales and number of events from November-March.

We are going to achieve this by hosting a number of events at the Edgewater Brewery. We came

up with several marketing events that can help increase the number of customers and more

specifically, college students 21 and above that are attracted to Edgewater.

Event # 1: The first event we planned is having CMU's SnowSlay Club host an event at

Edgewater. SnowSlay is a skiing/snowboarding club that has a large ski-snowboarding ramp.

This event would bring in customers interested in skiing and snowboarding as well as University

students by setting up a mini jump and grind rail in the outdoor Edgewater space. We thought we

would offer a college special that would interest students. The event would take place from 3-6

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pm during Edgewater's' Happy Hour. Additionally a pint of Edgewater's' choice would be on

'sale' at $3. Bring your ski and snowboards and come on down to ride the jump and rail, don't

forget to sign the release waiver! In order to implement this event we would receive acceptable

dates from Katlin, the marketing director at the Edgewater Brewery. We would then get into

contact with the SnowSlay Club and make sure they are on board. Marketing purposes would

take place by SnowSlay handing out flyers at Colorado Mesa University, flyers at The Point our

on campus bar, marketing at Kannah Creek Brewery, and the 4 of us using marketing techniques

through word of mouth, social media, and certain locations around the city.

Event # 2: The second event we are wanting to plan is a ski and gear swap. This would

attract a large amount of people during the winter months due to the fact that we have a large

population of individuals in this town that are interested in skiing and snowboarding as well as

other winter sports. We would start by again gaining approval from Katlin, the Director of

Marketing at the Edgewater Brewery. After we have gained approval we would then contact

individuals as well as notify and market to the community for gear to donate and/or sell at the ski

swap. We would then set a date for this specific event. By setting the date far in advance this will

give us time to gather gear, get the proper equipment and staff to run this event and give us time

to market correctly. Marketing can take place around CMU campus, specifically the Outdoor

Program and their connections. Outdoor retail stores could also be a great tool in marketing

efforts, such as posters at stores such as REI, Loki, and Summit Canyon Mountaineering. This

event would give us a rise in number of customers during the winter months, raising sales and

revenue.

Event # 3: The third marketing technique we have in place is not necessarily an event

but rather a deal or discount for students of Colorado Mesa University. The idea we have is a

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beer game, similar to the ones they have at Old Chicago's. It would consist of having a beer card

for students. Any time after 9pm students would get any pint for 3 dollars and after 9 purchased

beers they would receive their 10th beer for free, again after 20 beers they would receive a free

appetizer the third and final prize would be after their 30th beer they receive a free Kannah

Creek Edgewater brewery pint glass. After their final prize if they continue to bring their card

they would receive a 10% discount on beer and well liquors. This would be called a Kannah

Creek student Pass or a Student frequent drinker’s card. This would increase sales and revenue

during the winter months because it would get students in the door and continuing to come back.

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Evaluation & Controls

Control:

Control is the way that we catch failures in implementation or strategy. The company may have

implemented poorly, set the wrong marketing mix, aimed at the wrong target market, or done

poor initial research. When it comes to Edgewater Brewery we do not think that is the case,

however we feel that there are definitely areas they can improve. For example when it comes to

setting the marketing the mix we believe there is a huge market of customers that the brewery is

passing up the opportunity on, that group being college students that are 21 or older. Resetting

the marketing mix and including this new market segment could enhance their customer base,

bring in more revenue, profits and increase their branching out of age diversity, not to mention

the fact that it could make their brand loyalty rise by introducing some of their loyal customers in

this market segment to other options involving the company. Control is not a singular thing, but a

host of tools for making sure that the company is on track. There are five main types of

marketing control systems, those being Annual-plan control, Profitability control, Efficiency

control, Strategic control and marketing audit. Its aim is to ensure that the company achieves the

sales, profit and other goals established in the beginning of the year. We plan on implementing

these control systems into our marketing plan in order to successfully control and regulate The

Edgewater Brewery's goals, challenges, market segments and much more. Starting with Annual

Control.

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Annual Control:

The basis of annual-plan control is managerial objectives—that is to say, specific goals,

such as marketing and profitability, which are established on a monthly or quarterly basis, in this

case over the winter months. Organizations typically use five tools to monitor plan performance.

The first is sales analysis, in which sales goals are compared with actual sales.

I. Sales analysis: (comparing sales targets to actual sales and accounting for

discrepancies). So for this we will compare sales of the previous year and off that, we will

project possible sales during the winter months, specifically (October through February). We will

take into account all the extra event and marketing done for Edgewater in this upcoming year.

II. Market-share analysis: (comparing the Edgewater's "sales" with those of its

competitors). The Brew house should also compare its own sales to the total sales in the local

market and to sales within its "market segment" (neighboring businesses, businesses which share

its similar ideals, same-size Breweries, etc.).

III. Expense-to-sales analysis: demonstrates the range of costs - both explicit and hidden

(implicit) - of achieving the company's sales goals.

IV. Financial analysis: calculates various performance ratios such as profits to sales

(profit margin), sales to assets (asset turnover), profits to assets (return on assets), assets to worth

(financial leverage), and, finally, profits to worth (return on net worth of infrastructure).

V. Customer satisfaction: is the ultimate indicator of tracking goal achievement. The

company should actively seek, facilitate, and encourage feedback, both positive and negative by

creating friendly and ubiquitous complaint and suggestion systems with their customers and

locals.

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Profitability Control:

Profitability control and efficiency control allow a company to closely monitor its sales,

profits, and expenditures. Profitability control demonstrates the relative profit-earning capacity

of a company’s different products and consumer groups. For this specific marketing plan we will

not be diving that deep into the process but what we plan on providing for Kannah Creek

Edgewater is a marketing campaign that will offer marketing techniques and tools that will help

increase their sales, profits and market segments. This will then supply them with a basis for

what to compare to in the future. Many companies are frequently surprised to find that a small

percentage of their products and customers contribute to a large percentage of their profits but

this is the case for majority of business in this field.

Efficiency control:

Efficiency control involves micro-level analysis of the various elements of the marketing

mix, including sales force, advertising, sales promotion, and distribution. We believe this will be

the biggest impact we serve for the Brew House as well as events. For example, to understand its

sales-force efficiency, Edgewater may keep track of how many sales a server or bartender makes

each day, how much each sales is, and how much each sale costs and generates in revenue. Also

what items are sold, what time of day and who was the customer.

Strategic control:

Strategic control processes allow managers to evaluate a company’s marketing program

from a critical long-term perspective. This involves a detailed and objective analysis of a

company’s organization and its ability to maximize its strengths and market opportunities.

Kannah Edgewater is a very young company so it is hard to judge their performance and revenue

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off of just two years, when the company is still working out the kinks so to speak, however once

Edgewater establishes a clear and controlled basis for all their marketing, advertising and

promotion campaigns they will be able to then involve a detailed and objective analysis of their

organization.

Marketing audit:

The marketing audit is, in some respects, the raw material for the strategic control. Its

role is to periodically make sure that the marketing plan emphasizes Kannah Creek Edgewater's

strengths in ways that are compatible with shifting market sentiments, current events, fashions,

preferences, needs, and priorities of relevant market players. Especially within the local market,

it is important to focus on similar business but you have to relate them to a local sense, you

cannot compare Kannah to a small brewery in Boston because it is not the same market and has

completely different aspects of the way they do business, so always compare your business to

local and similar companies. This helps to identify marketing opportunities and new or potential

markets.

Evaluation:

The evaluation step of a marketing plan focuses on analyzing quantitative and qualitative

metrics associated with the implementation and strategy. Quantifiable metrics are those to which

numbers can be attached, such as the numbers of sales leads obtained, customers reached and

dollar amounts achieved. But we wanted to focus more on the evaluation of the marketing,

advertising and promoting of Kannah Creek Edgewater. The qualitative factors, meaning

customer satisfaction is still very important but from a marketing standpoint we want to put an

emphasis on how we can attract these customers so we can satisfy them. Evaluating the

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marketing plan means looking at the data and examining whether or not the company achieved

its strategy objectives from the implementation phase. So our goal is next year after we have

given this marketing plan to the Kannah Creek Edgewater marketing staff, we want to see if they

have implemented some of our marketing strategies and advertising objectives to complete these

overall goals of increasing revenue during the winter months, hosting more events during the

winter and introducing a new target market of college students 21 and over. If they did do this,

the steps can be replicated for future success. If not, changes can be made to improve

performance and results for future years.

Executive Summary

Since winter is the season we are currently focused on the most to bring in more revenue,

it is important to be wise when choosing the dates to host one of the pitched events. One of our

goals is to bring in more people that are 21 and up, most of them being students at the university.

It is important to be aware that we want to host events that a lot of people can attend, so choosing

a date in the middle of December won’t be very smart since most students that we are wanting to

draw in will be on break.  

Edgewater is currently doing well throughout the rest of the year with bringing in

customers, because of the event space they have to offer. That space is their biggest advantage

when it comes to competing with the other breweries and restaurants in the local area. Ale house

tends to use their outdoor area quite often for events, but their space is smaller than what

Edgewater has to offer. The larger the event that Edgewater can hold, the grander it will be

which will help bring in more potential customers.   

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Marketing for these events will also remind students about the brewery and catch more

interest from people on and around campus. One big reason for why people come to Grand

Junction is because it is an active small city. Edgewater is located in a phenomenal area next to

the river and behind Main Street. Students are able to make it to the bars on Main Street, so we

are sure that if they knew about the events being put on at Edgewater they will go that small

extra distance to spend their money on something that is active and fun all while enjoying cold

beers.  

Students listen to other students when it comes to planning what to do for the night or

weekend, so it is our job now to put Edgewater in their mouths. We have the upper hand,

because if Edgewater is to work with us by putting on one of these events they will instantly

have a larger crowd attend during the winter, helping us succeed at our revenue goal. It is very

possible to achieve our goal for the winter season and to make Edgewater the “hot-spot” year

round. 

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Work cited

Edgewater Brewery. (n.d.). Retrieved October 30, 2015, from

http://www.kannahcreekbrewingco.com/edgewater-brewery/

Effective evaluation and control plan. (n.d.). Retrieved November 3, 2015, from

http://annmacapanas.weebly.com/effective-evaluation-and-control-plan.html

Grunert, J. (n.d.). Why Are Implementation, Evaluation & Control of the Marketing Plan

Necessary? Retrieved November 3, 2015, from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/implementation-

evaluation-control-marketing-plan-necessary-75170.html

Situational Analysis in Marketing: Examples, Definition & Format. (n.d.). Retrieved October 30,

2015, from http://study.com/academy/lesson/situational-analysis-in-marketing-examples-

definition-format.html

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