Brand Awareness : Sme Through Digital Marketing

RESEARCH TOPIC

BRAND AWARENESS : SME THROUGH DIGITAL MARKETING

(SOUTH AFRICA, FINLAND & INDIA)

NAME : AKSHAY DNYANESHWAR INDALKAR

ROLL NO.- 16106A1042

Abstract :-

Brand Awareness helps to set up any company or organization in the market. For any new business Brand and name for it is necessary. Brand Awareness is nothing but giving information or brief of any company or organization to the consumers. Social Media and Digital Marketing plays a very important role in awareness of Brand. In this research paper main focus is on how Digital Marketing helps in Brand Awareness for SME (Small & Medium Enterprise). It contains introduction of Brand & Brand Awareness and Digital Marketing. It includes Brand Awareness through Digital Marketing in South Africa, Finland and India for SMEs. It gives what policies, rules and principles were set for Branding of SME and conclusion regarding how Digital Marketing helps for Awareness of Brand. It contains graphical data representation for South Africa, Finland and India.

Introduction :-

1. Brand :-

Brand of a company or organization is not only the logo of it. The definition of Brand has changed throughout the years, since the economical environment has changed too. Some years ago a brand was perceived as the logo or trademark, nowadays the emphasis has grown to cover immaterial aspects as well for example mental image (Novitsky, 2007). Main goal of any branding activities is to be able to create trust and loyalty which often leads to the possibility of charging a higher price for the product. Brand is built to create action (Goward, 2015).

1. Brand Awareness :-

Marketing and Advertising a Brand is a form of sales (Sounio, 2010). Brand awareness means the physical possibility of becoming aware of a brand, to knowing the brand and to finally, preferring the brand in comparison with others (Aaker, 1996, 330). It is a kind of Marketing and Advertising of a SME or any new company in the market. It gives the idea about and information i.e. core working area of SME or company. Brand identity is influenced by the various aspects of business, including the product, organization (company), brand’s personality and the actual logo and symbolism behind it (Aaker, 1996, 79).

1. Digital Marketing :-

Digital Marketing is not just traditional marketing on steroids. It is not just a faster

or newer channel. It is a new approach to marketing (Wind and Mahajan, 2001, 6). Digital Marketing is a term used to refer to marketing that utilizes electronic devices like computers, smartphones and tablets to engage the consumers (Gartner, 2013). The digital marketing started in the early 1990s - almost 25 years ago - when web 1.0 was created and become stronger in 1998, when Google was founded.

1. SME (Small & Medium Enterprise) :-

Entrepreneurship can take many forms and can be defined in many ways. SME means small and medium size enterprises because some of entrepreneurship takes place in it. Since the two are often found to be closely related. As Wennekers and Thurik note: ‘Small firms are the vehicle in which entrepreneurship thrives’ (1999:29). SMEs are of special importance to transition countries for a number of reasons. Firstly, they are able to provide economic benefits beyond the boundary of the individual enterprise in terms of experimentation, learning and adaptability. Secondly, in most transition countries, the SME sector was largely neglected and even discriminated against in the early transition period with emphasis placed on the rapid privatization of large scale enterprises and not the development of the SME sector. This has arguably resulted in less resources and attention being paid to the needs of SME development.

Literature Review :-

SME in South Africa, Finland and India have their own way of Brand Awareness techniques through Digital Marketing. In this literature review some of the information regarding these techniques is included.

1. South Africa :-

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) operate in the same environment as their larger counterparts, but without the associated benefits such as adequate capital and extended human resources of the larger organizations. SMEs encounter increasing competitive pressure fuelled by globalization, legislation and the relaxing of trade barriers, as well as an increase in market expansion due to emerging technologies and innovation. Small and medium enterprises often flourish on their adaptability and agility such as their close proximity to their customers, their openness towards new ways of working, and their risk taking approach, but many micro, small and medium enterprise are susceptible to major external shocks (Berry, 2002; Laforet and Tann, 2006). Although SMEs experience difficulties in absorbing and coping with these obstacles, they need to develop an ability to deal with the ever increasing challenges, that is, risks faced by the organization (Leopoulos, 2006).

1.1.   Importance of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to the economy :-

The importance of small businesses is recognised in numerous African countries such as Togo, Uganda, Ghana, Cote d’Lvoire, Nigeria, Kenya, Malawi, Burkina Faso, as well as others. According to Rwigema and Karungu (1999), SMEs are dominant in numbers in most economies. In First World countries like the United States of America and the United Kingdom, small enterprises play an important role in the economy, accounting for an estimated one third of industrial employment and a lower percentage of output. In Third World countries where SMEs dominate economically active enterprises, the SMEs prosperity is considered far more important than in First World countries (Rwigema and Karungu, 1999). The activities of SME enterprises in Africa (Rogerson, 2001a), is of vital importance for the promotion of economic growth, job creation and the mitigation of poverty.

1.    Problems experienced by Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) :-

According to Naicker (2006), problems experienced by SMEs can be categorized as follows:

i. Economic based problems: SMEs success is tied in with the local economic conditions as the SME sectors market growth is usually at the same rate as the macro economy as a whole, therefore, if there is an economic downturn, SMEs will usually also experience difficulty (Berry et al., 2002).

ii. Enterprise based problems: Internal factors such as human resource problems encompassing poor staff planning, multi-functional management, high employee turnover rate, inadequate trained employees, low productivity and difficulties in recruiting quality staff (Rogerson, 2004; Beaver, 2002; Williamson, 2000; Lighthelm et al., 2002; Watt, 2007) are impediments to SME success. It is argued that the role of labour, labour markets and skills levels are the most important factors contributing to small enterprise growth (Berry et al., 2002).