Entrepreneurial marketing is less about a single marketing strategy and more about a marketing spirit that differentiates itself from traditional marketing practices. It eschews many of the fundamental principles of marketing because they are typically designed for large, well established firms. Entrepreneurial marketing utilizes a toolkit of new and unorthodox marketing practices to help emerging firms gain a foothold in crowded markets.

In competitive markets, it can be easy to get lost in the crowd. One of the biggest challenges for entrepreneurs is standing out from their competitors. Marketing in new, unusual, or aggressive ways is the best way to illustrate what makes a business unique. Below are some marketing strategies that entrepreneurs have used successfully in the past. A company can direct all of its marketing efforts towards one strategy, or use several of them at once.

• Relationship Marketing – Focuses on creating a strong link between the brand and the customer.
• Expeditionary Marketing – Involves creating markets and developing innovative products. Companies act as leaders rather than followers.
• One to One Marketing - Customers are marketed to as individuals. All marketing efforts are personalized.
• Real Time Marketing – Uses the power of technology to interact with a customer in a real time.
• Viral Marketing – Places marketing messages on the Internet so they can be shared and expanded on by customers.
• Digital Marketing – Leverages the power of Internet tools like email and social networking to support marketing efforts

Many entrepreneurial marketing strategies are born out of necessity. New businesses might have 10, five, or just one person working on their marketing efforts. They work within limited budgets and have access to a fraction of the resources that their major competitors have. Luxuries like graphic design teams and advertising consultants are often outside the means of start-ups, requiring them to find ways to make the maximum impact with limited resources.

The most common features of entrepreneurial marketing include innovation, risk taking, and being proactive. Entrepreneurial marketing campaigns try to highlight the company's greatest strengths while emphasizing their value to the customer. Focusing on innovative products or exemplary customer service is a way to stand out from competitors. They make this pitch using cheap and accessible tools including viral videos, Tweets, Facebook pages, and email marketing. Any and all marketing strategies can be considered as long as they produce results. (See also Guerrilla Marketing)

5 Benefits of Networking

As an entrepreneur, networking is a key activity that is not only fun, but critical to your personal growth and business development.

1. Shared Knowledge

Networking is great for sharing ideas and knowledge. Whether it’s asking for feedback or discussing your point of view, it will help you expand your knowledge and allow you to see things from another perspective.

It is also likely that within a group there will be those who have already been where you are today. This provides you with an opportunity to learn and avoid some of the common pitfalls they experienced.

2. Opportunities

It’s natural that networking will result in opportunities. The thing you will not know is when or how they will materialise. Whether it’s a referral, offer partnership or request for your service or product, it is important to be ready to seize opportunities when they come along.

3. Connections

Remember you are not just gaining exposure to the people in the room, you are building connections with their network too. If someone they know has a need that matches your business, if you have made an impression, you will likely get a referral.

And remember it’s not just a one-way street. If someone in your network matches a business you encounter at an event, don’t hesitate to share their details. It will only strengthen your relationship.

4. Increased confidence

By regularly networking, and pushing yourself to talk to people you don’t know, it will help increase your confidence. This is an important attribute as a business owner, because your business growth is dependent on talking to people and making connections.

5. Raising your profile

Being visible and getting noticed is a big benefit of networking. By regularly attending business and social events, people will begin to recognise you. This can you help to build your reputation as a knowledgeable, reliable and supportive person by offering useful information or tips to people who need it. You are also more likely to get more leads and referrals as you will be the one that pops into their head when they need what you offer.

Marketing vs Public Relations

Marketing	Public relations
Marketing promotes the transfer of goods and services from the producer and provider to the consumer.	Public relations helps an organization and its publics adapt mutually to each other.
Marketing's immediate goal is sales.	Public relations' immediate goal is mutual understanding or positioning of the organization with its publics.
Marketing's implicit goal is profit.	Public relations' implicit goal is positive perceptions and predispositions.
Marketing's measure of success is the number of sales and/or the revenue it generates.	Public relations' measure of success is expressed public opinion or other evidence of public support.

Socia Media Dos & Don'ts

1. DO Increase Your Marketing Leverage

2. DON'T Disagree with the Customer

3. DO Fail Fast

4. DON'T Discount the Value of Free

5. DO Seek New Revenue Streams

6. DON'T Settle

7. DO Use Automation

8. DON'T Have Mixed Messages

What is 'Market Penetration'

Market penetration is a measure of the amount of sales or adoption of a product or service compared to the total theoretical market for that product or service. In addition, market penetration can also include the activities that are used to increase the market share of a particular product or service.

BREAKING DOWN 'Market Penetration'

For example, if there are 300 million people in a country and 65 million of those people have cellphones, then the market penetration of cellphones would be approximately 22%. In theory, there are still 235 million more potential customers for cellphones, which may be a good sign of growth for cellphone makers. In general, older offerings or industries have greater market penetrations.

Market penetration encompasses the activities used to gain additional market share, such as advertising and price changes, and it serves as a measurement for the amount of market share.

Market Penetration Techniques

Market penetration techniques include any action done for the purpose of increasing overall market share, whether by encouraging consumers of similar products to switch to the company's product or by increasing the amount of the population that can be considered potential customers. Lowering prices and most forms of advertising are done to promote market penetration. Bundling products can also help gain traction in previously untapped portions of the market.

Market Penetration As a Metric

As a metric, market penetration relates to the amount of potential customers that have purchased a specific company’s product instead of a competitor’s product, or no product at all. Most commonly, market penetration in this form is expressed as a percentage, calculated by multiplying the current sales volume by 100, and then dividing that amount by the total sales volume of all similar products, including those sold by competitors.

Market penetration, as a measurement, can be used to determine the success of a company’s marketing techniques, as well as provide insight into how their product is viewed in comparison to a competing product.

Market Penetration versus Market Development

While market penetration focuses on obtaining more customers from those seen as potential customers (often those who have expressed in interest in the product category but not necessarily the business's specific product), market development focuses on increasing the number of potential customers.

This can be accomplished with some of the techniques used to increase market penetration, such as advertising and bundling, but it directs the message towards previously untapped market segments. For example, if a company with a product typically purchased by women is looking to develop the market further, it may choose to direct its advertising towards men in hopes of increasing their interest.

Choosing the Best Location For Your Business

10 Things to Consider When

1. Style of Operation

2. Demographics

3. Foot Traffic

4. Accessibility & Parking

5. Competition

6. Proximity to other businesses and services

7. Image and history of the site

8. Ordinances

9. The building's infrastructure

10. Utilities and other costs

No matter what type of product you sell, the price you charge your customers or clients will have a direct effect on the success of your business. Though pricing strategies can be complex, the basic rules of pricing are straightforward:

• All prices must cover costs and profits.
• The most effective way to lower prices is to lower costs.
• Review prices frequently to assure that they reflect the dynamics of cost, market demand, response to the competition, and profit objectives.
• Prices must be established to assure sales.

Pricing Strategies

Neutral Pricing

Neutral pricing, the most common pricing strategy, means that you price so that your customers are relatively indifferent between your product and your competitor's product after all features and benefits, including price, are taken into account.

Penetration Pricing

Penetration pricing means pricing more aggressively than neutral. It can be used to gain market share relative to your competition -- but be careful. This can and does start price wars. No company wants to lose market share, and if you lower your price in an effort to gain market share, your competitors are likely to lower their prices just to keep their share.

Forward Pricing

Forward pricing is another term similar to penetration pricing, but with a focus on future costs. If you're building a product and it costs $1 to make, you probably don't want to sell it for less than $1. However, if you know that once you sell a million units, your costs will go down to $0.30, you may be willing to sell at a price lower than your current costs knowing that your costs will be lower in the future. 

Skimming

Skimming is the opposite of penetration pricing. Companies skim in an effort to segment the market, to get the customers who are willing to pay more to do so. The two common implementations of skimming are at new product launch and at the end of a product's life.

Value-Based Pricing

Value-based pricing, another pricing strategy, is the most important. The idea seems simple. How much is your customer willing to pay? Set the price at or just below that point.