When local business owner Bee Tolman thinks of marketing success stories, places like Wegmans and Burger King come to mind. But those places have people whose entire jobs are devoted to marketing. At her local butcher and grocery shop, Side Hill Farmers, the majority of Tolman’s time is spent thinking of how to connect local farmers with the Syracuse community.

To fill her self-described “marketing void,” Tolman teamed up with Scott Lathrop, a professor in the Martin J. Whitman School of Management, and two of his graduate classes last semester to overhaul the shop’s marketing plan. Tolman is now implementing the final reports for 2015.

In his classes “Creating Customer Value” and “Managing the Marketing Myth,” Lathrop and his students work hands-on with businesses to develop marketing strategies. Tolman first came in to speak at the beginning of the semester to give students an overview of the shop and its strengths and weaknesses. Over the course of the semester, she came to campus three times to meet with students and field their questions.

As a result of their discussions, Lathrop broke the students into groups and allowed them to pick from three options: researching more about the competitive market of the shop, exploring the shop’s social and digital media options and studying traditional marketing avenues, such as print, radio and billboard ads.

Tolman worked closely with the student groups.

“I think it was great that we were able to work with the principal decision-maker, but also she was able to bring in other people whose baby Side Hill Farmers is,” said Deedi Boland, a first-year Master of Business Administration student with a concentration in marketing.

Boland and her team concentrated on traditional forms of media. They first started by looking at all different kinds of advertising available in the Syracuse area and how much they cost. They then narrowed them down to what they thought would serve Side Hill Farmers the best.

First-year MBA student Justin Lee and his team chose to focus on the social media option. They first researched the store’s Facebook page, Twitter account and website. Then they researched other companies in the area with similar business models and sizes, and analyzed those social media profiles.

As a result, the students found that other meat markets used Twitter more actively and had a greater number of followers. As part of their final project they compiled this information and presented it to Tolman.

“There were a lot of really innovative ideas, and, in fact, (Tolman) was really excited about the work that students had done,” Lathrop said. “One of the one’s that really stuck out in my mind was the idea of having a food truck to enhance the awareness and visibility in the Syracuse and central New York area.”

Lathrop’s graduate classes have worked with businesses of all sizes over the years, including Eastman Kodak Company, Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. and Syracuse New Times.

Lathrop said the biggest difference is that with big companies like Kodak, there is more leeway and a bigger budget, so they are able to afford expensive programs and explore more avenues. But when students work with a local company that is just starting off, they must be more conscious on how to spend those dollars efficiently.

Tolman said she was really happy with the body of work that the students presented. She had worked with a market research group in the past, and paid $10,000 for what she estimates was of $500 value to the company. She estimates that the class reports would have cost her upwards of $50,000.

Side Hill Farmers’ marketing budget is small, and as Tolman said, encompasses “5 percent” of her entire job. She plans to sit down soon and carefully examine all of the different projects. She will be looking for reports that share common trends and have strong data to support those claims. Tolman is also looking for proposals that are truly implementable with a small staff and small budget.

“I think that working with small businesses is really great for the Syracuse University community,” Boland said. “I think it’s really important to build that sense of companionship and that sense of trust and mutual goals between the Syracuse community and the university.”

 

In the Jan. 12 article, “Graduate students develop business strategies for local market” the class MBC 604: “Managing the Marketing Mix” was misstated. The Daily Orange regrets this error.

Published on January 12, 2015 at 12:01 am

Contact Jacob: jagedets@syr.edu