This case study was developed by Kim Stenehjem and Les Skoropat of Prairie Public Television with funding from USDA Rural Development. This material is public domain and may be used for education and information purposes with proper attribution.

Introduction

The Great Outdoors is a fictional outdoor sports store located on the main street of Twin Lakes, a mythical community of 1,900 in central North Dakota -- the heart of country favored by outdoor sports enthusiasts. The business has undergone many changes since it first opened in 1979. It's now ready for a full-scale makeover to get it ready for the web.

In summer, Twin Lake's parks and resorts are crowded with recreational campers and fishers. In fall, hunters favor this area in search of deer, pheasant, grouse and waterfowl such as ducks and geese. Traditionally in winter, Twin Lakes received only a small number of visitors who came for ice fishing, but in recent years the area has become a popular spot for snowmobiling and cross country skiing. A recently opened wildlife preserve and nature center is beginning to draw visitors interested in bird-watching and prairie ecology.

The business was established in 1979 by Sedalia Fischer and her husband Stephen, and was originally named Fischer's Bait and Lures. It was a full-service bait and tackle retail shop catering to fishing enthusiasts visiting the area. In addition to the standard bait and fishing tackle, the store featured specialty lures and flies designed and hand-crafted by Sedalia's father who took up this hobby after retirement. From 1979-1983, the store was only open from April to October although income for the business increased steadily.

The Great Outdoors' first image makeover came early in its life. As winter visitors to Twin Lakes became more numerous, Sedalia and Stephen decided to expand to year-round operation and changed the name of their business to The Great Outdoors. During the winter of 1983, they bought and remodeled an adjoining storefront and diversified their inventory with camping gear and hunter's clothing and accessories. In 1984, they added ice-fishing equipment and bait in the winter. In 1985, they added snowmobiling clothing and winter camping supplies to the store. Sedalia took over designing and building flies and lures in 1988 after the death of her father.

From the beginning, Sedalia has been the store manager and responsible for ordering inventory, hiring and supervising part time staff, and overseeing retail operations. After the death of Sedalia's father, she also took over the designing of flies and lures. Stephen, who had a full-time position as a computer programmer, does the business's bookkeeping and has developed an unexpected flair for design. Stephen has taken over designing the retail window and floor displays. Stephen and Sedalia make major business decisions about the store together.

The 1979 "The Great Outdoors" logo features lettering made from illustrations of logs and tree limbs, on a brown background suggesting rough-sawn knotty pine. The lettering is colored light blue to suggest the lakes and blue skies, reminiscent of the outdoor experience.

Designer's notes: this logo has a certain friendly, rustic look, which also tends to make it look rather dated. It fails in its attempts to be literal, in that logs really are not blue. This design approach of logs as letters would be more successful as an actual wooden sign made of logs, mounted on the storefront. The varied textures and colors of this logo make it particularly difficult to reproduce in smaller sizes, and in single color applications.

In 1989, the Fischers felt the time had come to freshen up the image of The Great Outdoors. Their retail store had developed haphazardly but had a charming, small-town country store feel to it thanks to Stephen's talent for interior design. They wanted to retain that feel but realize that the "log" logo designed by their local print shop had become dated and wasn't polished enough to appeal to the new, more affluent customer base they hoped to attract to their business.

The business's net income increased steadily since the store opened year round but gross income appears to have reached a plateau since 1996. Stephen and Sedalia have conducted a survey with their current customers and feel that they can not achieve further growth without making changes in their marketing strategy.

Eighty percent of their current customers are middle-aged men who live within a 200 mile radius and regularly spend weekends in the Twin Lakes area. The survey found that the average customer has shopped at the store more than 10 times this year and has been a customer at The Great Outdoors for more than 5 years. While Steve and Sedalia are pleased to find this kind of customer loyalty, they are concerned that so much of their income depending on a local customer base, particularly since the area's farm economy is rocky.

This survey identified a customer group that they had overlooked. Fifteen percent of customers shopping at The Great Outdoors were vacationers for whom this was the first visit to the area. Although these customers stated that they were unlikely to return to the area , they were pleased with the merchandise selection and had spent an average of $350 in the store that they. These customers were typically affluent and indicated that they shopped using the Internet on a regular basis. They stated in the survey that they would visit a web site for The Great Outdoors if it included online ordering.

Marketing for The Great Outdoors has been limited to small print ads in outdoors magazine and tourism-related publications like the "Guide to Local Attractions" developed by the Twin Lakes Visitors Bureau.

The 1989 "The Great Outdoors" logo prominently features a maple leaf in its fall colors, with attractive and legible upper- and lower-case lettering in a forest green color.

Designer's notes: this logo's emphasis is on the maple leaf symbol, suggesting the outdoors at its most lovely time, when the trees change color during autumn. The lettering is very readable, and has a comfortable feel to it. The simple shapes and arrangement allow the logo to be used, to a limited extent, in various sizes and applications.

Last year, Stephen and Sedalia undertook some major changes in their business. Stephen had been offered early retirement by his employer, which made it possible for Stephen to take over managing the retail store. That allowed Sedalia, who is an enthusiastic amateur photographer, freedom from management responsibilities so she could begin a photo-safari guide service. The Fischers remodeled the store to add a darkroom and a line of camera supplies.

Hoping that these services will appeal to a growing market among young urban professionals, the Fishers plan to market heavily on a web site they are developing and in photography magazines.

Time for another makeover! The Great Outdoors needed an image that will work well in print advertising, and in electronic form on the web and their in-store displays. In addition, the Fischers wanted to use their new logo for signage on their storefront, uniform shirts for all store employees, and on the humvee they are purchasing for Sedalia's photo safaris. It was time to simplify their logo and make it cross-platform.

The Fischers also plan to market several specialized items on their web site including Sedalia's hand-crafted fishing flies, lures made by area artisans, and outdoors clothing designed for women. To attract potential customers to their web site, Sedalia and Stephen have developed a partnership with the visitors bureau to provide them with free web space in exchange for the bureau's creating web pages featuring all outdoor sports-related businesses in their area. They have also arranged to feature a local writer's weekly outdoors columns.

In his spare time, Stephen had been working on software for a computer kiosk which they tested last year and which proved popular with customers -- and profitable for the store. The interactive computer program has many features designed to increase sales in the store. Based on answers a customer enters on a touch screen, the program recommends bait and lures that work well in local conditions, adds reminders for supplies and items customers most commonly forget to pack, and highlights current in-store specials. Stephen also included services for customers including a database of posted no-hunting areas, local weather forecasts, and maps of local lakes with hot fishing spots marked. Stephen and Sedalia feel that this sales tool could be modified to become a significant web-based attraction and marketing tool for their online storefront.

The 1999 "Great Outdoors" logo drops the article "The," simplifying the logo to two words. The maple leaf from the 1989 version is stylized. The solid colors suggest the green of the forest, the blue of the lakes, and the red of the fall maple leaves. The lettering is simple, all capital letters with large square serifs.

Designer's notes: this logo has been designed to reflect the changing business and to appeal to its current customers, many of whom live in the city and come to the great outdoors for vacation and recreation. The simplified, stylized version of the 1989 logo and its major element, the maple leaf, is designed to compete with the logos of department stores and mail-order marketers, businesses this new customer base is familiar with. The "chunky" look of the lettering suggests the rustic feel of the outdoors, while the geometric version of the maple leaf implies that it won't be too "wild" an experience. The large letters and simple overall shape of the logo make it very adaptable to a wide variety of sizes and applications, including web pages, signs and letterheads, and embroidered and imprinted garments.

Planning A Web Site

The first step in building a web site is to set goals. After a day of brainstorming, the owners and staff of The Great Outdoors have developed what they feel is an achievable plan for their web site. These are the business needs which they feel The Great Outdoors web site can best address

• Sell fish decoys to collectors
• Book individuals into scheduled photo safaris
• Generate requests for the women's clothing catalog
• Help encourage family vacations to the Twin Lakes area thereby creating new customers for the store

After much debate and negotiation, The Great Outdoors developed what they feel are achievable, realistic goals for web site in the next fiscal year

• Generate $5,000 in sales of fish decoys with 20% of sales to first time customers
• Launch photo safari service with at least 2 events booked to capacity
• Receive 25 requests for women's clothing catalog
• Log 300 visits per month to home page

The next step The Great Outdoors staff took was to define the target markets they wanted to reach with each of their web site features.

• Collectors of fish decoys

Most of Great Outdoors current customers of fish decoys are males that are 45-65 years old. Some customers are female but they are typically purchasing fish decoys as a gift for a collector. Based on surveys The Great Outdoors has done, they know fish decoys collectors have a family income of $45,000-$80,000. They are not price sensitive and seem to be willing to spend quite large amounts to acquire a decoy they want.

• Amateur photographers, especially outdoor & wildlife photography

From information gathered from an industry association to which Sedalia belongs, The Great Outdoors staff learned that amateur photographers are equally divided between male and female, are 25-40 years old, and are either single or married without children. As a group, serious amateur photographers have a family income of more than $125,000 per year but are moderately price sensitive when it comes to purchases that are not equipment.

• Women purchasing winter outdoor sports clothing

  Based on previous customer surveys, the market for The Great Outdoors custom designed clothing is female, 35-60 years old and has a family income between $65,000 and 80,000 per year. The most frequent customers of this product line resides in Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana . They are initially very price sensitive but having enjoyed one product, they are not at all price sensitive for future purchases and are very willing to pay much more than competitors to achieve the very comfortable fit The Great Outdoors clothing provides.