THE MARKET
gaia fertilizers
In a year and a half high school project, my team and I developed a business idea for the Youth Entrepreneurship Competition hosted by Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE). This competition is hosted yearly and young entrepreneurs from around the nation pitch their best ideas to investors.
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My team and I pitched a fertilizer dedicated to rehabilitating coral reefs and lowering greenhouse gas emissions. We won first place in the 2021 Bay Area Regional Competition.
Below is an early-version draft of the marketing plan.
#market research
#competitive analysis
#branding
#sustainability
project type: school project, competition
duration: 72 weeks / jan 2020 - may 2021
role: team leader (of 4), "president" of company, lead marketing
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THE BUSINESS IDEA
THE PROBLEM /
Picture this: you grow your own vegetables in your backyard garden to practice sustainability and better eating habits. You buy your fertilizer from your local home goods store and it produces shiny, plump red tomatoes and leafy greens. What you don't know is that the storm next week will wash away the fertilizer from your rich soil and eventually make its way to the ocean.
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The nitrogen in your fertilizer promotes excessive growth of algae on the surface of the ocean and as a result, the algae blocks essential sunlight from reaching coral reefs. Without being able to photosynthesize, the coral reefs die.
/ THE SOLUTION
Gaia Fertilizers is an organic fertilizer made with a mixture of compost, coffee grounds, and neem oil. Without the addition of harmful ingredients like nitrate, Gaia acts as a powerful all-natural fertilizer that will not harm coral reefs when caught in water runoff. Our fertilizer also acts as a pesticide that's 100% safe for pollinators, keeping your plants happy and the bees buzzing.
THE MARKETING PLAN
01. THE MARKET DEMAND
DEMAND
According to the USDA, the demand for organic goods and products are continuing to show a “double-digit growth”. Gaia Fertilizers is an organic product, meaning demand for our product exists and would only continue to grow.
THE INDUSTRY
According to the USDA, the demand for organic goods and products are continuing to show a “double-digit growth”. Gaia Fertilizers is an organic product, meaning demand for our product exists and would only continue to grow.
02. THE TARGET MARKET
GEOGRAPHIC
Currently, our business only targets home gardeners living in Northern California — generally the Bay Area.
These customers reside in suburban areas such as Berkeley and Palo Alto. This puts the size of our target market at the size of around 8 million people.
DEMOGRAPHIC
Female-identifying home gardeners aged 45 to 74 years old with some form of college education. Our target consumers are in the middle class or in the upper class with a median salary of $100,000.
PSYCHOGRAPHIC
People who love to farm or grow plants. They care deeply about their environmental impact and want to do better for the planet. They are also interested in organic farming products as they believe inorganic products would affect the quality of their crops and harm the environment.
BEHAVIORAL
Our target market’s buying patterns include organic fertilizers, seeds, farming supplies, and environmentally friendly products such as tote bags or wax food wraps.
03. THE COMPETITION
DIRECT COMPETITOR
Peggy Green is one of our direct competitors. They are an organic plant food and organic mineral fertilizer company. Their products are known to not use any synthetic chemicals, heavy metals, polymer coatings, or nitrogen-phosphate compounds in their products. Peggy Green offers a very similar product to meet customer needs.
INDIRECT COMPETITOR
Gonzo Farms is similar as their fertilizer is made from plants and minerals. Their product is slightly different and offers an alternative solution to customers.
COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGES
GAIA FERTILIZERS
Gaia Fertilizers uses compost and coffee grounds as central components in its fertilizers. Following our mission of sustainability, Gaia's ingredients are collected and made from post-consumer waste. Our fertilizer also utilizes neem oil, a natural pesticide that's safe for all pollinators. This mix is simple yet produces a powerful, potent fertilizer that is better for your plants and better for the planet.
PEGGY GREEN
Peggy Green’s fertilizer is mainly made of minerals. It's a safe and organic way to fertilize farms, but isn’t safe for aquatic health.
GONZO FARMS
Gonzo Farms’ range of products are all organic and safe. They deprive their ingredients from quality minerals and plants.
04. THE PROMOTIONAL STRATEGY
PEOPLE
Our target consumers are home gardeners ages 45-74 with a median salary of $100,000 in Northern California. They’re people who care about their environmental impact and want to do better for the Earth. We will host small survey groups to let them try a sample of Gaia Fertilizers. Based on the group response, we will pivot our marketing strategies. We'll also rely on word of mouth from this group to help spread the word about our product.
PRODUCT
The features and benefits of our product include a variety of different things. The mixture of compost and coffee grounds in our fertilizer creates a higher temperature in the soil, preventing any weeds from growing and allowing for the consumer’s plants to flourish. The high acidity and natural nitrogen levels of coffee grounds are beneficial in the growth of plants too. Coffee grounds possess a strong odor, serving as a repellent for pests so customers don’t have to buy chemical-loaded pesticides. The features of our products are that we package them in eco-friendly bags. This is appealing to our environmentally-conscious target market and will draw them to buy our fertilizer over competitors.
PLACE
We plan to sell our product on our personal website, online retailers like Amazon, and at retail stores such as Home Depot and Target. According to Business Insider, our target age group presents a huge opportunity for online retailers so expanding to sell on websites would attract more potential customers.
PRICE
The strategies we used for determining prices were based on the expenses we had to pay in order to produce one unit and price comparisons between our direct and indirect competitors. A 25lbs of Gaia Fertilizers will cost $30 and leave us with a contribution margin of $14.17.
MARKETING STRATEGIES
WORD OF MOUTH /
Word of mouth is effective since people are more likely to trust the words of close individuals. Because those individuals have experienced and witnessed good results from the product, people would be curious to see the result themselves too. Our target market is predicted likely to respond best to word of mouth.
/ DIGITAL MARKETING
Social media is one of the most effective and cost-efficient marketing strategies today. There are numerous types of social media platforms available with millions of users on each, this can help expose more people to our business in a shorter time period. Our own website is effective because people can directly see what our business is about and contact us with any questions they have. Banner ads are effective since people can see our product when they search up related topics and may be able to attract them into purchasing too.
VISUAL ADVERTISING /
Gaia Fertilizers will build connections with local small businesses that sell garden supplies such as seeds, trees, soil, and fertilizers. They can use our product sample to grow some plants and have comparison pictures shown to let customers be able to see how well our product works before purchasing. Additionally, we could also use these pictures on our websites for online customers.
/ PUBLIC RELATIONS
Gaia will use community relations as part of our PR strategies. We’ll hold gardening events at local community gardens to bring more awareness to our company and product. These publicity and public relations initiatives will be effective for reaching our target market because as home gardeners, they may have some sort of passion for nature and are interested in participating in gardening events. When they take part in the gardening events, we have the opportunity to orally pitch our company and product and build up our business’s credibility.
SALES PROMOTION /
The sales promotions we will include as part of our promotional strategies is that they will be able to get a discount if they choose our monthly delivery service. Our market research showed that our target age group likes discounts and coupons so by giving our customers a discounted option, we are more likely to gain more customers and retain loyalty. This form of sales promotion will be effective for reaching our target market because they can easily purchase it online and have it delivered so they don't have to waste their time and effort to buy it in stores.