I came up with the idea for Coffee Grow in my Sophomore Advertising class as a solution to a brand question we had been challeneged with. My business will be called Coffee Grow. Coffee Grow offers different kinds of coffees and pastries, similar to many other coffee shops. However, my unique selling proposition is that my coffee brand would allow for a more sustainable community in Bowling Green. The coffee cup sleeves are made of seed paper, and the coffee cups are biodegradable, allowing the consumer to take their coffee home and grow a certain type of plant or flower right in their coffee cup, reducing the waste in the experience. There would also be a community garden (open to the public) that consumers can plant their coffee sleeve in if they decide not to take the sleeve with them. I am targeting coffee lovers (18-40) who, more specifically, are environmentally cautious and are eager to give back to their community. These people are more likely to spend a few cents more for something they can be proud of. Purchasing a cup of coffee at Coffee Grow would be around the same price if not 20-40 cents higher than other local coffee shops, ranging from $4-$6 depending on the customization and ingredients chosen by the consumer. However, people do tend to pay more for products that are sustainable and allow them to feel better about their purchase.

My coffee business venture is different from other coffee shops because it offers a little to no waste, sustainable alternative to the coffee shop experience. Coffee shops typically combine a unique atmosphere with drinking coffee, and Coffee Grow adds to this experience because it allows consumers to take home an environmentally friendly project of their own or be able to give back to their community by adding to the shop’s sustainable garden.

Some features Coffee Grow would have include a different experience for each purchase. Every coffee cup comes with a different seed paper sleeve that ranges from flowers to herbs to vegetables that you can grow right in the cup you go home with. Each cup would also be biodegradable, so it can be easily discarded without harm to the environment after its purpose is fulfilled. A great benefit of my coffee shop is that it would allow for a sustainable garden inside and outside of the shop. Plants are a part of the identity of the shop, so consumers can plant flowers that would become part of the aura of the shop or plant foods that would help those in need. The community can also reap the benefits from this coffee shop through the public garden featured in the back of the shop.

Standard coffee prices in and around Bowling Green are usually anywhere from $3.50-$6.00. My prices for Coffee Grow would be around $4.00-$6.50 depending on the product. I strongly believe people are more likely to pay more for a product that is both environmentally friendly and sustainable and go out of their way to purchase a product that aligns with their values over one that is a little over a dollar cheaper elsewhere. Current marketing for coffee is not very focused on features and benefits other than the flavor of the coffee. With Coffee Grow, there would be features and benefits of the coffee drinkers' experience that no other coffee shop provides.

Megan is a college student coming from a middle-class family. She lives in an apartment near campus and needs her daily dose of caffeine to get through her both her classes and part time job, where she makes about $400 every pay period. She is very conscious of her carbon footprint and opts for more environmentally friendly purchases where she can afford it. She usually makes coffee in a hurry before her classes, but she does give herself a couple days a week to go out and get coffee with her friends at a place where they can hangout, as well as study and do homework. Coffee Grow is the perfect place for someone like Megan to enjoy a coffee and be proud of the fact that they have contributed to a better community.

For Coffee Grow, I will focus the bulk of my time using social media to promote my business and grand opening. Using popular social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat, I will be able to enhance my promotion by posting relevant content showing our coffee and highlighting a different blend each week, as well as promoting seasonal blends. This will allow the consumer to envision what they want before they come and potentially find a new blend they like more than the last. I will also post weekly updates of the community garden and encourage followers to come visit the garden and take what they'd like. Most of my posts will include people in order to appeal to the algorithm and encourage more engagement.

For the grand opening of my coffee shop, I will encourage followers to come to my shop by giving the first 50 guests a free cup of coffee of their choosing and allow the first few to be the groundbreakers in the community garden. This will allow consumers to try my coffee for free and also give them an opportunity to post the event on their social medias. The groundbreaking including local citizens would also allow for a great social media post with lots of engagement.

My second promotion on social media would encourage engagement from followers by having a flavor contest. Followers can submit coffee name ideas for that season and the winner would get a free coffee every week for that season. People love to be creative when they are potentially winning something, and the winner would most likely be giving us free advertising by word of mouth and also posting on their own socials.

I think this ad supports my positioning strategy because it is focusing on the cause for the community rather than the coffee itself. People love to be a part of something, especially in small towns like Bowling Green, and this allows them to do just that. This targets the right segment because it is showing how we turn our coffee experience into something more valuable. People who live sustainably and love to give back to their community would connect with this ad even more than a product-based ad. This also improves the customer's perception of our advantage over others because we are the only coffee shop doing something sustainable with our waste. People love a coffee shop experience, whether it be meeting with friends, going on a date, or going to study, and Coffee Grow allows them to feel better about their purchase because the value is going back to the community as well.

For Coffee Grow, I will be using a direct distribution method because my coffee and service will be going directly to the customer from the coffee shop. I chose this distribution method because the local coffee shop will be receiving the coffee beans and manufactured coffee sleeves to brew coffee directly in store and give to consumers ordering at the shop. This is good for my business because the coffee prices will be fixed and targeted to consumers who want to enjoy an environmentally friendly coffee shop experience. Consumers will have the option to customize their coffee with different brews and flavors; however, each add on will have a fixed cost as well, so the consumer knows how much they will be paying each time. Even though the seed paper coffee sleeves do provide a good positioning strategy against competition, without good coffee we don't have a strong business. So, I will be putting time and research into the coffee distributors and selecting one I believe is the best fit for my business.

I do not plan to hire a sales staff for my coffee shop because I don't believe it is necessary. However, I will be hiring trained employees to deliver excellent customer service and a great coffee shop experience. My employees will be trained to make special and customized coffee orders, as well as trained to recognize and share information about each seed a customer could receive in their coffee sleeve.

From this chapter, I have learned that a sales force does not have to include trained personal sellers. Something I will incorporate into my business is email and social media marketing. Because the sustainable garden for my shop will have extra costs and work, I will encourage students through social media and emails to volunteer in the garden after school hours so that they not only can receive volunteer credit for their schools or college applications, but they can also become a part of our community and potentially work their way up to having a paid position at my coffee shop. Because my employees would have a bit more added to their workload compared to a regular coffee shop employee, I will be adding to their hourly wages rather than having them rely on tips and replace tips with donations to supplies and work for the garden.

Coffee Grow will be actively using social media to help prospective customers find us, as well as using print materials around places like college campuses and downtown shops to advertise the grand opening of the shop. We will be using social media channels such as Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat to get the word out. With this would also come a good amount of word-of-mouth advertising as well.

This business is gaining trust and interest from potential consumers because our target consumers recognize social and environmental issues around their community and enjoy reaching out and contributing to sustainable efforts to correct those issues in their town. Coffee Grow is not a chain coffee shop (at the point of opening in Bowling Green), and its main objective is to support residents in the area. Coffee Grow will have a website containing store hours and operations, a full menu including seasonal drinks and food, and a place to learn more about how to use Coffee Grow seed sleeves and more about the care for certain plants and flowers. Though we will not rely as much on this type of advertising, we may use a small amount of television advertising to reach further to those who wouldn't see us on social media. We will use pay per click advertising for our website so that we can show up more frequently and efficiently for those looking for coffee shops in Bowling Green. Social media will be the bulk of our advertising, using Facebook, Instagram, and potentially Snapchat to advertise on posts and stories and run promotional campaigns. I don't believe webinars would be useful for advertising my coffee shop. However, if the shop were to gain lots of success, expanding its environmental and sustainable efforts by encouraging the community to get involved could use a webinar. Potentially, if we were to gain a lot of popularity with the seed paper coffee sleeve, we could patent it and expand to other communities with trade shows. I think blog posts on the website would be very useful in order to show people what Coffee Grow is about and how others can help their community. We would be using email campaigns sparingly, mostly to send information about rewards and specials.

For Coffee Grow, I believe I will receive my funding mostly from loans and saved money; however, I do believe some people in the community would donate to the cause because of the sustainability that it can bring to Bowling Green. Starting up a coffee shop does cost quite a bit of money. From the research I have done on renting space and equipment, it looks like a small space in Bowling Green would cost around $35,000 a year. With equipment, seating, product costs, and staff wages, starting my coffee shop will probably cost around $100,000 for the first year. This does seem like quite a lot of money, but donations and loans will definitely help, and I believe production will be efficient and drive a lot of business. I have also researched grants to help with the start up of my brand. The Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy both give grants to certain small business that are encouraging and producing eco-friendly products and contributing to less waste and a healthier environment. Though these are competitive, I believe applying is definitely worth the time and effort in order to start my business. Patenting my brand's product can also contribute to gaining back revenue to pay for the costs of the coffee shop as well.