Discuss about the Entrepreneurship and Small Business Management.
Planning, organizing and managing a small business requires different methods and approaches than the large ones (Byrd and Megginson 2013). Small business can be defined as specific amount of annual revenue generating business which is generally independently operated and owned. Often entrepreneurs of small businesses take family enterprises but Kelly Lester’s case is different. She developed an idea and implemented it successfully in a fresh business venture. Her business of EasyLunchboxes also aims to provide exceptional service to exceed the competitors in the market. She analyzed, innovated, identified and materialized a fresh product which possesses great potential in the American market. Before coming to the market, she compared and analyzed factors like the demand of the product in the specific geographical market, the competitive pricing, the quality and the availability.
Kelly Lester has started the business as a home based start up, which offers lunchboxes, easier to pack lunches for the family. The startup has grown up to be a million dollar business through the marketable products, effective business plan and Kelly Lester’s strong leadership. This home based business started from her personal experiences, when she was having trouble packing lunches for her kids (EasyLunchboxes 2017). To solve the problem, she came up with the business idea of Easylunchboxes, which turned her into a successful entrepreneur of a million dollar company. Easylunchboxes manufacture its products from a plastic manufacturing company in China. She experienced that the cost was lesser than what she paid in making that in USA. However she also experienced quality and safety issues initially. There are also issues in shipping the products from China to USA, as it takes lot of time and shipment cost is huge as well. Her company uses a warehouse as a large inventory for the shipped products. She should consider reshoring the business back to USA.
Reshoring is the process of bringing back the manufacturing and reintroducing the product in the owner’s home country. China’s labor cost and the shipping cost are rising. A recent survey shows that 21% of 200 manufacturer executives are already reshoring back to USA and 33% are considering it (Crooks 2013). Cheap labor cost has been the asset for China, however USA’s hourly earnings in manufacturing has risen 1.6% in 2011 and wage inflation to 20% (Crooks 2013). EasyLunchboxes is a business deals with lower labor cost and higher transport cost, so considering the factors such as increased Chinese wages, weaker dollar and increased USA productivity, Lester should reshore back its manufacturing to USA.
When EasyLunchboxes started the business, the internet had not evolved or popularized so much, but now the scenario is changed. There are so many popular social media platforms and so much competition. Choosing an appropriate platform for the company’s effective social media marketing is not easy. In this era of fast internet and revolutionized communication, social media marketing plan is necessary for any company to connect to the customers (Tuten and Solomon 2014). A social media marketing plan helps the company to set its objectives and guide ways to achieve those. The primary job is to decide upon a social media platform. In the decision making process, the company must decide how much time it can invest in the media. Every social media platform works in a different way, like Google+ requires quality material or Instagram depends on pictures. Lunchbox’s potential customers are working and busy mothers. 67 % of adult Americans women use Facebook, so it can easily be assumed that a large number of American working moms are using the platform as well (Duggan and Brenner 2013 ). Facebook serves as one of the highest conversion and social traffic source provider. Through the popular platform of Facebook, the people will be aware of the business existence. Before utilizing the social media platform, the company must build its own website with eye pleasing and attractive designs.
The webpage must include the company’s aim, vision, mission, objective and services, where the customers can contact them to get the services. If the company aims to online business the website can become a transaction hub. While using the social media platform on their page, the company must consider the ‘Click Through rate’ or CTR as to decide where the icon should be placed (Atkinson, Driesener and Corkindale 2014). They must promote their Facebook page on their website or in mails and website on Facebook. The responsible people for the marketing must set a schedule for updating status or activities on Facebook at certain intervals. They should use the Facebook ads that boost the company posts and activities. The Facebook offers website conversion where EasyLunchboxes can promote certain actions and evaluate the result through tracking pixel. If EasyLunchboxes can develop an app, it can gain more popularity as everyone possesses an android or iPhone these days. While measuring the target customers the company can use Google analytics which will help them to fix retargeting (Järvinen and Karjaluoto 2015). Photos or images are always attractive. EasyLunchboxes offers wide range of lunchboxes with different colors and those colorful boxes consisting variety of food is destined to attract a huge number of customers. It can take guidance from social media image size chart to get the accurate measurement and cost for each image. The ads must use easy and consumer friendly language. Facebook policies must be remembered while posting something, like only 90 characters can be used in the ad description (Amon 2014). The company can invest into creating a Facebook contest which will attract more number of customers. Finally engagement with the customer is important to grow the attraction and ensure more benefit in the longer run.
To build a successful brand name EasyLunchbox must maintain a great understanding and an effective communication across all the sections or departments in the whole of the organizational system. Print, packaging, storing, delivering, online, offline advertising, social media marketing and customer service everything should be in coordination with each other. Process of brand building takes time, but once it is established, it will result in employee efficiency and customer loyalty. Not just that, the word of mouth publicity, increased sales and demands will ensure huge benefit. EasyLunchboxes has defined its target customers as working moms, but just identifying your target consumer is not enough. The company should get details report of their lifestyle and consumer behavior based on the market analysis (East 2014). Creating a brand identity which the desired consumers can relate to is significant. Through a powerful statement it must relate to its target customers. The brand should demonstrates its service offers, key features and benefits and highlight what exceptional it is offering and where exactly that stand taller than the others. EasyLunchboxes point of highlight would be the a unique lunch box which offers safe, time saving , kid friendly and healthy lunch packaging. The tagline and a brand logo could be helpful in the process. It should invest money to enhance the quality of it as it should be exceptional. The voice and tone for the business must be service oriented, informative, friendly and professional. The brand must be promoted through advertising in all kind of promotional platforms from online or offline platforms to face to face customer representation (Aaker and Biel 2013). By maintaining the consistency in the organizational structures and implementing certain business strategies EasyLunchboxes can build a successful business brand.
From a mom troubling with her kids’ school lunch to an entrepreneur and CEO of a million dollar company, Kelly Lester has come a long way. However the possesses great potential grow further, so EasyLunchboxes has still a long way to go. She should consider shifting her product’s manufacturing to USA to ensure sustainability for the future. In the domain of social media marketing, the scenario has changed a lot since the company’s inception. The company has to adapt a lot in order to shine in the competitive market. The designed social media marketing plan can be implemented by the company to achieve their desired goal to become a more successful company and a recognizable brand name in the national and global market.
References
Aaker, D.A. and Biel, A., 2013. Brand equity & advertising: advertising’s role in building strong brands. Psychology Press.
Amon, K.L., Campbell, A.J., Hawke, C. and Steinbeck, K., 2014. Facebook as a recruitment tool for adolescent health research: a systematic review. Academic Pediatrics, 14(5), pp.439-447.
Atkinson, G., Driesener, C. and Corkindale, D., 2014. Search engine advertisement design effects on click-through rates. Journal of Interactive Advertising, 14(1), pp.24-30.
Byrd, M. and Megginson, L. (2013). Small business management. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
Crooks, E. (2013). US manufacturers ‘reshoring’ from China. [online] Ft.com. Available at: https://www.ft.com/content/e14d6cae-249d-11e3-8905-00144feab7de [Accessed 6 Aug. 2017].
Duggan, M. and Brenner, J., 2013. The demographics of social media users, 2012 (Vol. 14). Washington, DC: Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project.
East, R., Singh, J., Wright, M. and Vanhuele, M., 2016. Consumer behaviour: applications in marketing. Sage.
EasyLunchboxes. (2017). The EasyLunchboxes Story – EasyLunchboxes. [online] Available at: https://www.easylunchboxes.com/about/ [Accessed 6 Aug. 2017].
Järvinen, J. and Karjaluoto, H., 2015. The use of Web analytics for digital marketing performance measurement. Industrial Marketing Management, 50, pp.117-127.
Tuten, T.L. and Solomon, M.R., 2014. Social media marketing. Sage.
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