Sudarshan Paudel

Maryland Zoo

SWOT Analysis

SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunities & Threats) analysis helps us to understand the

current position of the organization. Strength and Weakness are the internal factors of

organization whereas Opportunities and Threats are the external factors. It helps the organization

to make strategies based on the Strengths, work on its weaknesses and to grab the opportunities

and be prepared for the threats.

Strengths

 Reasonable cost, including discount for kids and seniors and lower ticket price for winter

 Member benefits like unlimited year-round admission, free or discounted admission to

other zoos nationwide, discounts on zoo camps, gift shops, special events, express entry

 Zoo education including field trips, classes at the zoo, zoo tours and zoomobile (bring

zoo to you, for schools and day care centers) addition to that Summer camps, varieties of

events throughout the year & Community outreach programs helps to reach more people

and additional income source

 People can learn about wild animals and their life and see them physically

 Food and refreshment available at premise which makes easier for visitors

 Attractive space and located in prime area of Baltimore- Convenience

 Knowledgeable & helpful staffs helping and explaining about zoo and its products

 Strollers and wheelchairs available for people who need it

  Availability of wildlife animals that are not inhabitant of Maryland or USA displayed in

their natural settings replicating native habitats

Weaknesses

 Zoo opens only 4 days a week and only opens between 10 am to 4 PM, so people doesn’t

have much flexibility

 All the animals can’t be seen due to health of animal or the technical issues

 The parking is always an issue and the long wait time for trolleys

 Varieties of animals is less so people may tend to look for alternatives

 Aging infrastructures & innovation in technology demands state of the art equipment

which zoo lacks

Opportunities

 Growing population in the surrounding counties

 Community outreach has created great level of awareness so people will visit to see

 Use of technology to make zoo safer for both animals and visitors

 The sense of wildlife conservation is getting stronger for this generation, so they tend to

support the zoo

Threats

 Animal right activist who are against putting animals in cages or closed doors

 Current generation are more into TV shows rather than going to the field

 Traditional perceptions towards zoo that it is only place to conserve animals

 Environmental Scan

The environment where business is conducted provides both opportunities and threats to the

business. So, the environmental scanning is the process of acquiring information on events

occurring outside of the organization. In this section various factors in the environment will be

accessed with their impact to the Maryland zoo.

 Social – Social forces include demographics of population and culture. Baby boomers

are growing older, generation X is the dominant group in terms of earning, Generation Y

& millennials are more inclined towards the computer related activities. Overall Us

family is moving towards nuclear family and the younger generation is postponing the

marriage and having children. The population shift is another trend in US, majority of the

people are shifting to the southern and western part of the country it can hurt the zoo

business as MD is located in north eastern part but the population around Baltimore city

suburbs is increasing which is favorable. The racial and ethnic composition is rapidly

changing. The culture of going to zoo is decreasing because of the other sources like

internet, movies and theme parks.

This will impact the zoo’s business because overall change in demographics isn’t in the

zoo’s favor. Zoo must focus more on the younger generation and shift them from this

computer world to real life zoo. Nuclear family is also another problem because parents

don’t have much time to take kids to zoo like places and they have no one to help. Zoo

can capitalize the growing & diverse population in and around Baltimore.

 Economic – Economic forces include both micro and macroeconomics. Overall US

economy is getting stronger, unemployment rate has dropped, and people’s earning has

increased. People have more disposable & discretionary income which they can spend on
 zoo and its facilities. Zoo must take benefit of this situation and introduce various

programs to attract people towards it.

 Technological – Technological forces include change in technology and computer

through innovation and invention. Computer, internet and internet of things has changed

the way of doing business. Either it be transportation, animal safety, display,

ticketing/booking has been easy with technology. Zoo must change its business procedure

to comply with the current technology and make most of it.

 Competitive- Competitive force include the alternative product or service. Zoo doesn’t

have direct competition as there is not another zoo nearby, nearest ones are in DC &

Rising Sun but other forms of businesses like theme parks, internet and movies poses

certain degree of competition. Zoo must come up with the business plan to accommodate

these factors so the people would have all in one at same place. Entry barrier is very high

because opening new zoo is huge investment. Bargaining power of customers is high as

they have other forms of alternatives. Suppliers and existing competitors don’t come on

the picture because they have almost no role on the bargaining as some of them doesn’t

exist.

 Regulatory – Regulatory force include the state and federal laws that impact business.

Animal protection is the major concern for the zoo and all those legal aspects must be

continuously monitored and followed. Any change in those rules directly impacts the

business. The trend of animal right activism is growing, and majority of people feel that

animals shouldn’t be kept in zoo. This is pressurizing the lawmakers to make strict rules

which badly impact the zoo.

 Promotion Strategy

After SWOT analysis and environmental scanning, following is recommended as promotion

strategy for Maryland zoo:

 Target Market: While choosing the target market there are few factors that needs to be

considered like geographic, demographic, psychographic, behavioral. On the geographic

factor zoo can focus with in the Baltimore city, Baltimore County, Anne Arundel county

and Howard County. Another factor is demographic, zoo needs to focus on schools. The

main target market for this campaign is students, for that we need to work with these

institutions to make packages as per their need. The main reason to send cards to these

institutions is cost, if we send postcards to all the households it would be expensive

because we must send more than million post cards and addition to that it would be hard

to find which family has students. Income segmentation wouldn’t be a major factor for

this campaign because the goal of this campaign isn’t selling expensive product/service to

students but to create awareness about the zoo and its offerings so that positive word of

mouth would create further clients/market for zoo. Psychographic and behavioral

segmentation are subjective segmentation and needs deep level of surveys to find out

their preferences, for the purpose of this project it is assumed that students and our target

market have positive attitude towards the zoo and they love to explore the wildlife.

 Marketing Message: The marketing message includes info on field trips which is free for

all students on the school days. Another part will be videoconferencing where zoo staffs

can have video conference with students while they are in class including animal

presentations, third will be classroom programs where zoo bring wildlife, fun, and
 learning right to school, students can learn about wildlife and conservation related

activities and student discount program where annual pass discount will be available for

students 18 and older, and the 1-Day Pass discount for students ages 17 and younger for

other than school days.

 Cost (printing, acquiring target market list, mailing the postcard): Zoo will send 50

postcards per school on average so the printing cost would be $2500.00 (vista print

$1,000 per 20,000 postcards 6X11), mailing $7,110.00 (USPS Priority mail (1lb) $7.50 X

948 schools), Designing – included in vista print printing, acquiring target market list-

free its available in Maryland State Department of Education website. So, the total cost of

printing and shipping will be $9,610.00. The same postcard can be posted on social

media, zoo’s website and email at zero cost.

County/Schools Baltimore Baltimore Howard Anne Arundel

Public 175 168 77 128
Non-Public 75 City 50 28 34
Church exempt 79 53 20 40
Montessori 7 4 8 2
Total 336 275 133 204
Total No of Schools: 948
Source: www.marylandpublicschools.org *list contains only the schools approved by
Maryland State Department of Education

 Projection of performance: The population between age 5 – 18 are Baltimore county

155000, Baltimore City 100000, Howard county 70000 & Anne Arundel County 86000

which totals 411,000 (Data from census.gov). It is assumed that everyone in this age

group goes to school. This is our direct target market and our indirect target market

would be the teachers, staffs and parents of these students. If 1% of these students visit

zoo in a year then we have 4,110 more visitors, this number will be more because they
 won’t go alone at least one parent/guardian will go with them so the total number of

visitors will be 8,220. The entry fee for the zoo is 17.99 for age under 18 and 21.99 for

age more than 18. So, the total revenue from entry ticket would be $164,318.00. If they

decide to be member with companion plan of $99 the revenue will increase to

$406,890.00.

 Track the result: The performance of this campaign will be evaluated by recording the

ticket sales to students and their family member. The total sales revenue for this year will

be compared with last year data. It will help to find out the increase in revenue and most

of that can be credited to this post card campaign. Zoo officials can visit to the schools

and do surveys to find out the effect of this campaign and to aware the potential visitors.