The Toledo Mud Hens

The Toledo Mud Hens are a professional AAA baseball club from Toledo, Ohio. The team boasts that is a beloved Toledo tradition attracting international fame, however fails to even fill its stadium to half capacity during an average night game, and even fewer on an average afternoon. The organization’s primary objective is to maintain high attendance yearly, and to continue to break the previous year’s attendance record. Their strategy to achieve this objective is to attract customers by positioning the games as events with non-stop entertainment. Their theme is “every game is a big event” and are distinguished as such by a special occasion or giveaway along with numerous “high-jinks” throughout the game(s). This poses the question: who is/are the Mud Hens target market? Either the club has no idea, and hopes that due to its “international fame” everyone who lives and visits Toledo is, or they are focusing on the wrong market(s). In either case this is a strategy that is proving to be both ineffective and inefficient.

An analysis of both the internal and external environments should be completed in order to completely understand them, and then segmenting, targeting and positioning should be considered before fully developing the new marketing plan. To fully understand and analyze this organization, a SWOT analysis was constructed.

Strengths

• “Every game is a big event”

• Rooted in Toledo traditions and history

• Reputation and famous mascot, internationally known, Klinger’s support on MASH

• Breaking attendance record

• Low prices for concessions/ exclusive concessions

Weaknesses

• Attendance Concentrated on breaking attendance records

• Advertising and promotions lack originality and focus

• Pricing

• Lack of data collection

• No customer relation’s manager or group sales manager

• Too focused on tourists and not developing/strengthening relationships

• External “club” in charge/responsible for season ticket holders (Diamond Club)...