Area 1: Distribution Channels
- Distributors: grocery retailers
- B2B: corporate partnerships of machines
- Direct-To-Consumer: Website
Both channels require physical delivery of both product and machine
~70% of business model is currently retail
Website: Green Plate’s website includes a shopping platform and catalog where consumers can place orders and pre-heat meals at their desired fridges and request specific ingredients or meals to be shipped to their location.
App: Green Plate’s mobile app includes a similar shopping platform and catalog where customers can pre-heat orders and request ingredients to their location.
B2B: Green Plate will start selling large packs of products directly to companies that have a Green Plate vending machine. Consumers will purchase meals from the vending machine.
Retail: Green Plate sells products to grocery stores where consumers can purchase the product.
Area 2: Sales Strategy
How will you sell your product?
- Direct Sales: direct outreach to corporate offices
- Channel partners: retailers, distributors
- Self-service: website purchases
Self-Service: Through GreenPlate’s fresh fridges, we empower customers to purchase and customize their own meals at the click of a button. Our website and app also make self-service accessible and convenient. The lack of an intermediary reduces prices (no need to tip), wait times, and increases customer satisfaction. This model is easily scalable as it only requires our company to install and stock vending machines at desired locations without having to hire new personnel or change our business model.
Channel Partners + Direct Sales: We will work directly with company affiliates to distribute our products to vending machines. We will form a sales team focused on securing clients to take in GreenPlate vending machines, and then form partnerships with these clients to regularly distribute GreenPlate meals to these machines. This sales team will also work on customer service and maintaining a positive relationship with these clients to ensure their continued usage of Green Plate products.
Additionally, a small portion of sales representatives will work to continue our retailer partnerships that allow us to sell in grocery/health food stores. Green Plate will hire a third-party distributor to transport products to our company and retail partners. As we scale, we hope to form an in-house distributor when it becomes cheaper than using a third-party service.
Preferences
- Corporate office machines are easily accessible by customers. Hoping to be the preferred option in the future.
- Currently, the preferred option right now is probably retail or self-service (?) convenient to the general shopping experience.
Area 3: Marketing & Promotion
How will you create awareness and demand?
- Channels: corporate email campaigns, content marketing, PR
- Messaging: frozen food preserves some health benefits! It’s convenient and healthy and delicious
- Campaigns: Popup events with corporate executives, pilot fridge party, partner with vegan/vegetarian influencers
Considerations:
What is your marketing budget and timeline?
- We want to focus most of our marketing budget on our corporate launch, since our retail market is pretty successful already. Our recent marketing efforts will focus on reaching out to corporate companies with kitchens/dining areas.
Which channels resonate most with your audience?
- Social media, partnering with vegan/vegetarian/plant-based influencers
- People are scared of frozen foods. We can use social media to educate people about how frozen foods preserve health benefits.
Marketing and Promotion
Our primary marketing strategy will focus on B2B sales channels. We will introduce Green Plate as a product by showcasing the Green Plate Vending machines at corporate conferences and onsite events as a temporary pop-up. Sales representatives will accompany the pop-up and chat with company representatives to sell the vending machines and Green Plate products. From there, we will encourage our company partners to spread the word about Green Plate through word of mouth and partner advertising.
Our secondary marketing strategy will take advantage of Social Media campaigns, partnering with vegan influencers and sending them PR packages with Green Plate products to get promotional content using our products from these influencers.
Given that Green Plate also retails in grocery stores, our marketing strategy also targets the individual consumers, as well. In addition to collaborating with vegan influencers, we will also partner with companies like RedBull to have elite athletes eat our product before doing insane athletic feats, showcasing the health benefits and athletic rewards of consuming Green Plate’s healthy food. By partnering with institutions that have established social clout and popularity, Green Plate can actively dispel negative stigmas surrounding healthy foods and become a sought-after and normalized food product.
Area 4: Customer Service Strategy
- Channels: FAQs, chat support, helpdesk, knowledge bases
- Tools: CRM systems, ticketing software, feedback loops
Customer Service Strategy
Through the sales team we will form to sell the Green Plate vending machines, we will also provide continual customer support for our corporate partners. We want to leverage the relationship formed between sales representatives and our corporate customers to give them a personal connection to our company and provide a familiar face they can go to for effective support. However, for easily fixable issues, we want to have an easily automated and accessible process to efficiently deal with any customer complaints and issues. Within this framework, each vending machine will be equipped with QR code stickers that customers can scan to report whether there are issues with the machine.
Similarly, if the vending machine is out of stock for specific products or ingredients, customers can easily request a restock through the online web or app portals. Instructions on how to use the machine are also easily accessible and displayed for every customer on the interactive panel of each vending machine. However, if there are any further questions, they may refer to an FAQ on our website that addresses the primary issues customers face using the machine. If customer issues exceed our online assistance, they can always call our regional customer support team that is open during working hours.
The company’s assigned representatives will not only help the customer with their issue, but also gather customer feedback and reports of issues that might be occurring with the machines or with product satisfaction and relay it to our team. With the collected data from the various channels of customer support, the customer support team will organize the data to highlight the state of customer satisfaction for company-wide knowledge, which the product and management teams will use to iterate and improve Green Plate even more.
For direct technological malfunctions with machines, our regional support teams can also address immediate and urgent requests regarding the machines. These teams will deal with any technological issues, vending machine cleaning and upkeep, and overall maintenance for our products.
