Digital Marketing. Which Effect Does It Have on the Financial Performance of Firms?

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2017 in the subject Business economics - Offline Marketing and Online Marketing, grade: 5.0, Obafemi Awolowo University, language: English, abstract: This study determined the extent of the use of digital marketing in firms. It examinedthe challenges associated with the use of digital marketing and correspondding mitigating strategies. It also assess the effect of digital marketing on firms financial performance.The study used primary data, which comprised 150 small business using digital marketing in Lagos state. A census sampling technique was used to select all the companies. The study result showed that email marketing was the most used digital marketing tool, as (100%) respondent picked yes to this, followed by social media (96.7%), affiliate marketing (60%), content marketing and search engine optimization were (64.2%) respectively, pay per click marketing (62.5%) TV and Billboard (59.2%) and SMS and radio marketing (88.3%). The result also showed that challenges of digital marketing were lack of trained digital marketing personnel, inadequate digital marketing knowledge and poor application of digital marketing. Finally the result showed that digital marketing had a positive effect on financial performance, as 81.7% of respondents indicated that digital marketing improved their financial performance, while 18.3% showed digital marketing had no effect on their financial performance. In conclusion, the study showed that digital marketing has a positive effect on financial performance. In recent years, information and communication technology has immensely change consumer behavior, and this has greatly impacted on the way businesses communicate with their customers. The speedy advancement in technology has necessitated business organizations to embrace the changing trends by incorporating information technology in their activities. Based Hull (2004) ideas, the innovations on the Internet have transformed the way people communicate, search information and carryout business operation. As a result, business organizations have been left with no option other than embracing the new trends by integrating new information technologies in their systems. In this regard, digital marketing has not only become an effective marketing strategy, but also necessary in the light of the changing consumer behaviour towards digitization and online experiences.