SME marketing strategies

SMEs are the engine of national development and fulfill multiple roles, both economic and social ones. Therefore, it is useful to study the marketing strategies used by these companies. The approach is interdisciplinary as it uses concepts, principles and theories from marketing and strategic management, entrepreneurship and social psychology.

 

SMEs say they "don’t do marketing" as they associate it with promotional activities. Such a statement is misleading, because marketing definition is incorrectly understood. Marketing refers to those activities and processes which create, communicate and deliver offers that have value for customers, partners and society at large. Consequently, even SMEs are engaged in marketing activities even if they don’t have a specialized departments or a clear delineation of roles between employees. Regarding strategies, many researchers have considered that SMEs lack a strategic approach as they could not identify a strategic planning process. But this is a limited view, given that strategy definition evolved from the planned approach to emerging, visionary and transformative approach. All these reasons make us believe that, at least in theory, we can talk about marketing strategies in SMEs. Therefore, this paper investigates SMEs marketing strategies, factors that influence them and their outcome.

 

Through content and approach, this book is addressed to students and practitioners, entrepreneurs who want to grow their business.