Entrepreneurship and Small Business management †Free Samples

Question: Discuss about the Entrepreneurship and Small Business management. Answer: The essay is based on one case study in which a lady, whose name is Kelly Lester is an entrepreneur and she has three daughters. Previously in 1996, she was doing business of decorative switch plates and she also built website for the business and at that time there was not hard competition in ecommerce and the website was appearing on the first page of search engines. She was earning good revenue that time from the business. Later she sold that business and started a new business of lunch boxes. She tried to contact plastic manufactures in US but they did not show interest in the business so later she contacted plastic manufactures in China. She also faced some difficulties in dealing with foreign suppliers. The management was facing supply chain related issues. Later the management of the company focused on quality improvement and used some methods to solve quality related issues. The management was keeping large inventory for the business in the warehouses located in US. To solve many problems Kelly Lester built a website for promoting the business but as the trends have changed that time so her website was not appearing in the top pages of search engines. In the essay three problems are discussed and the solutions of the problems are also given In this paragraph answer is given for the first question related to the case study. Yes, I believe that Kellys business is a candidate for reshoring back to United States. Previously Kelly tried to contact US manufactures but that time conditions were not supportive so she did not get any response and then she imported input materials from China. The main reason previously companies were operating from China because companies were getting cost advantage but now many companies have shifted their attention toward United States as in US conditions are becoming supportive for industries. So many manufacturing companies started the operations in US as in United States companies can get advantages of lower labor cost, supportive policies and lower transportation costs. So Kelly Lester can now operate business from United States. According to the reports of U.S Bureau of economic analysis, the economy of United States is increasing rapidly. Now in United States companies can make more profi t as the companies can easily get required resources for the operations (Gray et al., 2013). So the market of United States can give more benefits to Kellys business. It has been analyzed that foreign direct investment and reshoring in United States helped to produce many manufacturing jobs. Now in United States Kelly can easily get suppliers for production activities. In this paragraph the answer of second question is available. Thesocial media marketing plan is given here for EasyLunchBoxes. This plan includes several important steps that are listed in below mentioned points. Social media marketing plan The plan includes several steps which are described below. Social media marketing goals and objectives: The social marketing objective should be the company should target to add 50 new customers per month. The company should post photos and videos daily on social networking sites and the company should get more than 5000 likes and maximum shares on each post. Social media audit: The Company EasyLunchBoxes should do monthly social media audit. The audit of social media sites can be done through Facebook statistics, twitter statistics, pinterest statistics, Instagram statistics and other major networks statistics (Neti, 2011). Analytics tool like Google adword can be used to know the democratic characteristics of customers. Audit tools provide important details like post reach, best post, audiences reaction, etc (Berthon et al., 2012). Create and improve social media accounts: To increase the online presence Easy Lunch Boxes should create more social media accounts. It has been analyzed that numbers of social media users are increasing rapidly (Hanna, Rohm Crittenden, 2011). The company should update regularly existing social media accounts and should create new accounts on different social networking sites. The company should regularly do fresh posts on social media accounts to maintain connectivity with audiences. Some popular social networking sites are Facebook, linkedin, Google +, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram and the company should create account on these sites. Competitor analysis: EasyLunchBoxes Company should analyze the activities of competitors regularly because it is essential to know competitors information. Company should give focus to understand content marketing, Facebook, Instagram, social media advertising strategies of others. Content marketing plan: Content marketing is very essential for any business. It is an important part of social marketing plan. The marketing persons of Easy Lunch Boxes should give focus on content marketing. The content should be accurate, creative and attractive so that readers will like to read the content (Saravanakumar SuganthaLakshmi, 2012). The content should be posted regularly on blog sites, article submission sites, PR submission sites and other sites so that maximum numbers of readers can read the content. Evaluate and adjust social media marketing plan: Easy Lunch Boxes Company should evaluate the plan and make all the necessary adjustments to meet the requirements. New social media methods and techniques are coming rapidly in the market so the company should adjust the social media marketing plan accordingly. Company should give more efforts on content marking as now days the companies which are giving focus on content marking are getting more competitive advantage. The content marketing is not very simple because only an effective content can give advantages to the company. Other companies can easily copy other methods like video marking and photo sharing but content marking method cannot be copied easily. Through content marketing the company can deliver more information to customers (Mangold Faulds, 2009). The company should post regularly attractive content on social networking sites. EasyLunchBoxes can use some other social media sites such as Facebook and Instagram for promotion. On Facebook the company should post creative images on daily basis. For promotional activities separate Facebook page should be created. The company should post articles, photos and videos regularly. Hash tag can be used in Facebook to get the attention of visitors. Same activities can be done on Instagram too such as photos and videos can be shared and Hash tag can also be used. In this paragraph the answer of third question is available. To transform EasyLunchBoxes Company into a recognizable brand name the company needs to give focus on some points like the company should create a slogan that should include catchy phrases so that people can easily remember the brand name. The companys logo should be creative and attractive. Logos are the powerful symbols of the company. The companys logo should be different that can help to make unique brands identity (Abimbola Vallaster, 2007). To make unique logo, effective colors and fonts should be used. Some jingles should be used to make the brand name memorable. The company should make efforts on advertisements as through advertisements, company can easily influence customers. Customers like to purchase from the companies, whose advertisements they see regularly. Through the advertisements company can develop positive brand image in the customers mind (Keller, 2009). The advertisements theme should be unique so tha t customers can easily get attracted to it. The advertising message should be designed after considering needs and expectations of customers. In the advertisements the company should give focus on benefits. Companys website should be designed uniquely because a good website helps to create good brand image in the market. Company should regularly update information related to its activities on different social media networking sites. By using these methods she can transform EasyLunchBoxes into a recognizable brand name. References Abimbola, T. Vallaster, C., 2007. Brand, organisational identity and reputation in SMEs: an overview, Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal, 10(4), pp.341-348. Berthon, P.R., Pitt, L.F., Plangger, K. Shapiro, D., 2012. Marketing meets Web 2.0, social media, and creative consumers: Implications for international marketing strategy, Business Horizons, 55(3), pp.261-271. Gray, J.V., Skowronski, K., Esenduran, G. Johnny Rungtusanatham, M., 2013. The reshoring phenomenon: what supply chain academics ought to know and should do., Journal of Supply Chain Management, 49(2), pp.27-33. Hanna, R., Rohm, A. and Crittenden, V.L., 2011. Were all connected: The power of the social media ecosystem, Business Horizons, 54(3), pp.265-273. Keller, K.L., 2009. Building strong brands in a modern marketing communications environment, Journal Of Marketing Communications, 15(2-3), pp.139-155. Mangold, W.G. Faulds, D.J., 2009. Social media: The new hybrid element of the promotion mix, Business Horizons, 52(4), pp.357-365. Neti, S., 2011. Social media and its role in marketing, International Journal of Enterprise Computing and Business Systems, 1(2), pp.1-15. Saravanakumar, M. SuganthaLakshmi, T., 2012. Social media marketing, Life Science Journal, 9(4), pp.4444-4451.