Marketing Aquaculture Products — 1

Of course, one neat advantage of the Map-
It function is that you can see a particular
business’s closest adjacent competitors.
Th is should give you some additional
thoughts or talking points when you go
in to meet with them. For example, chain
restaurants will be interested in lowest-cost
high-volume product that they get frozen
like clockwork from a large national vendor.
Th is material then goes into an wellestablished
moderate-to-low price-point
dish that they sell to and established predictable
customer demographic.
Th e “white-table-cloth” (high end) restaurant
down the street will most-likely strive
to diff erentiate themselves from the chain
retailer through quality and uniqueness
of product and dining experience. Th ese
days, this is oft en done by presenting the
highest-quality locally-produced identitypreserved
location-of-origin-ensured
product in the form of a specially-prepared
46 — Marketing Aquaculture Products
dish based on the unique attributes of your
product. Th is is what their demographic
expects and, in regard to a unique dining
experience, is quite willing to purchase.
MarketMaker can help us zero in on this
and other outstanding product placement
opportunities. Continuing with the above
example, within Des Moines, Iowa, area
and within a given demographic age group
(older working people), our initial search
identifi es 1059 restaurants that serve seafood
and cater to them. By further refi ning
the list and eliminating chain restaurants
and similar establishments, we are now
down to 180 or so businesses that would be
interested in our product. We can now zero
in on that particular part of the metro area
where we would have the highest likelihood
of encountering customers interested
in top-quality product and service where
price-point is not an issue, and we can easily
identify ten or so “cream-of-the-crop”
restaurants.
Once we identify them, we
put together a simple contact
list using the contact data
and develop a plan to contact
and work with them. As
you consider potential retailers
and the selling points for
your product; you’ll realize
that there is a very high
likelihood that this retailer
will be very receptive to your
product due to its attributes.
Th is is the easiest of all sales
calls. You have your talking
points, you know a lot
about your target restaurant,
their competition, and what
makes them unique. It is
now relatively easy to make