Philippine E-Journals

Performance of Small-Medium- Enterprise’s Digital Marketing Platforms Amidst Covid-19

ALLEN JAKE T. DAMASEN | Excel Philip B. Guidang

 

Abstract:

The Department of Trade and Industry in the Philippines strongly encourages business owners to re-engineer their business processes. This study was conducted to determine the possibility of digital marketing amidst covid 19. Specifically, it achieved the following objectives: identified the products of purposely selected SMEs in Abra; developed a digital marketing platform for selected SMEs in Abra; and determined user traffic and sales conversion of the marketing platforms. A personal interview with the owner and a showroom visit was conducted. The web platform preference of the enterprise was considered. Web platforms were developed using three-step-author-developed strategies. The selected SME is engaged in manufacturing quality bamboo-based products. Digital marketing platform provides SMEs the opportunity to reach out to customers amidst covid 19. A total of 100 messages were recorded. 60% of the messages were product queries. 20% are follow-up queries, and 20% are actual orders. 30% of the total messages were answered on time as soon as received, while 70% were answered later: an hour to 2 days. All the messages which were answered on time were converted into sales. Social media and websites are powerful tools to help SMEs market their products digitally. Digital marketing is most effective when the supplier can immediately respond to customers’ queries to convert the marketing to sales and revenue. The study recommends that entrepreneurs harness the benefits of social media. A live video selling of the products should also be considered an additional digital marketing strategy through YouTube and Facebook. Likewise, a YouTube channel should also be created to store the video presentations of the products. Furthermore, the chatbot should also be considered because it enables a predefined question to respond autonomously.