Comparative Study Of Traditional And Digital Marketing Tools On The Performance Of Small And Medium Enterprises In Ilorin Metropolis

Abstract

Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) are essential to the economic development of Nigeria but their sustainability depends largely on their marketing strategy choice. Traditionally, SMEs have used conventional marketing tools while new digital marketing tools have presented different avenues. Nevertheless, the relative effectiveness of the two marketing sources towards SME performance in terms of the growth in sales and customer acquisition is still under-explored in the Nigerian scenario. This study aims at comparing the dissimilarity in the growth in the sales and customer acquisition between SMEs using conventional marketing tools and those utilizing digital marketing tools in Ilorin Metropolis. A quantitative research design is used in this study with a structured questionnaire as the research instrument used to collect the data. The study sample consisted of the employees working at Femtech Information Technology utilizing digital marketing tools and World Class Communication utilizing conventional marketing tools with a total number of 212 staff workers. By using the Survey Monkey sample size calculator, a sample size of 137 participants was arrived at. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was used to test the hypothesis and compare the mean differences in the growth in the sales and customer acquisition rates between the two institutions. The first analysis produced the value of the f-statistic = 8.956 and the p-statistic value = 0.003 and hence indicated a significant difference in the two groups. The second analysis provided the value of the F-statistic = 10.421 and the value of the p-statistic = 0.002 and thereby proved a significant difference in customer acquisition rates between SME using conventional and digital marketing strategy. The findings prove the existence of statistically significant dissimilarity in both performance measures with the SME utilizing digital marketing tools having higher growth in the sales rates and customer acquisition rates when compared with those using conventional marketing tools. The conclusion drawn is that the digital marketing possesses greater benefits in maximizing SME performance since it taps a wider target market at a lower cost and facilitates customer interaction more engagingly. According to the findings, the SME in the Ilorin Metropolis should switch to digital marketing tools to maximize business performance. Further, the policymakers and business development institutions need to introduce digital marketing training programs to enable SME to switch over conventional marketing practices.