Entrepreneurial Marketing Mindset: What Entrepreneurs Should Know?

Marketing is regarded as one of the most essential activities for the survival and growth of small and medium enterprises, but, at the same time, it is considered as the greatest challenge for the SMEs. The lack of resources, knowledge, and expertise make it difficult for SMEs to perform traditional marketing practices. Consequently, operating in an environment with increasing dynamics, turbulence, and competition suggests that entrepreneurs have to overpass the conventional marketing principles and change them with new innovative ideas and actions such as the Entrepreneurial Marketing (EM). Entrepreneurial marketing is a relatively new field of study that has emerged at the intersection of marketing and entrepreneurship fields when it was noticed that the traditional marketing practices are not suitable for the small and medium companies. The aim of this chapter is to offer an overview on the history of the foundation of this relatively new field, the most common definitions that may be found in literature, the main types of EM, the EM dimensions, as well as the main differences between EM and traditional marketing. Finally, this study will emphasize the importance of this new marketing paradigm for small and medium enterprises. In the end, the study will provide recommendations for the use of entrepreneurial marketing by SMEs and will propose future research directions in this field.