The Attic Cafe

The Attic Cafe was envisioned as a new Houston coffee shop experience by integrating a mini marketplace into the shop. Inside a two-story building, the cafe will be on the first floor and customers can browse through handcrafted items on the second floor.

Note: The Attic Cafe was developed as part of my academic coursework to demonstrate my creative thinking and problem-solving skills.

Market Challenges:

• Low brand perception - There is no existing customer base as this is the Attic Cafe's first location with no prior digital presence.
• Saturated market - There are numerous coffee shops in Houston. The Attic Cafe will have to distinguish itself from other business in the area.

Marketing Challenges:

• Low interaction with potential customers - The small business have limited resources for marketing research and the sampling size is small.
• Low click rate - The brand's newly launched social media accounts will have low or no interactions.
• Low conversion rate - Customers have no knowledge of the membership program.

Internal Challenges

• Lack of funds and resources - This require the business to have a smaller scope of advertisement and outreach campaigns
• Lack of expertise - The management team may be inexperienced in running a business
• Small team of operation
• Building business relationships with local artisans - The selected local creators and products must also align with customers' interests

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After identifying the challenges, we identified key objectives and KPIs for the strategy.

We determined the value propositions of the shop, asking "Why should customers buy or not buy?" and reasons for not buying from competitors. This became parts of the research questions for our qualitative research. Our key customer insights include:

1. Distinctive characteristic of behavior

• 3 out of 9 interviewees mentioned that their favorite drink is tea.
• 5 out of 9 interviewees purchase coffee in the morning before work or school
• 5 out of 9 interviewees said they would like to see promotional ads and other content through social media
• 8 out of 9 interviewees mentioned that they preferred to communicate face-to-face

2. Distinctive drivers for action

• 4 out of 9 interviewees mentioned that seeing photographs of a cozy environment or comfortable interior designs motivate them to visit a new cafe or restaurant.
• 4 out of 9 interviewees mentioned online reviews influence them to try a new cafe or restaurant
• 5 out of 9 interviewees expressed concerns about expensive coffee that comes in a small cup or low-quality coffee

From there, we crafted 2 personas:

We developed an XMPIE workflow that details the customer's touchpoints from when they discover the business, sign up for loyalty membership, and make their first purchase at the Attic Cafe.

Each persona will have personalized versions of the welcome and reminder email based on their interests.

Furthermore, we've also created various social media post ideas across different platforms that our potential customers would use. You can view the full project details here