Entrepreneurial Marketing in SMEs

ENTREPRENEURIAL MARKETING IN SMEs

Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Literature Review............................................................................................................................2
Entrepreneurial Marketing in SMEs................................................................................................3
Distinguishing Features of Marketing Environment...................................................................3
Key Marketing Operational Issues..............................................................................................4
Critical Analysis of ‘Standard’ Marketing Theory......................................................................5
Employability and Changemaker Skills..........................................................................................6
Word of Mouth:...........................................................................................................................6
Innovative Marketing:.................................................................................................................6
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................7
References........................................................................................................................................9
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Introduction
In the current global context of business interactions, marketing has secured the highest position
as an influencing element in the success of organizations. With globalization and technological
developments, the world market has doubled in size with open or limited business interactions
between various countries. With the sudden boom in business communications, many new
industries have sprung up along with hundreds of small and medium-sized enterprises coming up
every day. The sudden increase in new and developing enterprises has created further more
competition amongst the business-holders. New and innovative techniques for marketing have
been theorized to enhance competitiveness and ensure survival in the face of dynamic market
environments.
This report aims to investigate and critically analyze the various theories, tools and techniques of
entrepreneurial marketing, especially in the case of SMEs. By a thorough understanding of the
various entrepreneurial concepts and practices, this paper aims to establish the various ways
entrepreneurial marketing can influence the success of a business organization.
Literature Review
This paper has been established on the basis of an extensive literature review based on the
theories and concepts of entrepreneurial marketing and study of business performance of various
organizations. According to (Nikfarjam and Zarifi 2015), the rapidly changing marketing
conditions press the need to bring about a creative and innovative approach to marketing that
would be inclusive and considerate of the changing technological needs, depletion of resources
and global financial crisis. Not only the large-scale business operations, the small and medium-
sized enterprises, new start-ups and even governmental organizations need to adopt
entrepreneurial marketing, which focuses on the entrepreneurship skills of an organization, in
order to make itself sustainable against the test of time. Since the constant aim of businesses is to
derive more value from their operational processes, it is important to ensure that the available
resources are put to best use in order to retain maximum value, or even create more value in the
process.
According to (Ponelis 2015), entrepreneurial marketing has proven to be one of the most
essential elements for the survival of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), as they face a
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constant struggle against the bigger Companies and their powerful marketing strategies. By
carrying out an exhaustive research of various interviews, documentaries and content-analysis,
the paper determined that the necessity of entrepreneurial marketing differs with the different
sizes of organizations. Networking has been identified as one of the most influential factors that
determine the success of various entrepreneurial responsibilities. The study proposes an
integrated approach to marketing that would be more inclusive of the various factors that play
active role in influencing marketing operations.
According to (Spigel 2017), the characteristics of a business organization, like its age, size and
founder, are directly connected with its entrepreneurial behaviors. The study conducts extensive
personal interviews of business owners or entrepreneurs, in order to produce a ground work for
their characteristic patterns. Using a multi group CFA, the collected data was analyzed and
found that only a firm’s age and size, and not the founding status if its owner, is responsible for
impacting the organization’s entrepreneurial behaviors. As established by the information
provided in this paper, the relationship shared between entrepreneurial behavior and firm
characteristics are much more complex and intricate than they appear. As per (Jong et al. 2015),
the concept of entrepreneurial behaviors cannot be measured through the characteristics of a firm
alone; rather, aims to identify and analyze the entrepreneurial management behaviors through
analyzing latent variables identified from extensive surveys.
Entrepreneurial Marketing in SMEs
Distinguishing Features of Marketing Environment
There are particular distinguishing features that separate small-scale business enterprises from
the rest of the organizations (Kozlowski and Matejun 2016). In order to critically understand the
entrepreneurial behaviors of SMEs, it is essential to first understand their distinguishing
characteristics, which further determine the entrepreneurial behaviors. The specific
characteristics of SMEs are briefly discussed as follows:
Low Income/Profit: The revenues of SMEs are relatively much lower than large-scale
organizations. The focus of the organization might not be profit-maximization and might focus
on expanding the business by producing more value through their operational processes.
According to (Aghion et al. 2015), lower revenue does not always mean lower levels of profit;
rather, the organization may decide to invest in further technological advancements or newer
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