WildCountry Market Research Final Report
Supervised by Dr. James Cox
Conducted by Lauren Bell, Nick Lyons, Margaret Sottosanto, Kristen DeHart, Mitchell Kavalec, Brent Brown, Kennedy Dill, Hannah Hirstein, and Claudia Zitkus
MKT 232 Market Research
I. Executive Summary
Our research study was done for WildCountry- a sporting goods store located in the Bloomington-Normal area. WildCountry opened up their doors in 1974. When visiting the main store on Linden St. in Uptown Normal, you are greeted by the friendly face of Richard Smith or what he prefers to be called, Scuba Dick, the owner and founder of WildCountry. Alongside the outdoor merchandise and sporting equipment sold in store, Scuba Dick also offers scuba diving lessons and fun trips for adventurous people like himself to go on. We spoke with the owner, Dick Smith and got some information on what he was looking for from us. Dick’s current demographic is Baby Boomers looking to seek the adventure they had in their youth. Baby Boomers are getting older and are less able to do the things that Dick specializes in, causing his sales to decline. Dick wants to reach out to Millennials- specifically Illinois State University students in order to increase the longevity of his customer base. The business does not have a very strong online presence and what you see is what you get- which does not resonate with Millennials. Dick was once involved on the campus of Illinois State University with the Adventure Club through the Recreational Center on campus but new management has caused ties to weaken. We set out to do research and find data about Millennials that could help Dick reach his goals. With four objectives in mind, we created a questionnaire to distribute around campus to the locations that were chosen from a random sample table. The following four objectives were used for our research:
1.How can WildCountry incorporate Millennials into their target market?
We wanted to know if Millennials have a desire to participate in outdoor sporting activities, if they are willing to spend money on sporting good activities, and finally what is the best way to reach out to the millennials to get them involved with WildCountry. We designed a questionnaire that asked specific questions allowing us to gather data and analyze it in order to determine if Millennials are in fact interested and willing to spend their money on sporting good equipment and activities. We found that about half of the student sample population is currently involved in participating in an outdoor sporting good activities requiring sporting gear. We also found that fifty- four percent of the students purchase outdoor sporting gear. This information is valuable because it shows that WildCountry has a new potential target market, that is interested in the products that they are offering.The sample population also answered questions about what they were willing to spend on outdoor sporting gear. We found that a little over fifty percent of the population is willing to spend at least seventy-five dollars on outdoor sporting shoes and apparel. These results again, prove that Millennials have an interest in outdoor activities. We then asked questions concerning what type of social media they use, to get a better idea on which social media platforms WildCountry can advertise on to connect with the Millennials. From our research, we found that ninety-four percent of the sample population use social media platforms. This proves that social media platforms are one of the best places to connect with millennial, and more specifically, students at the University of Illinois. Overall, Facebook was the most popular used social media platform with Instagram and SnapChat following closely behind.
After gathering information and analyzing the data, we found that Millennials do in fact have a desire to be involved in outdoor sporting activities. They were willing to spend money on outdoor activities along with the outdoor sporting gear required. We also noticed that many of the students from the population sample were using Facebook. We believe that WildCountry should consolidate their Facebook pages, in order to be easily accessible and easier to find as well as advertise their Facebook page anywhere customers would see. A great place for this would be on their website and also on the window of their store. An instagram account would also be a good addition to WildCountry as our data showed many college students use that form of media as well. We suggest that with their social media accounts, WildCountry should advertise to Millennials by offering college student discounts that will entice them and encourage them to come into the store. This experience will get them connected with WildCountry and hopefully they will use word of mouth to spread the news about WildCountry to their college friends and peers.
2. How much will an online store and shipping option affect overall sales?
We believe that Millennials are in favor of an online presence because modern buying behavior is switching from in-store to online. In order to prove our strong belief, we asked our sample population questions about their buying behavior for non-food products in regards to shopping online versus shopping in-store. We found that there is a significant amount of Millennials favor the option of shopping online. Our data shows that 57.6% shop in-store compared to 42.4% that desire to shop online. Checking inventory is also found to be favored online. Overall, 94% of the student sample population from Illinois State University do use online shopping as a source for their purchases. From our results, we can see that Millennials currently shop online and we believe this trend will increase throughout the campus overtime.
With online preference being so prominent, we recommend that WildCountry invest in building their online presence by building an online store or at least building an online inventory check for their customers.This will ensure an extra avenue for inflow of customers of the Millennial decent and broaden their market base. Online shopping is nothing but on the rise, and with that also comes new promotions of things such as free shipping. With the overwhelming majority of our sample willing to pay more money if a rewards system or coupons are in place- a prime target is highlighted. Free shipping on specific orders and influx sales significantly, as it falls under the rewards system and coupons category. With the internet being available almost everywhere and anywhere, this also opens up a new opportunity to hit Millennials that do not reside on the campus of Illinois State University. With these implications in place, we are lead to believe that sales for WildCountry will significantly increase.
3. How effective are media advertisements, such as radio, print ads, television, social media, etc. in marketing to Millennials?
We hypothesized that Millennials/Illinois State University students are more drawn to marketing that includes multiple media platforms rather than just one source of media. We tested our hypothesis by asking our sample population questions about social media, radio, and print media. These questions just gave us a basis of how often students listen to the radio and what stations they listen to. We found that students mostly listen to 101.5 WBNQ and for the most part they listen to the radio every day, and they either do not hear the advertisements or do not remember them very often. WildCountry did have one of the highest amounts of student who had heard an advertisement in the past six months but there was still a large amount who had not heard it. We figured social media would be one of the most popular media platforms so we included, “Please check all the social media platforms that you use:” with the options of Facebook, Instagram, SnapChat, Twitter, other, and an option for those who do not use social media. Facebook was the most popular social media followed by SnapChat and Instagram. We asked “How often do you read print media?” to see just how popular print media really is with Millennials and found that most students do not really read print media anymore. We figured out that print media is a dying art. We believe social media is the way to reach out to Illinois State students to draw them in.
With social media being such a popular trend with college students and the younger generation, we recommend advertising mostly on some social media platform. We found that Facebook is the most commonly used, followed by SnapChat and Instagram. SnapChat has different location Geofilters that could be used as a form of advertising. This would get local people exposed to what the store is. Since our survey had 101.5 WBNQ as the most popular station listened to by our sample, we recommend to continue advertising on local channels. Also, Pandora and Spotify are common alternatives for students listening to music. This would be a good area to expand advertising commercials as well as the radio commericals. Another recommendation regarding social media advertisements would be to completely eliminate newspaper advertisements. A majority of students surveyed do not read the newspaper, and in the end would not reach a large audience.
4. How many students in RSOs will become aware of WildCountry’s products and services through partnerships?
We Hypothesized that students, who are involved in RSO’s, that participate in outdoor activities should be more aware of WildCountry’s presence and the products they offer. We tested this by having our participants mark all of the sporting activities their RSO’s have participated in. From testing our hypothesis we concluded that students in RSO’s participated in hiking/backpacking 36.8%,the other section included running and biking came out to 30.6%, and camping at 29.7%. These were our top activities from our findings. We also surveyed how aware our participants were of that our in RSO’s about WildCountry compared to the students that were not in RSO’s. We might have a limitation that skewed our results by only having 105 respondents to this area compared to the 226 that responded to the question as a whole.
We believe that a big growth spot for WildCountry would be student discounts, we believe it would be very beneficial for WildCountry to partner with the RSO’s at Illinois State to get the company name out there to the Illinois State students. Sponsor outdoor events associated with the university would help to gain exposure among students, especially those most interested in outdoor sporting events. WildCountry could sponsor outdoor events using sporting gear and recruit Illinois State students to record themselves participating in outdoor activities using gear and apparel from WildCountry, which can then be shared on social media related to ISU students and/or WildCountry. We feel that this would be very helpful because it will show Illinois State students that their peers are using WildCountry to equip themselves before they partake in their favorite outdoor activities, thus generating a well-known brand among students.
II. Introduction
A. Client Meeting
1. Nature of Current Problem
Our client WildCountry’s owner, Richard Smith, sees two current problems. The first is that the landscape is changing. Online is taking over and less people are buying in store. This is a problem for WildCountry because they do not have an online store. The second problem our client sees is the lack of passion millennials have for the outdoors. This is a problem because the millennial generation is driving the market right now and will for the next twenty years. The current primary target market for WildCountry is the baby boomer and the late baby boomer generation. WildCountry runs into an issue with this because their once adventurous and young target market has evolved into an older and frail target market. The prime opportunity seen by our client from our research study will be the chance to identify how to reach the millennials. The owner is hoping to take away a strategy that will entice and intrigue millennials to purchase from WildCountry. Another opportunity is bringing back the online store. All of these actions are being taken in order to get a new target market that will bring back the adventurous and outgoing market once known.
2. Historical Background
Richard Smith went to the University of Illinois and earned a Master's degree in Forestry. While in the army, he learned how to ski, scuba dive, skydive, and much more. He then took all of these skills and followed his passion for them by creating his own outfitters for adventure. WildCountry, an independent business, has been up and running since 1974 and has been in Normal, Illinois for 42 years. He also has stores located in Springfield, Rockford, and has recently opened one in the Eastland Mall in Bloomington. The Eastland Mall location is a seasonal store opened from October to March. Richard has eight employees, four of which are full time. His dive shop has twelve instructors, thirteen assistants, and eight dive masters, all of which are volunteers. His wife and son also work with him. Richard Smith owns three business; WildCountry, Oceans of Travel, and Midwest Diving Specialist. The management has always just been himself, his wife, and his son. Richard gained his experience for the business from his time during the army. He is able to offer better service because he has so much knowledge and experience from what he learned in the army. As mentioned before, his business has expanded to other locations as well as two other businesses. There was also a store in Champaign, Illinois but it closed recently. The focus of the business has changed a little bit over the years. It went from backpacking to lifestyle clothing. His biggest passion is scuba diving so his main focus is on that. WildCountry’s mission is to sell fun. They strive to supply goods and services by providing adventure along with information, service, and education on how to safely and properly use the equipment offered. Richard loves to gather people together, go on trips, explore, and create lifelong memories. Over the last thirty years he has been to thirty-five different islands and countries 154 times. This attitude and atmosphere of WildCountry separates them from their competitors. Some similar stores and competitors are Bushwacker in Peoria, Champaign Surplus Store in Champaign, and Dick’s Sporting Goods.