Developing a Business and Marketing Plan for 'The Book Chest'

This report outlines a business and marketing plan for "The Book Chest," a boutique bookshop aiming to cater to book lovers and bibliophiles. The shop will offer a selection of new, old, rare, and out-of-print books, alongside a live kitchen serving farm-fresh food. The plan focuses on creating a welcoming ambiance, building a strong customer base, collaborating with literary organizations, and potentially franchising the business. Marketing strategies include social media engagement, customer feedback programs, newspaper advertisements, and collaborations with online book platforms. The three-year goals emphasize establishing the bookshop as a unique literary hub and expanding its reach through strategic partnerships and franchise opportunities. Success hinges on effective execution of these strategies to foster brand awareness and long-term profitability.

Running Head: PLANNING A BUSINESS AND IT’S MARKETING
Planning a Business and It’s Marketing
Student Name:
Institute Name:

PLANNING A BUSINESS AND IT’S MARKETING
Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................3
A Brief Description of the Business..................................................................................3
Aims for the Next Three Years.........................................................................................4
Marketing Opportunities and Techniques........................................................................5
Creating an Opportunity..................................................................................................8
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................10
References.......................................................................................................................11

PLANNING A BUSINESS AND IT’S MARKETING
Introduction
Starting a business requires a lot of effort and time. This is where the people
understand that for an idea to turn into a potential business it is extremely important to come
ready with a full proof plan and make sure that everything is carried out well.
This planning includes coming up with a business plan, identifying the resources, connecting
them and streamlining a channel to reach the consumers.
When all this fits in place, it is extremely important that we understand the need to plan and
how to implement it.
In this report we will be discussing the business of a boutique bookshop "The Book Chest"
and how will it be established and will gain momentum properly.
A Brief Description of the Business
For the purpose of this report, the business chosen is that of a Book Shop named “The
Book Chest”.
The bookshop will be situated in the main market and will comprise of all the new and old
books, latest releases, limited editions, old editions and out of print books. The target
audience set for this is all the book lovers and Bibliophiles. The outstanding part of this
boutique bookshop is that it will also have a live kitchen running with freshly made food with
vegetables coming directly from the farms. This will help in attracting more and more

PLANNING A BUSINESS AND IT’S MARKETING
customers who love reading along with eating and drinking some quality wine over a
discussion with their group (Legler, 2017).
The boutique bookshop can hold a capacity of maximum 20 people at a time as people might
want to take their time in reading books, eating and drinking. Also, a membership will be
started for the people soon.
We will focus on creating a nice ambiance for all the book lovers and giving them a space to
share interest and ideas. Next, the focus will be on bringing an open mic and things like a
poetry reading, book reading, and many other things.
The major focus will be given on two things:
 The interior of the boutique bookshop- including nice seating's, bright colors and
decorations were done to create a nice and flexible ambiance.
 Second, and the most important one being the books present at the bookshop. We aim
to bring to life the loss of true reading with books of writers which are not easy to
find, rare and priced. The books will start from the usual to the premium range.
Creating and bringing these two things to life is important as it will help in growing the
business to life and successful too.
Aims for the Next Three Years
Every business has to expand in a way that it leads to growth. Many companies often
forget that expansion is a slow process at least for the first three years. While it is a
commonly accepted notion that the first three years is the loss to breakeven period, and three

PLANNING A BUSINESS AND IT’S MARKETING
years onwards is the profit, the strategies of the company should be in sync while taking such
decision for expansion.
Expansion of a business can happen in many ways, and their end result should converge on a
single point that results in generating profits for itself.
For The Book Chest, the next three years look like the following:
 Focus on creating a firm customer base from all over the local area establishing it as a
first of its kind boutique bookstore which is for all bibliophiles irrespective of their
spending power
 Bring in more collaborations and association with book companies, printers, and
publishers, authors, local literary clubs etc. This will help in creating a network for the
bookshop to procure books at a reasonable rate, call good poets and writers for a
poetry reading and book reading session for either free or sponsored. All of this will
help in its potential marketing and outreach.
 Start a franchise of the Trunk Chest. People can start their own version of the
bookshop at their homes provided they have enough space and ability to run this kind
of an idea (Siebert, 2006)
It is important that these ideas are projected and looked after well because they hold the
potential to push the bookstore potential profit if the execution is done well. Having done this
well, there can be several other things which can be planned, but for this short-term, these are
the best possible plan to be going ahead with.
Marketing Opportunities and Techniques

PLANNING A BUSINESS AND IT’S MARKETING
Rank Opportunity Fit with the
Organisation
Capital
Needed
RoI Resource Needed Time to Profit
1 Social Media
Marketing
4/5 Monthly $50 50%
(initially)
A good social
media marketer
with sound
knowledge of
building a
website, SEO and
SEM (Wesel,
2011). Along with
this, the bookstore
should have an
active presence on
Facebook,
Twitter, Pinterest
etc in order to
keep the people
engaged and
updated about the
developments.
Also, the
customers can be
asked to upload
and share the
This is a short
terms thing and
can generate
profit within a
month itself if
the technique is
rigorously
applied. The
company has to
be dedicated to
this and has to
make sure it
goes all along
working well.

PLANNING A BUSINESS AND IT’S MARKETING
photos for a better
word of mouth
promotion too
(Khanna, 2018).
2 Customer
Feedback/word of
mouth
5 $0 100% It is a known fact
that people are
often always
ready to talk about
things they like,
and also they are
ready to at least
try things when
somebody else
suggests them
with such
conviction
(Roland, 2015).
Here, we can start
with a potential
reference policy
where people can
refer to each other
and make sure
they spread good
this will take
some time to
mature, about
two to three
months. As the
first two
months will be
taken up the
activity of
acquiring the
customers, next
two months can
be focussed on
developing the
word of mouth.
The better our
service, the
faster our name
grows by the
people.

PLANNING A BUSINESS AND IT’S MARKETING
talks about The
Book Chest.
3 Advertisement in
Newspaper
3 $100/Month 40%
Even though it is a
little conventional,
but newspaper
advertisement
always works
well. People still
read a newspaper
and for the kind of
audience we are
targeting,
newspapers are
just the right kind
of medium.
This can result in
people knowing
about the
bookstore, special
offers, selection of
books etc.
again, this is a
blind stroke yet
it has chances
of hitting the
right spot.
People can
obviously
know what is
happening and
how things will
go about in
this.
once this
awareness is
achieved, all
other channels
of marketing
can take over
as well and the
load will not
fall on
newspaper

PLANNING A BUSINESS AND IT’S MARKETING
advertisements,
which
otherwise are a
little riskier
than other
methods.
4 Collaborating with
websites like
Goodreads etc
5 depends on
their
demand, can
be around
$100-200
40%
collaborating with
any website which
is famous for
books like
Goodreads,
Amazon,
Infibeam, eBay
etc. is a good way
as people will
know about us and
will obviously
become aware.
This is targeted
for the time when
the Book Chest
has enough
franchises spread
all over the area
and maybe outside
This is a long-
term process
and has to be
maintained in
between. Since
it is a little
expensive, it
cannot be
continued for a
longer period
depending on
the revenue
made by the
bookstore. But
if this idea
comes to effect,
there are
chances it can
bring much

PLANNING A BUSINESS AND IT’S MARKETING
too. awareness and
profit as many
people prefer
shopping
online for their
books and the
ones in area or
vicinity of the
Book Chest
will obviously
have some
curiosity about
it and thus, the
bookstore has a
chance of being
explored by
these people.
Creating an Opportunity
Creating an opportunity is extremely important as it is not always that any lucrative
opportunity will just come sailing by at our doorstep. Taking the best measure, it is only the
best that we create these opportunities for ourselves.

PLANNING A BUSINESS AND IT’S MARKETING
It is important that these ideas are projected and looked after well because they hold the
potential to push the bookstore potential profit if the execution is done well. Having done this
well, there can be several other things which can be planned, but for this short-term, these are
the best possible plan to be going ahead with.
In business, creating the opportunity and working on it is extremely important and it is only a
matter of time that the idea if rightly nurtured becomes an opportunity and opportunity of
rightly nurtured becomes a money minting bet.
As mentioned above, there are three opportunities for the next three years which are to be
implemented properly in order to get good results for the success of these stores.
Start a franchise of the Trunk Chest. People can start their own version of the bookshop at
their homes provided they have enough space and ability to run this kind of an idea.
This idea is one of the most feasible ones for the next three years. Initially, if the store is
successful in its prime and major location, then it is only ideal that it can be then spread and
promoted to other places too and the most beneficial way to do it is by letting it out on
franchises.
Franchising is the easiest way but is successful only for brands or products which are
established. The strategy for franchising has to be very cleverly designed keeping in mind the
people we are targeting and the place where the franchise might come up.
 Make sure the people who hold the franchise understand the meaning of a boutique
book house and can provide everything as listed and decided
 They can well target a good base of book lovers and bibliophiles

PLANNING A BUSINESS AND IT’S MARKETING
 Can bring in collaborations just it is to be done
 Should be ready to make their own infrastructural investment in the initial phase
If these things are well sorted, it can be understood that the company is going well in hand
and is enjoying a good reputation and awareness among the target customers.
This expansion plan is more about building the brand than it is about building profits. Once
the brand is built, profits will follow automatically without any hurry.
Conclusion
With this, we can conclude with the understanding that setting up a business is not an
easy task and has to be taken care with utmost decency and care. It is not only about devising
a good strategy but is also about putting those plans to use to convert the idea to an
opportunity.
Here, the idea is of a boutique bookstore. The bookshop will be situated in the main market
and will comprise of all the new and old books, latest releases, limited editions, old editions
and out of print books. The target audience set for this is all the book lovers and Bibliophiles.
The outstanding part of this boutique bookshop is that it will also have a live kitchen running
with freshly made food with vegetables coming directly from the farms.
The major focus will be given on two things: on the interior and the selection of book we will
carry. The books will range from old to out of print to bestsellers and limited editions.