The Marketing Book 5th Edition

772 The Marketing Book

area for SMEs is that of services, both consumer
and industrial services. This area allows SMEs
to exploit the well recognized ‘closeness’ to the
customer and consequent customer orientation
of SMEs. Of course, taken in the broadest sense,
these two areas or sectors can represent all
sectors of enterprise and since most sectors are
populated by a majority of SMEs in terms of
numbers of businesses, then this can be deemed
to be true.
Clearly, the dimension of network market-
ing is inexplicably linked with competency
marketing and both will be set within the
domain of marketing in context and all of this
will result in some form of adaptation of
marketing tools and techniques to suit the
unique characteristics of SMEs. One further
piece of the ‘jigsaw’ of SME marketing remains
to be set in place.

Innovative marketing

Like much of the emphasis in textbook market-
ing literature, which is essentially inappropri-
ate for SMEs because they are concerned with
‘how to do’ more than ‘how to construct’, the
literature on innovation is often inappropriate
or of marginal value. A large portion of
entrepreneurial and SME literature is devoted
to innovation in recognition that a distinctive
characteristic of SMEs is creativity and innova-
tion. The problem is that the vast majority of
literature on innovation is focused on ‘product
innovation’ on the assumption that this is
where most SMEs are innovative. It may be true
to say that SMEs display a high degree of
product innovation since many new SME enter-
prises will be founded upon a new and innova-
tive product or service, and such innovations
are easily identified as fact. However, in most
cases, the vast majority of SMEs develop
products which are only marginally differ-
entiated from others and much of the product
innovation is in response or reaction to cus-
tomer demand. Fair enough, SMEs’ entrepre-
neurial flexibility will meet the demands of

customers and the outcomes can be construed

as product innovation.

Whether the above reasoning is accepted

or not, it is contented here that innovative

marketing in SMEs is much wider than simple

product innovation, indeed, much research in

the area recognizes this wider spectrum (UIC/

AMA Marketing/Entrepreneurship Interface

Symposium Proceedings, 1987–1997). Of

course, many writers have already acknowl-

edged this but much of their insight has been

lost behind the higher profile of product inno-

vation in SMEs. Innovative marketing covers

the full spectrum of marketing related activity

in an SME. The concepts addressed above,

networking, adaptation, etc., are clear demon-

strations of innovative marketing. It is useful

to reflect on why these concepts and indeed

innovative marketing exists within SMEs. It

can be deemed to stem from the immensely

strong and influential inherent characteristics

of SMEs and entrepreneurs/owners/man-

agers. It is also useful to acknowledge that as

a result of this influence, the focus of percep-

tion or need is to ‘do things’ that achieve

results which serve the survival and develop-

ment objectives of an enterprise. Therefore

innovative marketing is profoundly pragmatic

in achieving objectives. Some manifestations

5.1 Overview of marketing

 aspects of added value which are designed to

enhance the product or service;

 personal selling which is built around an

intuitive assessment of the personality of the

customer/buyer, including adapting to the

mood of the buyer;

 distribution, delivery and customer service,

which are largely reactive to requirements.

The point to emphasize here is that innova-

tive marketing is not simply focused on prod-

uct innovation, instead it covers the whole

spectrum of marketing activity within an SME;

consequently, there is likely to be more innova-

tion in other aspects of marketing activity than

there will be around the product or service.