Marketing Plan For Poultry Farm Burnbrae Farms - Objectives, SWOT Analysis, Customer Segmentation Essay.

Introduction: Burnbrae Farms - A Canadian Poultry Farm

Question:

Discuss about the marketing plan of Burnbrae Farms, a poultry farm situated in Lyn, Canada.

Marketing of an organisation is often misunderstood as paid advertising; however, advertising is not the only thing that raises awareness for the business. Marketing is a range of strategies and techniques used by the organisation to create awareness in the market that helps the firm to expand the business further. The aim of the report is to create a marketing plan for a Poultry Farm, Burnbrae Farms situated in Canada. In the first part, farm detail has been given with objectives and mission statement. In the following part, SWOT analysis, competitive analysis, customer segment of Burnbrae Farms has been given. Target customer of the farm has been selected for the marketing. In addition, product, pricing, distribution and promotions of the farm has been explained.

Farm name: Burnbrae Farms

Operating, helping in the business: In the year 1891, Joseph Hudson bought a farm in the village of Lyn near Brockville. The farm evolved into egg production in the 1940s under the guidance of Joe Hudson. Now, this farm is owned by Hudson family and it has been an integral part of agribusiness of Canada offering cracked eggs and other innovative products with quality (Burnbraefarms.com, 2017). This company has been working with a group of farmers who are committed to producing nutritious and affordable eggs.

Members of farm team Geographic Location: The members of the farm team are in Ontario, Manitoba and Quebec.

Website: https://www.burnbraefarms.com

Today Burnbrae Farms’ eggs products and eggs can be found in local groceries, food-service operation, restaurants and homes across Canada.

Burnbrae Farms strives to lead the agribusiness in the promotion of healthy living, progressive animal care, community and environmental sustainability. Burnbrae Farms' success depends on the attention and cares that they provide to the hens (Burnbraefarms.com, 2017).

Vision

Preserving tomorrow by conserving today

Objectives

• To assist and promote the development and growth of poultry business
• To foster and encourage the farmers to grow the business
• To increase the customer base in order to enhance the revenue

An ideal poultry farm must offer chicken, eggs, hatching eggs mainly. Moreover, an ideal poultry farm offers reliable services of Poultry Consultancy Services and the products must match the leading industrial rates. In a farm, members have to do so many different types of tasks, handling animals, marketing and production. Among all these, I like marketing of poultry products and organisational development. I like to take a calculative risk and I am comfortable with uncertainty as life itself full of uncertain things. Financial security means peace of mind when I am not worrying about expenses. I would like to share my responsibilities with my family members to perform labour on the farm. According to me, middle-income group markets are profitable as the customers in this range are huge. In poultry farm business, innovation is needed in business and I think, value-added products like cracked eggs and various poultry chicks.

Strengths:

Burnbrae Farms has been running the organisation for more than hundred years; therefore, they have enough knowledge, prior experiences and communication to continue the farm. The infrastructure of Burnbrae Farm is good as the farm has three green farms across Canada and they have good financial support. The farms have water throughout the year from Lynn River. In Canada, PoultryPro is the poultry industry council in Canada; Burnbrae Farms has its certification to run the business. Burnbrae Farm has all types of equipment and technology that are necessary for poultry farming, Setter (Incubation machine), Hatcher, compressed air system, emergency standby electric plants, hatchery automation equipment, egg Candler and brooder equipment (Burnbraefarms.com, 2017). Burnbrae Farms has made a partnership with Parkinson Canada and the University of Guelph to ensure a better poultry business.

Mission Statement and Objectives

Weaknesses

Burnbrae Farms has issues regarding soil issue as the green farms are not sufficient to rear animals and birds. Burnbrae Farms has faced controversy regarding unethical animal slaughtering and this crisis is present in the market to hamper the brand image. Burnbrae Farms has been facing the issue of creating new demand in the market as they only serve the domestic market. Burnbrae Farms fails to create a new opportunity for the organisation.

Opportunities

Burnbrae Farms is trying to create more opportunity by entering a niche market and accessing new markets will eventually increase the revenue of the farm. It sends products to stores, retails and homes across Canada. There are many households and small businesses that need eggs and chicken for daily basis. Burnbrae Farms is trying to take the position to take the opportunity.

Threats

The global economic downturn is the threat for the farm. Recent climate change can be another issue for the farm as climate change can pose danger for agribusiness (Hollensen, 2015). Low household spending, natural disaster, unfavourable government rules and the arrival of new competitors in Canada can be threats for Burnbrae Farms.

Burnbrae Farms faces competition in the market of Canada as it is serving all over Canada by ensuring its supply chain and distribution. In the Canadian market, it is facing competition from Sunrise Farms, Country Ribbons and Morrisons Custom Processing. 

Table 1: Competitors’ analysis

(Source: Self-developed)

Burnbrae Farms can increase competitive advantage by increasing the customer base as Burnbrae Farm needs to make powerful distribution channel that must have access remote places as well. Good marketing through using communication channels like radio, television, print and online media can increase the brand image of Burnbrae Farms (Park et al., 2014). In order to attract the niche market, this farm can post on social media about environment-friendly works and CSR activities that can increase the word-of-mouth campaigns. In addition, endorsement campaign can also help reach a niche market. Competitors sell mainly egg and meats; however, Burnbrae Farms make differentiation of products through offering various types of eggs from different species of chickens and it sells cracked eggs.

Customer segmentation can be defined as dividing the customers into groups that are likewise similar for marketing through age, gender, spending and interests (Huang & Sarigollu, 2014). Burnbrae Farms can segment the market into four specific groups. In the geographic segment, Burnbrae Farms has to segment the customers through location and region basis. In demographic segmentation, customers are segregated into age, gender, occupation and socio-economic group (Bovee, Thill & Raina, 2016). In addition, in behavioural segmentation, customers can be divided into the rate of usage, benefits sought, loyalty status and readiness to purchase. Burnbrae Farms can segregate the customers through psychographic segmentation, personality, lifestyle, attitudes and class. Some of the customers prefer only organic food or they are only vegetarian, in this scenario, Burnbrae Farms does not target vegetarian group.

Table 2: Customer segmentation

(Source: Bargiela & Nickerson, 2014)

Primary target          

Among all four segments of customers, Burnbrae Farms can target the demographic segmentation. In demographic segmentation, the socio-economic group is the target of the farm as the customers must have enough money to purchase the products from stores or retails. The customers from high-income class can be their desired customers who can spend enough money on food (Mount & Smither, 2016).

SWOT Analysis of Burnbrae Farms

Secondary target

In addition, the secondary target market of Burnbrae Farms can be behavioural segmentation. Burnbrae Farms can target customers who use the eggs and chicken products on a daily basis. Burnbrae Farms likes to target the households for use and the local stores who can sell their products.

Burnbrae Farms offers various types of eggs, chicken meat and egg shells. From the prepared eggs, it sells Egg bakes with cheese, egg bakes with vegetables, egg bakes with mushroom and egg bakes with onion. From the shell eggs, it sells white shell eggs, brown shell eggs and Burnbrae shells prestige. From cracked eggs, Burnbrae Farms sells egg creations, eggs veggie, simply eggs, naturegg, Naturegg with omega (Burnbraefarms.com, 2017). Therefore, Burnbrae Farms offers various types of innovative products to the customers and customers have various choices to choose from. It is also noted that Burnbrae Farms sells eggs and meats to the local stores and restaurant and it helps to increase their customer base.

Burnbrae Farms takes the strategy of intensive poultry farming. In intensive poultry farming, farmers have a small piece of lands; however, they try to gain maximum yield from this land. As stated by Sekabira & Qaim (2017, about 74% of total poultry farming in Canada produce from intensive farming. Burnbrae Farms has three major farming in Ontario, Manitoba and Quebec, where the farmers follow intensive farming technique to have a greater yield. However, free-range farming is the alternative method where the farmers have a large number of poultry birds with high stocking density. Burnbrae Farms uses intensive production technique in poultry farming as this type of production efficiently can save land, money, labour and feeding that can help to increase resources and production. In intensive farming, production is fully controlled by the farmers and it is a bit expensive (Smith, 2014). On the other side, intensive farming can be risky for the health of the farmers and animals can fall under the harmful environment. In intensive farming, farmers use good quality food and equipment for farming purposes. This intensive farming technique is not sustainable, it can appeal to the wider customer segment and packing is done by the staff of the organisation.

Burnbrae Farms can take the strategy of low-pricing as they have to survive in the market with the large customer base. The customers of Canada belong to the high-income group; however, if the farm needs to increase the market, they need to take low pricing strategy. Low-pricing strategy helps to give a competitive edge to the organisation (Chernev, 2015). In addition, low-pricing strategy provides economies of scale in order to optimise the profit. Low-pricing gives the opportunity to overshadow the competitors and increase the customer base. The low-cost strategy of the organisation can increase word-of-mouth promotion as customers mainly talk about the farm to purchase their products. Most of the farms in the market take the low-cost and if Burnbrae Farms wants to keep the price low, they have to keep the distribution channel simple and efficient. High use of technology and equipment, efficient human resources and bulk demand helps to lower the price of the products. Farms of the organisation must be healthy so that the hens and chicken must produce good quality chicken and eggs.

Competitive Analysis of Burnbrae Farms

In Burnbrae Farms, the distribution process goes through a series of stages. In most of the cases, the stages are performed by different enterprises; however, in recent time, the enterprises are vertically integrated (Siguaw & Simpson, 2015). Broiler chicken production is the first stage and breeder flocks are breed with care by the farmers. Pullets hatch from the fertile eggs and these are sent to the breeder houses. When the eggs hatch, chicks are delivered to broiler farms and these chicks are then sent to a distribution centre in order sell as a chicken to consumers. When Burnbrae Farms makes eggs based products, these products are sent to customers through vehicles. The vehicles deliver the products to the retails and stores. From the stores, these products become available for the customers.

Therefore, the stages of distribution:

Breeder flock > Pullet Farm > Breeder House > Hatchery > Broiler Farm > Processing > Distribution

Burnbrae Farms consider the direct sale as it is effective for the business. Direct distribution and selling help to lower the price and supply chain management are managed by the management of Burnbrae Farms.

Social media marketing:

Burnbrae Farms has been using social media marketing in order to promote their products. They focus on Facebook and Twitter marketing. Social media marketing is cost-effective and it helps to reach wider audiences. In this regard, Burnbrae Farms can use Facebook paid advertisements to reach large customers base and Facebook marketing provides the chance to build up the visibility of the brand. Social media analytics are the tools that can amalgamate various social media platforms and they help the brands to post the images and videos on right time. Burnbrae Farms can employ a PR team that would gather knowledge about the competitors’ communication strategy to the customers and they can use the strategy. Through social media, the farm can launch new products and the customers will easily get to know about the products.

Table 3: Social media marketing strategy

(Source: Self-developed)

Out-of-home campaign

Out-of-home campaigning is about hoarding and billboards for the customers to notice. The out-of-home campaign is costly as the farms need to provide advertisements in large scale to attract the customers (Hollensen, 2015). The design and key message of the advertisements should be good and innovative. PR needs to suggest the ideas of out-of-home campaign’s ideas.

Conclusion

It has been noticed that Burnbrae Farms has been in the market for a long time and it has a good market share in Canada. It has been following the strategy of innovative products for long. Burnbrae Farms experiments with the egg-based products and there are many other farms available in the market. Burnbrae Farms uses its website to communicate with the customers. Burnbrae Farms can use lower-pricing strategy in order to increase the customer’s base and there are many farmers associated with this. Distribution channel of the organisation is good; however, the production system needs to be sustainable. The promotional campaigns of the organisation will be social media and out-of-home.

Reference List

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