Cassidy Mace

Lisa Weidman
Principles of PR
11.12.14

Situation Analysis

Mission

Cupcake Couture is a privately help company located in

McMinnville, Oregon. This womens clothing store main goal is to

ensure that the women of McMinnville have high quality clothing that

can be worn by the everyday women, while keeping up with the latest

styles and trends. Besides this, since this is a retail store, another

main goal is to make a profit; which Cupcake Couture has an annual

revenue of about 500,000 dollars. This womens clothing store was

established in 2008 and employs a staff of four.

External Environment

Biggest external factor that Cupcake Couture faces are

economics. Cupcake Couture is a higher end-clothing store with

quality clothing that can be reflected in their prices. According to the

most recent U.S. News and World Report, there is no commonly

recognized definition of middle class, but the median household

income for 2012 was just above $51,000. In 2012 the estimated
median household income for McMinnville residents was just below

$37,000. So most residents of McMinnville really cannot be affording

to shop at Cupcake Couture on a regular basis. Everyone can save up

from time to time, and afford to splurge, but not on a regular basis.

Another factor that has to do with economics is the stores location

being so close to a college. The trends that Cupcake Couture keeps up

with are mainly appealing to women in their early 20s, which is the

age of most college students. Most college students also cannot be

affording to spend $50 on a cardigan, when they could get something

similar for not as much money, but of less quality at for example Ross

or Maurices, which is just a short drive away. Tying in the information

above, another factor is Cupcake Coutures costumer base compared

to McMinnvilles demographics. The median age of a McMinnville

resident is 34 years old, which is barley, hitting Cupcake Coutures

target audience. The changing makeup of this lower income, family-

oriented neighborhood has an affect on Cupcake Coutures more young

and trendy costumer base.

Business Analysis

Cupcake Couture biggest competitors are other womens clothing

stores, like Ross and Maurices in McMinnville. Maurices poses a

bigger threat because of there commitment to their costumers and the

prices that they offer. Unlike Cupcake Couture, Maurices offers

clothing in all sizes including plus sizes, and styles for any occasion;

work attire, casual clothing to wear around the house, and clothing

that can be worn out for a night on the town. Despite their wide

variety of clothing, costumers are not as likely to see higher-end,

trendy name brands that they would see at Cupcake Couture. Aside

from Maurices wide variety of clothing, they also have a philanthropic

vision. According to their website Maurices want to . . . Empower

women and children to be their best . . . with $8.5 million in giving

each year. Donating to originations like The American Cancer Society,

Missing Person Foundation, American Cancer Society Relay for Life, The

National Odd Shoe foundation, and also Maurices also puts on more

then 4,000 hometown events a year. Since Cupcake Couture is a

privately held company in McMinnville with a revenue or about

$500,000 a year, donating large sums of money could be difficult.

Cupcake Couture could take this opportunity to instead host a few

hometown events a year that will give back to the McMinnville

community. For example, Cupcake Couture could set a bin aside,

inside the store for the people of McMinnville to drop of food or toys for

the Kids on the Block foundation here in McMinnville.

One of Cupcake Coutures biggest strength right now is the fact

that they really are the only clothing store on 3rd street that provides

younger women with trendy, higher-end clothing. Again, yes women

can go to Ross, Maurices, or even Mes Amies, which is also on 3rd

street, but no where else can the women of McMinnville get the quality

of clothes or brands that they would like to see in other stores. Also, in

late February of this year, according to Yamhill Valley News- Register,

the pair of businesses sharing a window, La Bella Casa owned by Jen

and Rhonda Ferro, and Cupcake Couture, owned by Sam Bergey and

Sara Whitfield, were presented with Honors for Outstanding Window

Display, given by MDA board member Leigh Ann Jones, Jones

commended the partners for their creative, imaginative and artistic

displays. He said they serve to entice customers into their shops.

The biggest advantage that most stores in McMinnville

have over Cupcake Couture is that these businesses have up and

running websites. Cupcake Coutures website, from what I have seen

has been offline for about 2 months now. This is something that is in

the businesses control, and could easily be fixed.

Target Audience

The target audience for Cupcake Couture is young women,

ranging from girls in their late teens, to women in their early 30s. So

this business isnt completely suited for the demographics of

McMinnville.
 The Plan

Goal

Cupcake Couture needs to have a focus of attracting more

consumers to their clothing store, in order to have it become a brand

name in McMinnville and become more involved with the community

that its in.

Objectives

The first objective of this plan is to raise awareness and interest of

Cupcake Couture to the people of McMinnville. Since there is currently

not a working website for this company, it is extremely important to

expose their public to information and raise awareness of the company.

Increase the likes or follows on all social media platforms by

at least 50 percent. Currently their Instagram has 651 followers

and their Facebook page has 645 likes and 46 visits on the page

in the past month.

Increase sales by 10,000 dollars by the end of 2015

Following the Diffusion theory and according to the Fourth Edition of

Public Relations: The Profession & the Practice, states that people will

adopt an idea only after going through the following 5 steps:

1. Awareness- People need to conscious of the idea.

2. Interest- The idea needs to have appeal.
3. Evaluation- The idea needs to be thought as useful.
4. Trial- People need to try out the idea.
5. Adoption- Once all other stages have had success, then adoption

is the final stage of agreement of the idea.

 So if the first objective is to raise the people of McMinnvilles

awareness and interest in Cupcake Couture, then the next objective

is to have people (more specifically the women) of McMinnville

evaluate, try, and adopt the idea that Cupcake Couture should be

their go-to womens clothing store.

Implement a poll on the Linfield Review website and the

Yamhill County New- Register site asking:

1. Do you currently shop at Cupcake Couture?
2. If no, why?
3. If yes, how often would you say you shop here?
This will help give us a better idea of how many people are

currently shopping at Cupcake Couture from the Linfield

College population as well as the McMinnville community.

Sponsor at least 3 hometown events each year

Both objectives should have started by the beginning of 2015

and be completed by the end of 2015. This will give Cupcake

Couture these past 2 months to monitor the social media platforms,

store sales, and the general store flow; which can then be compared

at the end of the campaign plan to evaluate the effectiveness.

Strategies

In order to raise awareness and interest for Cupcake Couture, the

first strategy to implement would be to develop a better use of their

mass media and come up with a media campaign to self promote this

business better.
 The second strategy that will be implemented in order to raise

awareness and interest in Cupcake Couture is to use personalized and

controlled media in order to reach a large number of the target

audience.

In order to get Cupcake Coutures target audience to evaluate,

try and adopt the idea that Cupcake Couture should be there go to

shop, the first and second strategy for the second objective would be

to:

A) Get more involved with Linfield College, and its students.

B) Become more involved with the McMinnville community, by

sponsoring their 1st hometown event by March of 2015.

These two groups have been separated due to the large age

difference.

Tactics

To get started Cupcake Couture needs to immediately get their

official website offline, and up and running before making changes to

their social media platforms. Once the website is up and running,

some changes to the Facebook and Instagram page need to be made.

With no website up at the moment, costumers are likely to then try

and find a Facebook or Instagram page. Cupcake Coutures Facebook

page has a few spelling errors and includes the link to the offline

website. Aside from that, the Facebook page also has a products

icon that only has 2 clothing items available to buy. This makes the
Facebook page slightly confusing and could make costumers wonder if

this was intentionally put on the page or just a mistake. Then, moving

onto Cupcake Coutures Instagram page, again contains the link to the

offline website and then offers costumers 8 dollar shipping for online

shopping that they are not able to access. After making these

changes, Cupcake Couture should make a twitter page as well. All the

social media sites need to be up and running, with a consistent

message all the while keeping up with similar activity levels.

In order to get consumers to pay attention and go to these social

media sights there needs to be a little bit of a incentive, which will be

the second tactic for the first strategy. Cupcake Couture could have

promotions going on to gain more attraction to these social media

platforms and attract more store flow.

Like or follow on any social media platform and receive up to

15 percent off next purchase

Have a drawing where with every purchase made, costumers

receive a ticket entered in a raffle to win a $50 gift card.

Have more Last Chances or limited additions because these

urgent offers will made items seem more exclusive and special

to costumers

The first tactic for the second strategy will be to mail out

pamphlets to the people of McMinnville informing them of the changes

that Cupcake Couture has made, as well as the latest trends they

currently have in store and exactly what kind of clothing they will be
carrying for a season. On the pamphlet consumers will have the

option to sign up, and pay to receive this pamphlet every other month

in order to keep up with what the store will have to offer.

Again, if consumers are going to be paying for this pamphlet every

other month there needs to be some sort of benefit for them, which

will be the second tactic for strategy two. Aside from being able to

see what the store will have to offer for that specific season, each

time the pamphlet is sent out, it will include a promotion code that

offers free shipping with purchases over 40 dollars.

In order to become more involved with the Linfield community and

have the students going into the store and trying on clothes, the first

tactic for strategy 3 that Cupcake Couture should try to do is partner

up with Linfields sorority Alpha Phi for their Mother and Daughter Tea

that takes place in May each year. In the past years Alpha Phi has

partnered up with Mes Amies for the Mother Daughter Tea, where

Alpha Phi sends about 10 girls to the clothing store to pick out an

entire outfit. During the tea, these 10 girls will then put on a small

fashion show for the rest of the sorority and their mothers. If Cupcake

Couture were able to partner up with Alpha Phi, that would be the

start of getting a few Linfield students in the store and actually trying

on their clothes, with the argument that Cupcake Couture offers

clothing that is more suited towards the ages of college students.

 The benefits need to outweigh the costs for the second tactic of

becoming more involved with Linfield. Cupcake Couture could start

with offering the women attending the Mother and Daughter Tea a 20

percent discount off the store for that whole day. Since the mothers

will be in town, this will hopefully encourage the mothers to spend a

little money at Cupcake Couture and on their daughter. The store

could also have limited addition, matching products for mothers and

their daughters like rings, necklaces, or bracelets for Mothers Day.

In order to become more involved with McMinnville and giving back

to the community, the first tactic for strategy 2 of objective 2 will be

to host a food drive for YCAP (Yamhill Community Action Partnership).

According to their website, Food drives are one of our main sources

of food every year for Yamhill County. Cupcake Couture could set

aside a corner of the store where they have table with bins for people

to drop off canned or non-perishable goods. This will be an easy way

for Cupcake Couture to give back to the community without spending

a lot of money. The YCAP website also offers easy and simple steps in

order to have a successful food drive.

The second tactic for strategy 2 of objective 2 will be to give

costumers an incentive to come into the store and make a purchase

while giving back to the community. Kids On The Block is a non-profit

organization in McMinnville and their mission is to provide safe, fun,

enriching after-school opportunities that help build success kids. Kids

On The Block has an annual budget of $500,000, but at their annual

majors charity ball they only raised $148,000. Cupcake Couture can

use this as an opportunity to again give back to the community. For

one week have 10 percent off all purchases (excluding items on sale)

and proceeds go back to Kids On The Block, who are extremely

dependent and in need of more donations.

Evaluation

Cupcake Couture has had a Facebook account since 2011, and in

just the past 5 weeks has gained 28 likes, but on the flip side has only

made 6 posts on the Facebook page for the past 5 weeks. After

completing the first objective, we can check monthly on how many

likes or follows Cupcake Couture has gained or lost on all social

media platforms. Another way to evaluate the first tactic for strategy 1

of objective 1 is to monitor the traffic on the Facebook page and the

website, making sure to see how long people are staying on each

page. This will give us a better idea if people are staying on the page

and browsing around or simply clicking on the link, only to exit out of it

a few seconds later.

In order to evaluate if the incentives in tactic 2 for strategy 1 of

objective 1 were successful is to monitor the increase in sales after

starting the promotions as well as the increase in likes or follows.

Keeping track of the how many costumers came into the store before
the sales versus after the sales will show if traffic flow in the store has

increased.

To evaluate if tactic 1 and 2 of strategy 1 for objective 2 was

successful, Cupcake Couture can count how many costumers signed up

to receive the pamphlet for every other month. To see how many

people then actually read and use this pamphlet, Cupcake Couture can

monitor how many people use the promotion code for free shipping,

which is included in the pamphlet.

The only way to evaluate the rest of the tactics for strategies 1

and 2 of objective 2 are to wait and see how the event or promotion

goes. If Alpha Phi decides to partner up with Cupcake Couture for

there Mother and Daughter Tea, then that will be considered a success,

and it is only by this success that we can then evaluate if the limited

edition, matching Mothers Day jewelry was a success and if the

mothers decided to take advantage of the 20 percent off any

purchases that will be offered.

To evaluate the effectiveness of the YCAP food drive, Cupcake

Couture needs to just follow the guidelines on the YCAP website

demonstrating how to have a successful food drive.

Then for the last tactic, Cupcake Couture will total up how much

money was raised for Kids On The Block, as well as comparing average

sales for a normal week versus the week that this promotion will be

going on.
 References:

Baskin, O., Heiman, S,. Lattimore, D,. Elizabeth, T. (2012). Public

Relations The Profession & the Practice. New York, NY: McGraw-

Hill.

City-Date. (2014). McMinnville, Oregon. Retrieved from http://www.city-

data.com/city/McMinnville-Oregon.html#b

Kids On The Block. (2014). After School Program. Retrieved from

http://www.mcminnvillekob.org/after-school-program/

Maurices. (2014). Maurices Cares. Retrieved from

http://pressroom.maurices.com/social-responsibility/

Walker, Molly. (2014, February 2014). Harvest Fresh named business of

the year. Retrieved from http://www.newsregister.com/article?

articleTitle=harvest-fresh-named-business-of-the-year--

1392948374--11690--

Williams, Geoff. (2014, April 24). What It Means to Be Middle Class

Today. Retrieved from http://money.usnews.com/money/personal-

finance/articles/2014/04/24/what-it-means-to-be-middle-class-

today?page=2

Yamhill Community Action Partnership, (2014). Food Drives. Retrieved

from http://www.yamhillcap.org/food-bank/food-drives/