In: Journal of Marketing and Operations Management Research ISSN: 1949-4912 Volume 1, Number 1 © 2011 Nova Science Publishers, Inc. MARKETING PRACTICES OF SMALL F AMILY BUSINESS IN GREECE K. Terzidis 1 and Irene Samanta 2 1 Graduate Technological Education Institute of Kavala, Greece 2 Graduate Technological Education Institute of Piraeus, Greece ABSTRACT The study refers to family businesses and identifies the marketing practices that are applied by the first and second generations who manage the firms. Data were collected from a database of Greek private family companies (n=380) using personal interviews to owner/managers. According to the findings, the owners of family businesses do not conform to conventional marketing rules since their implementation is haphazard and informal; they make most decisions on their own, respond to current opportunities and circumstances and, therefore, any decision-making occurs in a loose, unstructured, spontaneous way, according to personal and business priorities at any given point in time. Firms should focus on the services or products offer in order to create a competitive advantage and .gain advantages in the areas where large businesses face problems, i.e. customer service, special relationships with the customers and suppliers and flexibility in providing services. Keywords: Family business, marketing mix. INTRODUCTION Family businesses constitute a dynamic segment of the economy that contributes to wealth creation, job generation and national competitiveness (Ward and Aronoff, 1990; Westhead and Cowling, 1995; Wang, 2002) and is a vital part of industrial change and innovation. Similar to all organizations, family firms have to make use of a number of organizational activities, structures and strategies in order to satisfy customers while overcoming competition. However, due to the fact that in this category of business the social and economic systems coexist and interact, these companies, while choosing the appropriate courses of action, have to face all the pros and cons of family businesses as well as all the positive and negative characteristics of economic firms in general. Consequently, the need for these firms to use marketing strategies is considered to be a necessity and not peripheral to