Over the past two decades, marketing theory and practice have become increasingly complex, relying more and more on scientific method to describe, measure and service the market. Textbook approaches to marketing are usually based on the premise that the organisation involved has significant marketing resources. It is also assumed that strategic marketing is a top-down process, with senior management identifying and exploiting specific target markets on purely objective, measurable grounds.
The fact is that over-analysis of the market often stifles innovation, entrepreneurship and creativity. In reality, most breakthrough products and services occur as a direct result of innovators satisfying their own needs that, coincidentally, are also the needs of a sizeable market. In addition, many successful businesses are founded on the personal credibility of the entrepreneurial innovator. So the scientific, textbook approach to marketing neglects a key method of identifying market opportunitiesentrepreneurs and their personal experiences.
Street level marketing (SLM) is an alternative approach to traditional marketing. SLM recognises that the successful commercialisation of an innovation for a niche market is usually the result of personal identification with the target market and their needs.
Although SLM allows for the creative and intuitive aspects of marketing to be incorporated into strategy, it is not simply marketing by gut feel. Street level marketers combine the formal tools and strategic models of marketing management with the best of intra-niche understanding and personal experience within the market and industry.
This chapter introduces street level marketing through a detailed explanation of the concept, and demonstrates how key elements have been implemented in practice through the use of examples and vignettes of innovative Australian and international firms.