The Glenwood Club is a premier event space located close to downtown Raleigh off of Glenwood Avenue at the Crabtree Valley exit. The venue has its own customized and themed decor and food services, which are provided by the Irregardless Cafe and Catering. The catering company, started in 1975 by founding Chef Arthur Gordon, has managed the Glenwood Club since January 2015. Irregardless Cafe and Catering offers fresh, farm to table food that suits anyone’s needs. They strive to incorporate the freshest ingredients into all aspects of their meals.
The Glenwood Club sets itself apart as an event venue hrough their dedication to impeccable service and southern elegance. It has up to 350 seats available for guests as well as on-site parking that is handicap accessible. This venue is rented out by the hour or day to be used for events such as weddings, corporate events and types of social gatherings. Our group has decided to target the companies needs in promoting their venue for corporate events. The Glenwood Club’s prime location makes them desirable for any business to hold a corporate event.
Some corporate event examples are lunch and dinner eetings, company parties, or any other corporate meeting that would need a large venue space. Some of which could include board meetings, award banquets, retirement parties, etc. The Glenwood Club is also able to serve breakfast, lunch and dinner which gives businesses the opportunity to hold their events at various times of the day. The facility fees include tables and chiavari chairs set up in the rooms, white dishware, stainless flatware and glassware, use of stage, access to the lobby area for cocktail hour, coat check rooms, access to a photo booth, and on-site parking.
Extra rentals apply to linens, audio visual equipment, dance floor and a grand piano. The Glenwood Club has a well laid out company website. However, they currently only have a Facebook account with 26 likes. The company will need to expand their brand to places like Twitter and Instagram in order to gain a larger customer base and raise awareness. The competitors for the Glenwood Club are the Angus Barn, Mitchell’s Catering and Events, 214 Martin Street, Melrose Knitting Mill, and Solas Raleigh. In business since 1960, Angus Barn is their biggest competitor.
Already having a strong brand resence and reputation in the area, the Angus Barn also has “Iron Chef America” winner Walter Royal as their Executive Chef. Statement of Needs/Problems The main goal of the Glenwood Club is to have corporate events booked Monday through Friday. The businesses can either rent the space by the hour, or by the day. In order to accomplish this, they need to be more active on social media and become more aware of what their target audience looks for in a corporate event venue. Many businesses are unaware of the Glenwood Club.
While they have created a positive reputation in Raleigh, a ajor problem that the Glenwood Club is facing is that their current marketing and advertising tools have not brought enough publicity to the venue. Prior to the Glenwood Club purchasing their new building they did not have a large enough space to hold big events. With their new location comes the task of advertising their new space and making sure the community is aware of it. Because they are the newest inside the beltline venue in Raleigh, many people are unaware of the new opportunities available at the Glenwood Club.
This semester, our group will work to increase awareness of the Glenwood Club by conducting research on their target audience to find the most effective advertising and public relation tools in order to accomplish our goal. In order to accomplish this, we will make the Glenwood Club more active on various media platforms. We will research what types of corporate events Raleigh businesses hold, and how to become visible to these companies. Specifically, we plan on finding out the demographics of the people within the company who plan corporate events, and how to best reach them.
Finally, we will find the competitive advantages the Glenwood Club has over other venues in Raleigh nd will utilize advertising tools to make the public aware of these characteristics. Target public/market profile The primary target publics are the businesses in the Raleigh area. The goal is to inform corporations, such as Red Hat, Epic Games, Bandwidth, Quintiles, and other small businesses in the Raleigh area about Glenwood’s event spaces and catering services. Secretaries are the main personnel for scheduling corporate events.
Data suggests that management, business, and financial occupations personnel are well above average when it comes to purchasing convention/meeting sites (index: 87). The secondary public are college campus organizations of North Carolina State University. A significant amount of college students read the magazine Seventeen (index: 274). Snapchat is also a growing trend among college students. SWOT Analysis Strengths One of the strengths of the Glenwood Club come from their unique pairing with Irregardless Cafe and Catering.
They are able to incorporate their own food and service expertise while using their venue space. Chef Gordon has been in the catering business for 41 years, so he brings plenty of experience and xpertise to the food side of what the venue can offer customers. The location of the Glenwood Club is also a strength, because it is so close to the downtown Raleigh area. The Glenwood Club has a user friendly and well thought out website, which helps the promotional aspect of the business. Glenwood Club offers ballrooms of different sizes and a wide range of prices.
The prices range from $200 to $650 for morning and afternoon events and $200 to $2,000 for evening events. This gives the customer more options to select which ballroom would best fit their needs and budget. Weaknesses The Glenwood Club lacks presence on social media platforms. They should expand to Facebook and Instagram in order to gain a following with people in the area and potential clients. Facebook and Instagram would give the venue the outlets to showcase pictures of the venue and what kind of food they offer, but it could also help them promote successful events they have hosted.
This way they are able to be more relatable to the public and target audiences they want to attract to the venue. The layout of the website is inviting and easy to use. However, the Corporate events section needs more content. Right now, it only lists the events that can be arranged and contact information. To make the website more effective, it should include some information regarding what they offer that other competitors don’t offer. This includes their vegan options, southern style meals and scenery, their convenient location, and other aspects that would set them apart from their competitors.
This will help promote the corporate events venue and rise above the competition. Opportunities The venue space would be perfect for college social events. Since the Glenwood Club is located in Raleigh, they could attract tudents from both NC State University and Meredith College. More than 20 percent of NC State’s student body is involved in greek life, and fraternities and sororities are continuously searching for new venues to hold their events.
Large groups and organizations at college campuses could benefit greatly by using the resources that the Glenwood Club has to offer. This could be a way for the Glenwood Club to be able to fill up open weekend dates while also reaching out to a younger demographic in Raleigh. This would be a great step forward in getting the Glenwood Club’s name out, since students who attend the niversity are from diverse areas of the state and the country. The Glenwood Club associates themselves with the idea of “southern hospitality”.
This aspect can be emphasized through advertising to evoke feelings of home and southern elegance. “Southern hospitality” can be used to make customers feel more at home and to play up the idea that the Glenwood Club is a small business. Clients are more likely to trust small businesses over bigger companies. This aspect can be used to set the Glenwood Club apart from it’s competitors. The Catering services offer mainly plant-based meals. Chef Arthur Gordon has been sourcing local produce and fostering “farm to table” meals since 1975.
This can also be used to emphasize the benefit of holding an event at the Glenwood Club as opposed to a competing company. There is a growing sustainability trend. Many customers feel that they are helping the environment and their community by buying foods that are grown locally. Threats The venue faces threats from restaurants who have been settled in the area longer and have a well-known reputation in the area. Glenwood Club also faces threats from wedding planners and organizers who work in the area.
