Summary of the Present Situation Brad and Sybil, owners of the Stork and Cradle Shop, believe that in order to grows their business they have to advertise or do direct mailings. Yet there is no guarantee that the thousands of dollars you just spent placing ads in newspapers or for the five thousand piece mailing will generate a profitable response. Unless you have a time-tested way to advertise thatproduces reliable results, you could be wasting limited and valuable resources. Yet many small businesses make the mistake of spending the majority of their time and resources here. While this can be effective method it works best for larger companies who have enough capital to consistently, and over a long period of time buy their customers response. However a small business with limited capital would be better off pursuing more creative marketing technique’s to help ensure their success. The Stork and Cradle Shop will have to fly in a different direction this time. Executive Summery The Stork and Cradle is in the business of selling infant clothes and accessories to mother’s ages 25 to 35. While this may be true it’s not really the business they are in from a business owner or a marketing perspective. They are in the business of selling a product, service, and/or an idea. They like so many small businesses must find out what their niche market is and who their customer is. We must also find out were we are on the product life cycle and what we must do to add excitement to that cycle. This will give them a better idea on how to effectively advertise and grow their business on limited funds.Marketing 101/Course of ActionRetailing is based on a lot of fixed cost like Rent, initial inventory, phone, phone ad, heat, and labor. So the first step is to increase the unit of Sale. What this means is that they want to make the new and current customer purchase more than they normally would at each visit without scarifying p...
