Cracker Barrel Growth Strategy

2014 - 2020 GROWTH STRATEGY

Cracker Barrel has an issue that must be faced now. The average age of a Cracker Barrel customer is 58 years old. By 2020 our analysts have forecasted that to grow to closer to 65. With our bread and butter customers aging by the day and a lack of new lifetime customers, we need to create a new growth strategy to develop younger lifetime customers.

Goals:

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The plan will be to grow into new markets with younger populations and to develop new plans to drive customers into the stores. We have planned two primary solutions to align with our goals.

Solution:
New Markets
Community relationship and marketing through local churches

Cracker Barrels need to reach into these new markets, and become welcome to the community. Through outreach and relationship, we will bring in the families of the community and create the restaurant that the children will want to come back to and eventually bring their own family.

NEW MARKETS

In 2012 Cracker Barrel opened three stores. In 2013 they have opened two, with one more planned1. If you look at the towns that they have opened the stores in, you find that they don’t tend to have a lot potential customers under 18. If we look at the three stores for 2013 we find this:

Fayetteville, N.C
17.6% had children under the age of 18
Allen, Texas
Linthicum, Maryland
19.4% had children under the age of 18
20.1% had children under the age of 18

An understandable placement if you look at our historical strongholds. It will be Texas’ 47th store and North Carolina’s 38th. This also shows we are reaching into smaller markets or putting second stores into existing markets. But we are beginning to reach saturation levels in some states. Florida already has 58 stores and is the oldest state in the US, with over 17.6% of the population over 652.

Our stores tend to be opened in the Cracker Barrel homelands east of the Mississippi3. But if we look at the statistics we find that the areas with the highest percentage of children lies to the West.45 Utah and California have the most cities with children under 18 living at home. The following are the highest percentage of such towns in the United States6:

West Jordan, Utah
34.8%

Palmdale, California
33.9%

Flower Mound, Texas
33.9%

Layton, Utah
33.1%

Fontana, California
32.8%

Temecula, California
32.8%

Orem, Utah
32.8%

Florence-Graham, California
32.6%

Gilbert. Arizona
32.5%

Sandy, Utah
32.4%

We need to be able to tap into children and create lifelong customers out of them. To bring them in young and create lasting memories and relationships with the Cracker Barrel experience.

CHURCHES

To drive the children to the store, we need to able to give them a reason to come. By working with churches to create new relationships and directly market to church members; we can bring them in to try out Cracker Barrel, and let our service and quality bring them back. Our plan is create community level relations, and make sure to grow good will within the community. This key focus will be family level offers, and events structured towards families and those with children. We will work with churches to help out families in need and even work to employee children for their jobs.

Relationship Building:
Sponsorships
Funding
Charity Drives
Charity Hosting
Employee Community Service

Marketing:
Advertising at local Churches
Rotational advertising with local Churches
Promotional Catering

CONCLUSION

Our goal is the reduced average age in our customers and to create community relations through churches to continue our growth throughout the United States. By 2020, we hope to see two key factors:

Average Age 2020:
35

Company Perception:
Community Oriented Family Restaurant

Figure 1 (Google Maps search of all Cracker Barrels)7:

Figure 2 (2000 US Census Map of Households with Children under 18)8:

Figure 3 (Google Maps search of churches near Cracker Barrels)9:

Area covers Memphis TN, Nashville TN, Chattanooga TN, Birmingham AL, Huntsville AL, and Atlanta GA.

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