Marketing planning in small enterprises: A model and some empirical evidence∗

This paper discusses some of the features of small firms and emphasises that business proprietors have quite a different approach to marketing compared to that displayed by professional marketing managers in large concerns. In particular, the authors argue that the predominating influence of the owner/manager and the managerial and structural features of small enterprises leads to a marketing planning approach that is unique to them and suited to their needs and capacities. This approach, while it encapsulates the fundamental elements of marketing planning and investigates internal and external planning dimensions, allows owner/managers to approach marketing planning with varying degrees of rigour and sophistication. The authors develop a model to make this approach operational. To investigate the utility of the model, semi‐structured interviews were carried out with the owners of 68 four‐year‐old firms and results show that around two thirds of owners adopted a “non‐marketing” approach to marketing planning, almost one third were “implicit marketers” and that there were very few “sophisticated marketers”. These results confirm that marketing planning in small firms is inherently different from that practiced in large ventures and that classical marketing planning principles need adapting before use by small organisations.