Thesis Online or Offline Marketing Communication Strategy Small Businesses

This thesis investigates a small clothing brand store in Australia. The research question is weithher or not both online and offline marketing tools are equally effective.

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Executive summary

Countless small businesses struggle daily with gaining a healthy level of brand awareness and
customer retention. Many of these businesses face bankruptcy or high staff turnover due to the
larger chains and franchises having a higher budget and more accessibility to certain resources.
While there is no certain key to success or assistance to ensure the businesses’ future, it can be
said that one of the key tools to help a business significantly is marketing. Thankfully, there are
many mediums and tools to use for marketing, but which of these resources are effective and
efficient for small businesses and micro firms?

This study was completed in July 2020 starting from November 2019. The overall objective of
this study was to find out how online marketing scales versus prevalent marketing (offline
marketing). The study employed quantitative and a small amount of qualitative research by
initially analyzing primary and secondary data. The secondary research was first used to
establish the amount of data that was available. Based on that data a survey in form of a
questionnaire was created to ultimately be conducted among actual small business owners
following a marketing program in Sydney, Australia. This survey was used to collect primary
data, and in combination with the secondary research, the results have been compiled to derive
a fair conclusion on different research questions regarding the hypothesis.

The study was conducted among 51 candidates; this number was chosen because at the time of
research there were 97 total participants attending the marketing program, making it a sample
that is generalizable. Every entrepreneur that has been interviewed was interested in boosting
sales and revenue by implementing an effective marketing strategy. Most were either unskilled
or unexperienced with the process and steps that had to be taken and therefore approached
COMPANY to gain further knowledge. Each entrepreneur had at least a year of entrepreneurial
experience, some have been trying to introduce a new product or service whereas others just
try to compete in existing markets. They were all looking for the golden egg, somewhere able to
achieve major business growth but others were still looking for a marketing method that would
help them obtain that goal. All of them agreed that having a website with digestible content has
led to more traffic. This study will inform you on whether online marketing is a great benefit to
today’s marketing arsenal and investigate why it is/isn’t.

After all the research and analyzing of the acquired data, the following facts have been
established.
Social media is the most effective marketing platform, considering its cost efficiency, its reach,
and the internet accessibility in Australia.
Online marketing is currently making a huge market penetration due to the national availability
of faster internet. This correlates with Social Media being used as a marketing tool, and the
quick turnaround on strategy implementation and adaptation.

These facts have made it clear that COMPANY should therefore adjust their current strategy.
One of the recommendations on improving or adjusting their existing program would be adding
an implementation session. This will help the organizations clients with understanding how to
proceed with their written marketing plan. Due to this written report and its research, the
directors of COMPANY have gained a better understanding regarding how small businesses and
micro forms can quickly adapt to the rapid changing ways of marketing. The directors have also
gained further knowledge on how clients are interested in integrating new methods to go
alongside their older ways of marketing but are especially keen on learning more about online
marketing. It was also deemed essential for the clients to know how to adjust and implement
marketing plans, whereas before the program at COMPANY did not contain such a session.
Because of this research the directors concluded on their own to adjust their own strategy that
should result in a better market profitability.
Contents
Executive summary ........................................................................................................................................................1
Chapter 1 – Introduction ...............................................................................................................................................4
1.1 Company introduction .........................................................................................................................................5
1.2 Company Expansion ............................................................................................................................................6
1.3 Research Question ...............................................................................................................................................7
1.4 Familiarization .....................................................................................................................................................8
Chapter 2 – Literature review ........................................................................................................................................9
2.1 Existing research data - Sub question 1 ............................................................................................................ 10
2.2 Online marketing related issues – Sub question 2 ........................................................................................... 13
2.3 Change in consumer behavior .......................................................................................................................... 16
Chapter 3 – Methodology ........................................................................................................................................... 21
3.1 Research approach ........................................................................................................................................... 22
3.1.1 Validity ....................................................................................................................................................... 23
3.2 Analyzing steps ................................................................................................................................................. 23
3.3 Analyze .............................................................................................................................................................. 23
Chapter 4 – Findings ................................................................................................................................................... 25
Chapter 5 – Conclusions ............................................................................................................................................. 33
5.1 Question 1 and 3............................................................................................................................................... 33
5.2 Question 2 and 4............................................................................................................................................... 33
5.3 Question 5 and 6............................................................................................................................................... 34
5.4 Question 7 and 8............................................................................................................................................... 35
Chapter 6 - Discussion ............................................................................................................................................... 36
6.1 Company’s strengths ........................................................................................................................................ 36
6.2 Company’s weaknesses .................................................................................................................................... 36
6.3 Company’s target market ................................................................................................................................. 36
Chapter 7 - Recommendations ................................................................................................................................... 37
7.1 Marketing ......................................................................................................................................................... 38
7.2 Financial aspects ............................................................................................................................................... 39
7.3 Implementation strategy .................................................................................................................................. 40
Appendix ..................................................................................................................................................................... 41
Bibliography ................................................................................................................................................................ 43
Chapter 1 – Introduction

Social media is the rise of today’s marketing and every company is jumping on the bandwagon to
make it as creative and original as possible, while trying to entertain and convert every consumer.
As a millennium it is essential to find out if it is the new radio if it will be able to live on for the next
decades to come or if it is just another temporary marketing hype. From 1930 to 1980 there was a
relatively peaceful coexistence between advertisers and their respected viewers
(Evans, 2012). From the 80’s onwards (Adage, 2020) (Hubspot, 2020). Marketing really blossomed
especially through television, it became rather apparent that if you wanted to make it as a company
you would need to construct a solid marketing plan.

Online marketing is a rather cost-effective way to advertise your products or services in
comparison to big advertising campaigns, or at least that is the case for small businesses seeing
as international corporations tend to spend a significant amount on their marketing.
‘’In 2019, U.S. companies spent $10.4 and $7.7 billion on search marketing and display advertising,
respectively, and together with other forms of online advertising such as email marketing, the total
online media outlay was $24.4 billion’’ (A supplement to Advertising Age, sd)

Fast-forwarding to the 2000’s where marketing has grown enormously to compete for
consumer’s attention while trying to influence their buying preference. Companies have just
begun to increase their marketing budget, especially when it comes to online marketing:

‘’Online media spending is expected to more than double in 5 years (i.e., $60 billion by 2022) and to
consume 18% of the total media expenditures’’ (A Supplement to Advertising Age, sd)

This demonstrates that online marketing is on the rise and will continue to grow for the next few
years; however, is it a growing trend or merely a steppingstone to an even greater medium?
And what are current entrepreneurs already thinking about offline marketing? Will they
implement a new strategy optimizing online marketing?