New Marketing Venture - Benefits and Limitations of the Entrepreneurial Marketing Communication Procedure - Term Paper Example

Entrepreneurship Approach to Marketing Communication by The Gathering Goddess Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 List of Figures and Tables 3 Introduction 4 Part (a) 4 History and nature of business 4 Target market 4 New venture objectives 4 Vision and mission 5 Analysis of the internal environment 5 Resource and capabilities analysis through VRIO model 5 Competitors analysis 6 Competitor analysis through Porter’s Five forces model 6 Part (b) 6 Conceptual models of Entrepreneurial marketing approach 6 Entrepreneurially based suggestions and recommendations 7 Attributes of Relationship Marketing 8 Knowledge of entrepreneurship and your entrepreneurial skills 10 Conclusion 11 Reference List 12 List of Figures and Tables Resource and capabilities analysis through VRIO model 5 Competitor analysis through Porter’s Five forces model 6 Attributes of Relationship Marketing 8 Introduction The report is based on the effectiveness of entrepreneurial approaches of small organizations towards their marketing communication procedure. Small businesses are mostly owned and managed by the company owners who are tend to make all the strategic decisions based on their intuitions or academic principles. Entrepreneurial marketing communication concept influences organizations to shift their focus from the traditional marketing communication practices towards more challenging and innovative marketing communication procedure (Kurgun et al., 2011). The further discussion will evaluate the driving forces of future business venture of The Gathering Goddess, a small vintage apparel boutique based on London. This discussion will also illustrate the essential entrepreneurial marketing communication approach of the organization to improve their future market performances. Part (a) History and nature of business The Gathering Goddess is an organization specialized in the designing and marketing of vintage clothing materials through online stores as well as physical stores. This vintage boutique was established in 2002 by Wilma Mae Basta. This organization has only one physical store in North Kensington, London. The majority of its marketing procedure is dependent on various ecommerce sites and online retail stores such as Fab.com and eBay (The Gathering Goddess, 2014). Target market The organization is known for marketing and selling their products through online stores to different parts of Europe and the US. The major target of the organization includes the premium consumers from upper class and upper middle class. Most of their products are designed to target the female consumer section of the market (UKSBD, 2015). New venture objectives Over the last few years the organization has witnessed huge competition in the global apparel market. Most of their products are sold through third party online retail stores which is hindering their direct communication capacity with their potential consumers. It is also hampering them to secure a competitive position in the market. The increasing global demand is influencing the organization to incline towards setting up organizational online retail option. They are also concentrating on improving their marketing relationship and communication with the stakeholders of the organization (Gard, 2013). Vision and mission The vision of the organization for new venture is to create a strong online presence and marketing communication with consumers to improve their position in the local as well as global market. Therefore, the short term goal of the organization include- Creating company owned website and ecommerce facility. Indulge into different medium of marketing communication with consumers. Innovative and digital advertising. Analysis of the internal environment Before evaluating the new marketing communication strategies the organization needs to analyze its resources and capabilities to support their new venture. Resource and capabilities analysis through VRIO model Resources and capabilities Valuable Rare Inimitable Organized Competitive advantages Financial resources Yes No No Yes Short-term competitive advantage Skilled human resource Yes No No Yes Short-term competitive advantage Product innovation Yes Yes Yes Yes Sustained competitive advantage Product distribution and marketing process Yes No No No Competitive parity (Source: Gard, 2013; The Gathering Goddess, 2014). The organization possesses strong financial structure that can assist them to indulge into new marketing venture. The availability of skilled workforce will also enable them to offer innovative and lucrative products to their consumers. The major competitive advantage of the organization is the capability to provide innovative apparel design to their potential and premium consumers. The product distribution and marketing operation is one of the major functions of the organization. Currently the organization has very little hold on this capability which is hampering their competitiveness (The Gathering Goddess, 2014). Competitors analysis Analyzing the competition in the market is also an essential part of the market communication planning of any organization. The Porter’s five force framework will enable them to analyze the current as well as future market. Competitor analysis through Porter’s Five forces model (Source: Source: Gard, 2013; The Gathering Goddess, 2014). Part (b) Conceptual models of Entrepreneurial marketing approach According to Becherer et al., (2006), entrepreneurial marketing communication can be describe as the effectual adoption of marketing theory as per the particular needs and requirements of the small businesses to create a competitive positioning in the local as well as global market. Various research frameworks by Jones and Rowley, (2011), has demonstrated that entrepreneurial marketing approach is particularly appropriate for the small and medium set-up of businesses due to the differences of their organizational structure and requirements. Some authors have also argued that this kind of marketing communication procedure depends on the entrepreneurial mindset of the marketers rather than the shape and size of the organization 2006 (Kraus et al., 2010). Jones and Rowley, (2011) has also described that most of the small and medium sized organization face various limitation in their business ventures due to limited resource, lack of organizational structure, inappropriate communication channels and inadequate marketing and distribution channel. Therefore, entrepreneurial marketing procedure has been considered as the most appropriate procedure for developing business strategies for small sized organizations (Jones and Rowley, 2011). Kurgun et al., (2011), has further explained that entrepreneurial marketing communicational approach is an integral function of small organizations that influences various processes to create, communicate and deliver values to the potential consumers. According to the researchers these processes assist the organizations to manage the consumer relationship to gather benefit for the organization as well as its stakeholders (Kurgun et al., 2011). Morris et al., (2002), has suggested several dimensions for entrepreneurial marketing approach such as proactiveness in relationship making, innovativeness, opportunity driven, calculated risk taking, value creation through branding and networking with different stakeholders. Entrepreneurially based suggestions and recommendations The management of The Gathering Goddess needs to focus on different entrepreneurial approach towards their marketing communication procedure. This process need to be designed to improve the marketing performance of the organization within the next 12 months. The management mainly needs to focus on the relationship marketing procedure with the potential external consumers and investors of the organization. The external entrepreneurial communication procedure of the organization also needs to consider expeditionary marketing, real time marketing, viral marketing and digital marketing processes. These marketing communication processes will allow the organization to create a strong presence in the competitive fashion apparel market of Europe and US. Relationship marketing: Relationship marketing generally enables the management to create a strong link between the brand and the potential consumers. Relationship marketing mainly includes quality development of communication, improvement of customer and client servicing and proper marketing procedure (Hollensen, 2015). The management of The Gathering Goddess needs to emphasize on every minute details of the interactions with the customers as well as investors of the organization. The development of a strong communication channel with the potential consumers and investors will allow the organization to create a healthy relationship with them. The organization need to create a separate communication department to handle the information and queries of all the external stakeholders. The top management of the organization needs to review the communicational activities on a monthly basis. The marketing department also needs to indulge in developing a high quality website to impart an in-depth knowledge about the vision, mission and the offerings of the organization. Attributes of Relationship Marketing (Source: Peck et al., 2013) Expeditionary marketing: This entrepreneurial marketing communication strategy enables the organization to create a brand leadership in the market imparting the knowledge about the benefits and innovativeness of the product line. This procedure involves introduction of innovative product line as well as developing a niche market by communicating with the potential consumers (Uslay. and Erdogan, 2014). This kind of marketing communication focuses on innovativeness, value creation, risk taking, leveraging the resources, utilizing the emerging opportunities and creating strong link with potential consumers (Uslay. and Erdogan, 2014). The organization need to utilize the results of resource and competitor analysis to create new clothing design that assist them to differentiate from the leading players of the market. The management also needs to communicate with new sales channel partners to reach out to the targeted consumer segments. Real-time marketing: Real-time marketing communication is one of the major strategies for the organization. This strategy will assist the organization to technologies to interact with the consumers from different locations. This interaction procedure will allow the organization to utilize different online communication procedure to instantly reply to the queries and interests of potential consumers (Hallbäck and Gabrielsson, 2013). The marketing department needs to introduce live chat facilities with their customers and clients. The management needs to allocate technologically sound workforce to handle all the queries of the global consumers through the online chat facility. The management also needs to utilize personalized email facilities to effectively communication with the consumers from different global locations. Digital Marketing: The digital marketing communication process assists the small organization to utilize the benefits of internet tools such as social media and online advertising to support their overall marketing efforts (Charlesworth, 2014). The organization need to concentrate on creating their own ecommerce facility to directly deal with the consumers. This facility will allow them to properly understand the preferences of potential consumers. The ecommerce facility needs to be created within the span of two months. The management needs to analyze the performance of this facility after every three months to attain any changes as per the market upgradation. The management of The Gathering Goddess requires to use different social media and social networking site such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Google+ to attract more customer traffic towards their online website. They management also need to maintain the regular communication with the potential consumers through these social networking channels. The organization must indulge itself in the online advertising procedure as per the demand and preferences of individual consumers. Viral Marketing: Viral marketing allow the organization to place information of marketing campaigns and promotional events on different websites over internet (Fiore et al., 2013). This facility will help the organization to cater the indented information to a vast amount of consumers through the word-of-mouth procedure. The messages of the organization can be expanded to the overseas consumers through the information sharing procedure of the consumers. Apart from the external communication, the organization also needs to improve their communication procedure with the internal stakeholders of the organization. This process will assist the management to create a strong organizational culture. It will also improve the employee behavior and performance. Creating a strong communication channel within the management and employees is very essential for the growth of the organization (Kurgun et al., 2011). The Gathering Goddess consist very small number of employees. Creating an online communication channel within the employees of different department will be less expensive and effective for the organization. This communication channel also needs to connect the employees with the top management. This process will allow the management to eliminate all the misconception and queries of the internal stakeholders. The organization can utilize their own website, blogs and message board to communicate with different levels of employees. Designing effective training program for the employees is also an important part of marketing communication process of organizations. The management needs to organize different structured training programs after every three month to impart the knowledge regarding latest technological advances in terms of production, market communication and sales and distribution channels (Kurgun et al., 2011). The training procedure will also include the improved techniques of customer services to update the employees with latest demand and preferences of the potential consumers. This training procedure will enable the organization to improve the skills of the employees. Therefore, it will increase over all productivity of the workforce. Knowledge of entrepreneurship and your entrepreneurial skills The analysis of different entrepreneurial marketing communication procedure has imparted an in-depth knowledge regarding the basic features of this kind of marketing communication procedure. This analysis has also assisted me to understand various advantages as well as limitation of the entrepreneurial marketing communication for the small and medium sized businesses. It can be analyzed from this study that the entrepreneurial marketing procedure allows the small organizations to develop proactiveness in their organizational functions. This proavtiveness dimension highlights the top management orientation towards the persuasion of competitiveness. This proactiveness also influence the organizational attitude and capabilities to implement new product, service and communication channel within the consumers. This kind of communication process allows the small organizations to evaluate new opportunities in the local as well as global market. These opportunities denote unnoticed market segments that influence the sustainable market growth of the small and medium organizations. It can also be evaluated from this analysis that the entrepreneurial marketing communication process assists the small organizations to explore numerous communicational channels to reach the potential consumers. This process assists the organizations to improve their productivity. This improvement in the small and medium sized business segment also provide a great assistance to the growth of the local as well as global economies. Apart from these advantages, this communication facility has various limitations as well. This communication facility influences the management to take various calculative risks in their business ventures. These risks have a great tendency to fail to the changing technologies, consumer preferences and economical fluctuation. All of the strategies require handsome initial investment of the organization. The failure of the implementation of these communication strategies may cause significant loss to the organizations. Conclusion The report has evaluated a new marketing venture of The Gathering Goddess. This marketing venture has been designed to improve the communication channel of the organization to enhance their market presence. The discussion has emphasizes various driving forces of the organization by analyzing their financial and non-financial resource and competitors. The analysis has also assisted in designing various entrepreneurial marketing communication strategies such as relationship marketing, viral marketing, digital marketing, real-time marketing and Expeditionary marketing. Finally the discussion has evaluated the understanding regarding various benefits and limitations of the entrepreneurial marketing communication procedure for the small as well as the medium sized company. Reference List Becherer, R. C., Haynes, P. J. and Fletcher, L. P., 2006. Paths to profitability in owner-operated firms: the role of entrepreneurial marketing. Journal of Business and Entrepreneurship, 18(1), pp. 17. Charlesworth, A., 2014. Digital marketing: a practical approach. London: Routledge. Fiore, A. M., Niehm, L. S., Hurst, J. L., Son, J. and Sadachar, A., 2013. Entrepreneurial marketing: scale validation with small, independently-owned businesses. Journal of Marketing Development and Competitiveness, 7(4), pp. 63. Gard, S., 2013. Meet the small business owners who are profiting from online retail. [online] Available at [Accessed 28 March 2015]. Hallbäck, J. and Gabrielsson, P., 2013. Entrepreneurial marketing strategies during the growth of international new ventures originating in small and open economies. International Business Review, 22(6), pp. 1008-1020. Hollensen, S., 2015. Marketing management: A relationship approach. New Delhi: Pearson Education. Jones, R. and Rowley, J., 2011. Entrepreneurial marketing in small businesses: A conceptual exploration. International Small Business Journal, 29(1), pp. 25-36. Kraus, S., Harms, R. and Fink, M., 2010. Entrepreneurial marketing: moving beyond marketing in new ventures. International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management, 11(1), pp. 19-34. Kurgun, H., Bagiran, D., Ozeren, E. and Maral, B., 2011. Entrepreneurial marketing-The interface between marketing and entrepreneurship: A qualitative research on boutique hotels. European Journal of Social Sciences, 26(3), pp. 340-357. Morris, M. H., Schindehutte, M. and LaForge, R. W., 2002. Entrepreneurial marketing: a construct for integrating emerging entrepreneurship and marketing perspectives. Journal of marketing theory and practice, pp. 1-19. Peck, H., Christopher, M., Clark, M. and Payne, A., 2013. Relationship Marketing. London: Routledge. The Gathering Goddess, 2014. About The Gathering Goddess. [online] Available at [Accessed 28 March 2015]. UKSBD, 2015. UK small business directory: The Gathering Goddess. [online] Available at [Accessed 28 March 2015]. Uslay, C. and Erdogan, E., 2014. The mediating role of mindful entrepreneurial marketing (MEM) between production and consumption. Journal of Research in Marketing and Entrepreneurship, 16(1), pp. 47-62. Viegas, C. M. D. O., 2014. Marketing in entrepreneurship: the importance of an entrepreneurial marketing in new ventures. Read More