Hi everyone, my name is Jesse Scheimreif and I created a brand awareness project for a coffee shop called Lakes Coffee. Lakes Coffee is in the heart of Medford Lakes New Jersey where people come to enjoy one another’s company as well as to enjoy a nice coffee. While Lakes Coffee has been around since 2017, a Starbucks moved in up the road and traffic to Lakes Coffee has died down.
Survey
First thing I did was create a survey. This helped me understand the ages of who was around, who was going to Starbucks and who was going to Lakes. Another thing that I had to figure out was if people knew where or what Lakes was. Then I had to find out what people were getting somewhere else other than what Lakes offers. Lastly, I wanted to see if people believed that what they were getting were price fairly amongst all of the shops.
The survey helped me understand that a majority of Lakes audience were men. This showed that I needed to reach out to women. Another thing that was answered was that people didn’t know about Lakes anymore. Many new people had moved into the area and the word about Lakes had started to fade away. Something that people were starting to get throughout the year were “refreshers”. Many other shops such as Starbucks, Wawa, Dunkin, and others had started selling these drinks and with Lakes not jumping into the wagon, they aren’t getting that market. Lastly, people believe that they are paying too much for drinks at Starbucks and Dunkin’. The people who were getting drinks at Lakes expressed how Lakes is priced fairly for what you get.
The Plan
After creating a situation analysis, I was able to find out that there is room for improvement on Lakes social medias. While looking through everything, I saw that he is very active on Instagram but not any other platform. Being that he is located in New Jersey, Instagram isn’t the best way to showcase the arts of coffee. Facebook is huge in the area and even though Instagram is big, Facebook is even bigger there. With that, I came up with a social media plan to reach a larger audience such as women and the younger audience. A way to help out Lakes would be to go active on TikTok and other platforms. I also created a content calendar so that Lakes can share certain posts on certain days. Another thing that I wanted to do was to help come up with different hashtags that will help Lakes go viral. One that I came up with was #Lakesonthelake. This just had a ring to it and it also goes along with the location of the shop being on the lake and being called Lakes Coffee.
Medford Lakes is a community that is driven to be close with one another. A huge day there is called Lake Day. It is where the entire community goes out on the lake together by kayak, paddle board, canoe, or even tubes. Businesses take this opportunity to get creative and bringing them onto the lake. Last year a hot dog stand built a cart using three kayaks and brought everything onto the lake.
After looking at this, I realized that many people will be coming to this event. It will be the perfect opportunity to help spread brand awareness just by even having a stand by the water. This can be a stop for people on the water who are needing water or craving a good summer coffee. Because people come from all over South Jersey for Lake Day, it can help spread the brand by voice and face to face. By getting word out with that method, it resonates more with their friends and families and will have the drive to visit Lakes.
Conclusion
While Lakes Coffee is a great stop for anyone to grab a coffee, people drive right past it to get Starbucks, Wawa, or even Dunkin. By following this brand awareness project, it will help Lakes Coffee become a must stop for anyone any time of the day. By creating a content calendar, bringing in other social medias, investing in different ways to take photos and recording, and following my brand awareness steps, Starbucks will be recognized but Lakes will be remembered.
