Lauren Kurtz Kevin Faranetta Emma Glasgow Erica Woolley 1 Professor Turner BMGT110 FP06 September 29 2009 Development of a Startup Business Plan Marketing The audience we will be targeting with our eco friendly products and services will be students faculty and staff at the University of Maryland In particular we want to garner attention and build awareness in students who are not already environmentally friendly In this way we can maximize efforts by having as many people as possible on campus working to reduce their waste and shrink the carbon footprint of the campus We will implement a variety of strategies to market our products in order to penetrate multiple communication mediums Print medium will be covered by advertisements and articles in campus newspapers on signs in the dining halls and on recycling bins We will also create a website a Facebook page and a Twitter account to take advantage of the widespread influence of the Internet and social networking medium To ensure that commuters are also notified of our efforts we will ask the president to send an e mail out to all students A key aspect of the business plan is to make the use of plastic bottles and paper cups in dining halls and other food venues obsolete The approach is two fold first to provide free and easy tools to participants and secondly to make it more difficult to maintain current practices than to adopt new ones To do this we will distribute free high quality durable and reusable water bottles to each dorm They will be placed in each room by the resident advisor upon new students arrival for orientation For off campus students bottles will be available in Stamp for pick up which a quick scan of their photo id can verify Paper cups will be eased out of use in all 2 the dining halls by instituting an eco charge for anyone requiring an additional cup Terp Green also intends to go nationwide The first three schools targeted for marketing when expansion begins are Towson University Johns Hopkins University and Loyola University This is based on proximity to our initial market and similarity in target audience Similar advertisement strategies would be used at each school with adjustments made as appropriate An umbrella company name would replace Terp Green so as not to conflict with school identity as we grow into new territory An umbrella company symbol would also be used and placed on bottles and recycling bins Our business would fund these projects by contacting big corporations who are known for their emphasis on sustainability and sense of corporate social responsibility These companies would be more sympathetic and supportive of our efforts and would benefit by enhancing their green reputation We would also apply for a grant from school related programs such as the Society for Green Business within the Robert H Smith School of Business as well as the Smith School of Business itself Finally we will adhere to a SWOT analysis of our business Our main and most obvious strength is having a business that is completely green and eco friendly There is hardly any room for negative press when we are trying to make the world a better healthier place Our main weakness is having a young business team and therefore being at a disadvantage next to older businesses and CEOs Another weakness for us is being unfamiliar with the manufacturing part of our product which is a huge part of our service A great opportunity for us will be taking advantage of the current green sweep of our nation where many are looking to become eco friendly Our main threat is the fact that certain campus services provide services similar to ours although we believe ours will exceed other services in several ways
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