Research Paper on Small Businesses Struggle to Compete in Online Marketing Space

Introduction

With the advent of new technologies like the internet and an increase in the channels of communication, it is becoming difficult for small businesses to make a mark on the online marketing space because these spaces have been taken up by the already established businesses. These businesses are bigger and more experienced and have the needed financial muscle to finance major marketing campaigns and get their voices heard across the board. How small businesses are supposed to reach potential consumers for their products and service in an environment that increasingly becoming saturated by the day remains the question that beats logic and challenges all the theories of marketing.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

Case in Point

Picture this, a local store selling basic domestic consumables opens in a neighborhood occupied by middle-aged to elderly individuals with little affinity and likelihood to use social media platforms. Their primary means of acquiring information is through television viewing as they are in the prime of their lives. The local store finds it hard to advertise their products to the local market since they have to use the television, which is too costly for them to afford at this time. They cannot afford billboards too for the same reason of cost implications. The only solution they have is to market online through social media platforms which are a bit affordable and easy to use. However, marketing online will lock them out of their local market niche since the majority of the population does not consume internet content.

The Solution to Marketing Dilemma

The only option left for the above company is globalization. Improvements in technology have brought about other effects like globalization to marketing. Competition in business manifests in many forms including target market, price, service cost, quick response, and adaptations to technologies. Companies that are able to produce more with less cost have a higher affinity to increasing market share and this includes the cost of marketing. According to Gul et al., (2019) the 7 P's of marketing apply even in the new wave of social media communication and interaction. The 7 P's include product, place, price, promotion, people, processes and physical evidence. With regards to promotion, social media has emerged as a vital tool for promotion and has essentially changed the way the traditional business operates. Businesses are no longer required to remain constrained by the confines of time or place.

Theories of Marketing

Various theories have been used by marking researchers in the past in the create an understanding of some of the factors that contribute to and control buyer behavior. Some of the essential theories include the model of goal-oriented behavior which posits that consumers normally have goals they intend to achieve and that marketers have to prove their ability to fulfill these goals (Pheng, 2019). The local store in the above case can use social media to enhance businesses online. This will prove beneficial when it finally breaks even and can afford to erect local billboards to attract local consumers. Whereas the theory of buyer behavior seeks to determine the factors that control spending habits, that of reasoned action posits that consumers act based on reason and the ability for the marketer to convince them.

Overall, the local store can make use of social media platforms to reach out to markets from all over the internet. This is in line with the understanding that the primary role of business is the generation of profits and hence no modern business should be hindered from making sales by their geographic location. Moreover by the time they reach out to the online market, the local consumers may even have acquired information about the business by word of mouth marketing.

References

Gul, F., Jian, G., Justin, Z., Naeem, P., & Gilale, G. (2019). The role of self-determination theory in marketing science: An integrative review and agenda for research. European Management Journal, 37(1), 29-44. doi.org/10.1016/j.emj.2018.10.004

Pheng, L. (2019). Marketing Concepts and Theories for the International Construction Industry: A Study of their Application and their Global, National and Corporate Perspectives. European Management Journal, 37(1), 29-44.doi. 10.5772/60903