Table of contents
Executive Summary
Introduction
Qualitative Research
Method & Procedure
Summary of Major Findings
Quantitative Research – Survey
Data Collection
Data Analysis:
Research conclusion
Managerial Recommendation
Limitations
Reflection on Learning from this project
Appendix
Executive Summary
The Red River Farmers Market is a seasonal business. As a business with a mutual relationship with local vendors, and a non-profit driven to promote the local community; their goal is to get as many people as possible active and interacting with the market. The main management decision problem of this study is to determine if the college demographic in Fargo is a viable market by assessing their needs, values, and impressions of the market. On top of that, management is curious to see attitudes towards their volunteer program which consists of college aged students to increase volunteer volume.
We raised several marketing research problems that looked at customer is attitudes, needs, values, and satisfaction revolving the markets and the volunteer program.
To gather data for this study we conducted a qualitative research (focus group discussion) and quantitative research (survey). For focus group discussion, we created a set of open-ended questions that would allow respondents to share their private opinions regarding their overall attitudes and experience with the Red River Farmers Market. For the survey, we developed an online survey that would be distributed to the students at North Dakota State University.
Through the focus group and survey, we found that our target market mostly hears about the farmers market through word of mouth while advertising through Facebook was a close second showing that advertising efforts were a viable option of marketing, while 30% of survey respondents said they had not heard of the Red River Market. While seeming like an issue in the focus group, saw that the current time we offer is still the most preferred time to have it. When it came to our volunteer program, current volunteers and prospective volunteers both said they would like to see better or more incentives for volunteering, in addition clearer direction and better or more defined duties would help as well.
We recommend increasing marketing efforts to college students to get the word out. Currently the majority hears about the market through word of mouth. While exposure to the current ads on Facebook were receptive, increasing these and expanding to other platforms such as Instagram may help as well. Since word of mouth was so effective, collaborating with NDSU could also be a viable option to expose a greater number of students. This would help spread the word as well as increase the number of students currently aware of the market. As of right now the Red River Market does not interact with the NDSU campus and doing so would generate more activity with college students.
The current market time and location seem to be fine with the majority liking the current time of the market. 86% were willing to travel 1-10 minutes to the market and that moving down to 49% willing to travel 11-20 minutes. A recommendation is increasing awareness of available options to get to the market. Figuring out easy bus travel for students will help get them over the barrier for the travel issue.
When it comes to volunteering, revamping the current program to make the process easier and more well defined may help increase participation. Survey respondents mostly noted lack of clearly defined duties as an area they would like to see improved. On top of that the majority of both current and potential volunteers would like to see an incentive program implemented. Either clarifying rewards or adding a tracking system to redeem market cash would improve attitudes toward the current program in place.
Introduction
Background
The Red River Farmers Market if Fargo’s first and only farmers' market. Established by a group of volunteers in the spring of 2015 because of two key issues: the lack of a centrally located, accessible place to access locally grown food, and the lack of shared public space in the Fargo Moorhead community. Since then, The Farmers market has grown from 800 to 8,000 seasonal weekly visitors.
Our client has continued to work out the kinks of operation and are now looking to expand their visitors. Fargo has a large college age population, yet our clients feel they lack in attendance and are seeking ways to improve turn out. Additionally, their volunteer program, which is key for ensuring a smooth set up, and take down operation has slowly dwindled, and they would like to get a further understanding of what the demographic feels and would like to see in the volunteer program.
Statement of the Management Decision Problem
Red River Farmers Market is a wonderful place to get fresh and local products. It is also run and supported by volunteers. Even though there is not a lot of direct competition they have indirect competition with local grocery stores. Our first goal is to find out why the untapped college student demographic is not attending the farmer's market. We will then want to find out what would attract those college students to attend. Another dilemma is figuring out how to maintain, support, and encourage volunteers for the market hopefully encouraging college participation.
There are several marketing research problems that our research team will focus on:
· What motivates/stops college students to shop here
· What values overlap with the college population and that of the markets
· How college students receive communication/marketing information
· How well the college student market is aware of the farmers market location and products
· What are college students' opinions on the farmer's market?
· What would motivate college students to volunteer, and keep volunteering
· Are there incentives that are more favorable than others?
Qualitative Focus Group
Objective
The main objective of holding the focus group discussion was to gather information from potential consumers about how they perceive the Red River Market. We have created many sections to help collect our data. These sections include attitude toward farmer’s markets, cooking, attitudes toward grocery stores such as Walmart, Red River Markets availability, volunteering, and suggestions and experiences. With the information we gather we will help the Red River Market achieve their goal of bringing in more college students to the market.
Method and Procedure
Our team brainstormed several questions that we found critical to figure out how to not only market to college students but to figure out why colleges are not attending the market. We divided these questions into sections to help bring the focus onto the main goal. Having clear and easy to understand questions was extremely important so we could achieve the best possible answers.
The focus group took place on Thursday, October 1, 2020 from 4:00pm to 5:15pm via zoom. The focus group consisted of a moderator, a secretary, and eleven respondents who attend NDSU. Most of the respondents had at least heard of the Red River Market but not all knew much about it. The moderator had the job of leading the discussion by asking questions and keeping respondents involved. The secretary was there to take down detailed notes along with helping the moderator keep on track.
Summary of Major Findings
The focus group helped us gain particularly important knowledge on the issue we discussed in our proposal statement. While all the information we gained was extremely helpful there was certain topics that really stood out. First off, it was noticeably clear that most people did not know much about the market and what they all offered. Secondly, we found out what the target market thought about the availability of the market. Finally, we got outstanding suggestions on how to bring in more of the target market.
Attitude Towards Farmer’s Markets
The overall attitude towards farmer’s markets was incredibly positive. The overall thought that came to mind when thinking of a farmer's market is fresh food. Participants talked about the corn on the cob, baked goods, and the honey sticks that they purchase when attending different farmer’s markets. Most people have heard about farmers markets but did not know about the Red River Farmers market.
Cooking
When asked about cooking most of the participants said they do it but, only if it is quick and easy things to make. When asked to elaborate on what is considered easy to cook most said grilling and making several types of pastas. There were a couple of participants that said they did not like looking so instead of going hungry these people either went out to eat or had other people cook for them such as their parents. Since cooking requires food, participants were asked when they are going to cook what is it that they look to buy. There was a very wide range of answers with the most consistent being meats, eggs, bread, and pasta. The most interesting answers received from the question however was participants agreeing that they were looking for cheap and long-lasting products. Participants also mentioned that because they are college students most of them only buy enough stuff for one meal because they are cooking for themselves.
Attitudes Towards Grocery Stores Such as Walmart
The moderator started this section off by asking what stores the participants went to the most. While the answers varied the top three were Aldi, Walmart, and Costco. The group had a positive consonance on Aldi. They enjoyed how cheap the products are while still have high quality. Most said that the produce that Aldi has last a long time and beats the quality of produce from Walmart. The participants then shifted the conversation to grocery stores having long lines. They all agreed that they did not like how busy grocery stores are on a normal day.
Red River Market Availability
Even though some people do not know much about the Red River Market this section helped gain a significate amount of information. Most of the participants think of the Red River Market as a summer activity that you attend once or twice a year. If given the option, most of them would choose to go other places and most would only go if they were with friends. With the market only being open on Saturdays most said that they make other plans, work, or do not want to get up that early. The group agreed that keeping it open longer would give college students more of a reason to go since college students go downtown at night. The moderator suggested that if it were open during the week more people would go. About half the group agreed saying that during the week if they got bored, they would attend. While the other half said they would not attend because they are extremely busy during the week. A suggestion was made about having it open on Sundays and everyone loved that idea. Participants said that on Sunday they have a lot of free time so they could enjoy it. Another reason they thought Sunday would be a good day is because people meal prep on that day so having fresh food would be good for that. The final reason that being open on Sunday was such a hit was because it gives them the option to stay out late at least one night of the weekend. This meaning if they do not want to get up early on Saturday, they then still have the option to go the next day.
Volunteering
Over half the participants have volunteered at least once in their lifetime at organizations such as Feed my Starving Child. When asked if they would ever volunteer at the Red River Market nobody even knew that the market offered the opportunity. The participants said they would do it if they could learn more on what they would be doing as a volunteer and how long they would have to do it for. Most agreed that if they had to do it the entire day they would not volunteer.
Suggestions and Experiences
With most participants having little knowledge on the Red River Market, we gain an enormous number of suggestions. To appeal to college students the participants really think that having the market open later and on Sundays would allow them more of a chance to attend. College kids flock downtown at night so, splitting the day to change the latter half into something that college kids would feel more inclined to attend would be great. For example, if the morning would have a greater focus on the fresh foods and the afternoon focusing on food vendors and entertainment. Any college kid wants free things so the participants thought it would be a clever idea if the offered more deals and/or samples. The biggest idea that was taken from this section was marketing. Most participants did not know about what the market has because they have never seen any ads. All participants agreed that the market needs to step up their game when it comes to marketing to college students. Suggestions were made to partner with popular local businesses such as brewing companies. Another option was that the market comes to campus a couple times throughout the season. With the final suggestion being to start an app that shows all the vendors and where they are located.
It is fantastic to find out that nobody had a terrible experience to share about the market. The participants really empathized on how they want an amazing experience while being there. They want to be able to try new and unique products that they can only get at the market. Participants agreed that by building the experience they would be more likely to attend.
Quantitative Research – Survey
Data Collection
Our study relies on non-probability convenience sampling because we sent our survey through the group's student class email roaster. We also shared the survey with a fraternity, Sigma Alpha Epsilon in efforts to reach further students and gather a wider perspective. Our main target population was Fargo and Moorehead college students.
Sample
Our servey targeted 600 students We created and sent a Qualtrics survey through the group's student class email roaster with the permission of our professors. Of the 600 students, we received
responses from 162, giving us a response rate of an impressive 27.17%.
Survey Overview
Our survey was split into four main sections.
· General grocery shopping habits: We first wanted a general understanding on our respondent's grocery shopping routines and what they prefer with certain aspects of grocery shopping. This gave us a better understanding on how often people grocery shopped, where they like grocery shopping, and how important certain aspects where to them.
· Familiarity with Red River Farmers Market: This portion was to see the respondent's knowledge and personal experience with the Red River Farmers Market. If they answered yes to having heard about the Red River Farmers Market, they were taken to more questions about their experience with the market and asked about volunteer experience.
· Volunteering: This portion was to find out which respondents had volunteered at the Red River Farmers Market and what their experience was like. We also asked about what things could be improved and whether they would recommend volunteering here.
· Demographics: Our concluding section was asking respondents gender, academic standing and where they live in relation to the Red River Farmers Market. We also had an optional comment box for any other questions or ideas before completing the survey.
Description of respondents
The target audience of this survey was full time or part time students of NDSU. Of the respondents that completed the survey, 58 students were females and 85 students
were males. The academic standing of the respondents were 8.1 % freshmen, 21.3 % sophomores,
19.4% juniors, 41.3 % seniors, and 2.5 % graduate students. When we asked the respondents how far they live from the Red River Farmers Market, 54.1% of respondents said they live 1-10 minuets away from the market, 35.1% said they live 11-20 minutes, 3.4% said they live 21-30 minutes, and 7.4% said they live more then 30 minutes away. The distance respondents were willing to drive was 36.5% 1-10 minutes to the market, 48.0% 11-20 minutes, 11.5% 21-30 minutes, and 4.3% would drive more than 30 minutes to get to the market.
Out of the total 113 questioned 28% or 32 of respondents have not heard about the Red River Market. Out of 160 respondents, 38% heard of it through word of mouth, 32% heard of it through Facebook, 10% through the radio, 6% through various newsletters, and 5% responded other. The other responses were either from google or Instagram.
When asked why respondents chose not to go to the Red River Market, out of the 24 total, 66% said they did not know enough information, 16% had difficulties with time, and 8% said distance was the factor.
When prompted about volunteering, out of 59 responses, 22% had while 88% had not. When asked what factors would make them more likely to volunteer, out of 60 responses 41% said they would like to see more incentive, 30% wanted better or more flexible times, 20% said if the job duties were better defined, while 5 offered written responded such as planning to next season, not having the time to or wanting to, and having more duties on the job to do.
Data Analysis
The raw data that we collected from our survey was obtained through Qualtrics. The data was then run through an analysis software called IBM SPSS. After the we ran the data through IBM SPSS, we used it to make our conclusions.
Important Farmers Market Factors
To get a better understanding about our respondents we asked them to rank general aspects of a farmer's market and shopping to see which ones they were most satisfied with. The main factors we included where price, food quality, location of market, social aspect, and vendors. We used a one-sample t-test to evaluate these responses based on the neutral value of 3. All our values came back to be significant with their p-values, <0.001, which were less than alpha of 0.05. This means that our respondents where highly satisfied with all these factors at the Red River Farmers Market.
Table 1
Red River Market Availability
We wanted to see if gender had any effect on the willingness of travel time of the respondents. The times were broken down between 1-10 minuets with 38 males and 14 females saying that that is the most time they are willing to spend to go to the market. 36 male and 34 female said they maxed out at 11-20 minutes for travel time, 7 males and 9 females responded with 21-30 minutes, and 4 male and 1 female said they would travel 30 min plus.
We found that there was a significant difference between gender and travel time (Chi square=33.501, p=<.0001) with the data being broken down in table 2.
Table 2
A point that was brought up during the focus group was the times the market was available. While they currently only have the market during Saturday 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., many students thought that offering more times would help attendance. We decided to include this in the survey and found that the majority still preferred the afternoon of Saturday with a total count of 36 or 54%. The next leading number was Sunday mornings with a count of 14 or 21%. The idea brought up in the discussion group for weekdays only received 10 responses or 6 % and the last was Saturday evenings with a count of 6 or roughly 9%. As you can see in figure 1.
Figure 1
Volunteering
When asking those who have volunteered what they thought would help improve their experience, 41% wanted to see a better system for offering incentives, 28% wanted better scheduling, 21% wished to see better and clearer defined duties, while 8% responded thinking there were other ways to improve while not giving any responses to reply, as you can see in figure 2.
Figure 2
Suggestions and Experiences
With most participants having little knowledge on the Red River Market, we gain an enormous amount of suggestions. To appeal to college students the participants really think that having the market open later and on Sundays would allow them more of a chance to attend. College kids flock downtown at night so, splitting the day to change the latter half into something that college kids would feel more inclined to attend would be great. For example, if the morning would have a greater focus on the fresh foods and the afternoon focusing on food vendors and entertainment. Any college kid wants free things so the participants thought it would be a good idea if the offered more deals and/or samples. The biggest idea that was taken from this section was marketing. Most participants did not know about what the market has because they have never seen any ads. All participants agreed that the market needs to step up their game when it comes to marketing to college students. Suggestions were made to partner with popular local businesses such as brewing companies. Another option was that the market comes to campus a couple times throughout the season. With the final suggestion being to start an app that shows all the vendors and where they are located.
It is fantastic to find out that nobody had a bad experience to share about the market the participants really empathized on how they want an amazing experience while being there. They want to be able to try new and unique products that they can only get at the market. Participants agreed that by building the experience they would be more likely to attend.
Research conclusions
In the focus group discussion, one of the most pressing issues was that most participants had little knowledge about the Red River Farmers Market. While most had very positive attitudes and experiences about farmer’s markets in general.
Participants of the focus group also expressed that the limited availability made it hard for them to attend the Red River Farmers Market. Most thought that it was only a summer event and if they could go other places they would. Participants thought opening the market on Sundays would allow them to attend more often.
In the survey, respondents rated word of mouth as the most common way they have heard about the Red River Farmers Market. This is concerning because in the focus group people did not know much about the market at all. Around 23% of participants claim that they would most likely attend the Red River Farmers Market on a Saturday evening. While analyzing how satisfied with different aspects of the Red River Farmers Market the free food samples got the lowest satisfaction while the freshness of the product ranked highest in satisfaction.
Managerial Recommendations
There are a few things that we would like to recommend the Red River Farmers Market should do to increase the number of customers that come to the market and their satisfaction.
· One of the things the market could improve upon would be marketing. A considerable portion of students had never heard of the Red River Farmers Market before. To combat this, we would recommend that they try to advertise more on popular social media sites like Instagram, or that they reach out to NDSU for marketing opportunities.
· Price is another crucial factor to consider. Most of the college students who answered our survey had a negative response to the price of things at the market. We would recommend that the market would have more vendors that have less expensive things to offer, or that they offer some sort of college discount that could attract more college students.
· Participants stated that they are more like to attend the Red River Farmers Market on a Saturday afternoon. While this was a topic in the discussion group that other times might be better, the survey found the current time we offer to be satisfactory.
Limitations
Throughout this study there has been multiple limitations:
v Sample sizing is too narrow. This study produced 160 responses, which is higher than our expected number of 100. These responses only came from NDSU students that were in shared classes of member of this team. For future surveys we would want to generate more responses along with a larger variety of students.
v Not all respondents have attended the Red River Farmers Market. Since not everyone has been to the Red River Farmers Market the survey may have cut short for people. If they have not been, they did not have to answer questions about the market. This caused our numbers to drop when we got into specifics about the market. For future surveys we could seek out people that have been to the market, so they can answer the full survey.
v Respondents may have lied. When taking this survey some of the respondents may have rushed through and not answered truthfully or to the best of their abilities. For future surveys we would ask students that take their time and make sure they answer to the best of their abilities.
Reflection on learning from this project
Throughout the process of this project our team gained a significate amount of experience. The information we learned will help us throughout the rest of our college endeavors and into our future careers. This project started with us learning how to write a project proposal. This is a very important aspect to any project so learning this will help us tremendously throughout the rest of our careers.
After creating out project proposal we moved onto constructing a focus group. For a lot of us this was our first experience with composing questions to ask our participants. This was an excellent tool to have learned because, most student do not know this skill. By understand what types of questions to ask and how to ask them it gives us a leg up on our competition in the job market.
After conducting our focus group, we put together a report on the conclusions of our interviews. This is an important skill because it taught us to not only keep notes during the questioning process. But more importantly to also go back and observe items we may not have caught initially.
Following the report on the we had the most difficult challenge, creating a survey. This took a lot of time and effort to create questions in a particular order that maximized our knowledge for the Red River Farmers Market. This is an extremely important skill to have learned for future careers because we know understand what goes into making an outstanding survey.
To conclude, we finished this report up with learning how to analyze our data from the survey using SPSS. This was particularly interesting to learn this year with Covid-19. We were all new to this software, so we made sure to ask many questions. As a group trying to put our graphs together it was interesting because one of our group members does not live in the Fargo-Moorhead area. This taught us how to work with programs and talk through what was happening with the people are were unable to be there in person.
All in all, this was an exciting experience for us all. We learned skill that we will use throughout the rest of out careers. When competing for jobs these skills will give us the one up on our peers that have not learned them yet. We are glad to have learned so much out of this project and could not have done so with out Dr. Li’s help. We want to thank him for always being available for questions and helping explain these new concepts to us.
Appendix 1: Focus Group Discussion Outline
Introduction: (4:00-4:15)
o Introducing self and everyone
o A little background of Red River Farmers Market
o Purpose of the focus group
o Questions/concerns
Attitude toward Farmers Markets: (4:15-4:25)
o What is your first thought when you think farmers market?
o Have you ever been to a farmer’s market?
o Have you ever heard of RR market?
o Have you ever been to the Red River Farmers Market?
o If you have never been to one, why not?
o If you have been to one, did you go again?
o If you have been to one and didn’t go again, why not?
o What was your experience like at the farmers market?
Cooking: (4:25-4:30)
o Who cooks at home?
o What types of food do you cook?
o If you do not cook, why not?
o When you go grocery shopping, what do you look for in your produce?
Attitudes towards Grocery stores such as Walmart: (4:30-4:35)
o What grocery store do you get your items from?
o What do you like and dislike about grocery stores in general?
RR Market availability: (4:35-4:45)
o Since the market is only open during the warm weather, does that make you not want to go?
o Since the market is only open one day of the week does that deter you from going.
o Would you be more willing to go if the market was open at least one day during the week?
o Do you have any suggestions on how to make the market more available to others?
Volunteering: (4:45-4:50)
o Have you ever volunteered?
o Would you consider volunteering at the RR Market?
o What would drive you to volunteer?
o Do you think if there was an incentive program to volunteer that it would help bring in more volunteers?
Suggestions & experiences: (4:50-5:00)
o If you have been to a farmer’s market what did you like about it and would like to see at more markets?
o What would you suggest getting more college students to attend the RR market?
o What is one thing the market can do to increase positive experiences for everyone?
o Suggestions on coupons for college students, special events for college students etc any other ideas?
o Wrapping up thoughts, questions, ideas
Appendix 2- Survey
Red River Farmers Market Survey
We are a group of NDSU students who are taking a marketing research class. We have been working on a course project trying to figure out how we can help the Red River Farmers Market gain more attendance from college students in the area. This survey will be asking multiple questions regarding your experience with farmers markets and asking for your suggestions to improve everyone’s experience. Thank you for considering taking our survey on the Red River
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