What is an Entrepreneur?
An entrepreneur is an individual person that starts the business solely. It is also called sole proprietorship or sole trader. The entire business is run by the single individual and he or she has to bear all the risks involved in the businesses. An entrepreneur can either sell goods and business already being sold or they can use their innovation to invent something and starts its production. There are also less legal formalities involved in the sole proprietorship.
Usually, the entrepreneur can be small or large scale initially, it depends on the capital invested in the firm. But as the business starts to grow an entrepreneur has to hire professional staff and get his or her work done from them instead of sharing the whole burden solely. By hiring a professional the work will be done by a specialized person and the burden of the entrepreneur will be reduced. Also, certain authority should be delegated to the professional so that he or she can perform work without any interference. No work can be done without delegating the necessary authority. Hence, a professional should be hired and delegated the amount of authority that he or she can use to get the task done.
Although there are many risks involved in entrepreneurship, it is the entrepreneur who can use his assets and skills to mold these risks into profits. The entrepreneur has many features; some features are as follows.
Features of Entrepreneurship
- Fast decision making is possible as there is no external interference in the business.
- All the risks and profits are enjoyed by the entrepreneur.
- They can have full control and flexibility over their business.
- The vision and mission are decided by the entrepreneur.
- Gain business experience.
What is Entrepreneurial Marketing?
Entrepreneur marketing is a combination of two terms, entrepreneur and marketing. It is the strategy used by the entrepreneurs for ensuring the success of their business. It is not a single strategy used by the entrepreneur but it is the marketing spirit of the sole trader. As initially the budget and the people deployed for marketing might be less but the aim is to target a greater market. The entrepreneur needs to make proper plans for the smooth implementation of these strategies and the plans should be such that it yields the desired results. It differs from traditional marketing in many ways. Rather than money, time, innovation and creativity skills of the entrepreneur are more important in this type of marketing. Entrepreneurial marketing is done more on a personal level so as to improve the relationship with the customer. Brand image can be boosted by an improved relationship which helps the firm in growth and survival.
Features of Entrepreneurial Marketing
- The bottom-up approach is followed in this type of marketing.
- It is oriented to innovation, creativity and management skills of the sole trader.
- The personal relationship with the customer is targeted and improved.
- Study other marketing strategies prevailing and prevalent in the current market
Effective Strategies for Entrepreneur Marketing
- Create Online Presence – Currently, everything is possible online. Whether you have to buy a product from another corner of the world or just from the shop next to your neighborhood, people don’t need to physically go there for availing any goods or services. Hence, in the current scenario, the online presence of the business is a significant factor. Also, it is a great platform to reach or cover more customers globally. Even if, you don’t own a huge store, you can create a big store online. If you are thinking to start an entrepreneurship business, you can create a website online. Either, hire a person or create it yourself. WordPress is considered to be the best platform to create a website even if you are not a technical person. Create an impressive and interactive website and showcase your services or products on it. Take the help of digital marketing tools to improve the ranking and sales of your business.
2. Start Blogging – Blogging is also an effective strategy that can be used by entrepreneurs. According to a research report, it is found out that business that also has blogs has 126% more chances of growth than the business who do not use blogging. You can write blogs related to your products or per the interest of your audience. Blogging helps to gain organic traffic. This traffic can help attract more customer thereby boosting your sales. Writing content that the audience wants to read is necessary as it will compel them (the audience) to read your blogs. Make sure your content is original and without plagiarism if your content meets these requirements there are higher chances that your blogs will have a higher ranking which will attract more customers to your website.
3. Learn/ Hire SEO – SEO is Search Engine Optimization and is used to improve the ranking of the website. You can hire an SEO, but if there is a limited budget you can learn it yourself and use the SEO tools. An SEO helps the business in various ways. It helps to – provide information about customer behavior, improve the ranking of your website, generate or boosts organic traffic, data received by SEO can help you take necessary business decisions, helps to create and retain loyal customers, etc. Hence, learning SEO techniques or hiring an SEO will definitely ensure the success of your business.
4. Social Media Marketing – Social Media is highly used by everyone these days. Even if a person is not using online sites for shopping or availing a service, they do use social media. Social media sites like Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, etc. are used for marketing. You can give advertisements for your business on these social sites. As these platforms have global coverage, they help attract a large amount of audience to your business. You can also create a page of your business on these platforms and post about the exciting offers or deals you have for your customers.
5. Email Marketing – Email Marketing is essential and one of the effective marketing tool to directly contact people and make them aware of your business. You must first collect or gather emails of the potential customers. After receiving the email-id, you can contact them in order to promote your business startup. You can also send them links of articles that belong to their area of interest.
6. LinkedIn – LinkedIn is one of the best platforms to create awareness of your business startup. You just need to create an account on LinkedIn and post about it. This account will help you create a professional presence on this platform. You must post pictures or video related to your business. If your post covers or reaches a huge amount of people, you and your business can be greatly benefitted from it.
7. Sponsor Events – Sponsoring an event is a great way to generate awareness of your new startup. Sponsoring a local event will help you reach the local audience. You can also use this platform to talk about your business and its mission and vision, the services and goods you offer, the goals of your business that will help the society, etc. You can also describe the ways the audience can use to contact or avail the services you provide. If you are producing products related to a certain age group, then you can sponsor accordingly. For instance, if business is related to youngsters, college annual events can be sponsored. If it is for children, school events can be sponsored, etc.
8. Paid Advertisements – Paying different and famous platforms for advertising about your business is another marketing strategy. Platforms like Google, Bing, Facebook, Instagram, etc. are some of the best platforms. You will not regret paying these platforms for advertising your brand. As these are used by a large number of people, your advertisement will also have a global reach. It will help attract more customers to your business. You can share stories of your satisfied customers or advertise about the new offers. At the time of festival seasons, you can introduce exciting discount, buy one get one free kind of offers, etc. Make sure, you have plans to handle the demand and meet the user needs.
9. Build a relationship with customers – Along with just advertising your brand, it is also necessary that you retain your best customer. This can be done by paying attention to ways to keep your customers. There are different techniques you can use for building your relationship. You can provide exclusive deals and discounts on some services, provide membership and give them additional benefits, etc. A good relationship with the consumers will help the business to create high goodwill, brand image and will attract more customers. Word of Mouth is also a great strategy to attract more consumers. If your old consumers are happy with your services, then will share or recommend it to other customers, which will be beneficial for you.
These are some of the effective marketing strategies that can be used by the entrepreneur in their startup business. Although, starting up a new business can be a tedious task initially, but after investing the right amount of time, effort and capital, the business can improve. There are no magic tricks that you can use to instantly receive success, patience is the key factor here.
