Digital Marketing in small
and Medium-sized

Companies (SMEs)

Marketing digital en las pequeñas y

medianas empresas (PYMES)

Diego Marcelo Almeida López
Ingeniero en Marketing, Magíster en Gestión

Empresarial
Docente Investigador Escuela Superior Politécnica

de Chimborazo, (ESPOCH), Riobamba, Ecuador.

diego.almeida@espoch.edu.ec

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5860-8308

José Fernando López Aguirre
Ingeniero en Industrias Pecuarias, Maestría en

Administración de Empresas.
Docente Investigador Escuela Superior Politécnica

de Chimborazo (ESPOCH) Riobamba, Ecuador.

josef.lopez@espoch.edu.ec

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9706-5115

Jose Luis Lopez Salazar
Licenciatura en Administración de Empresas,

Maestría en Administración de Empresas.
Docente Investigador Escuela Superior Politécnica

de Chimborazo (ESPOCH), Grupo de Investigación
Ideas Factory, Riobamba, Ecuador.

josel.lopez@espoch.edu.ec

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1012-4472

Abstract

The objective of the research is to determine brain

dominance based on the Ned Hermann model, the way of
thinking, as is the way of learning of the students of the

marketing career of the Escuela Superior Politècnica de
Chimborazo.

Imaginario Social

Entidad editora
REDICME (reg-red-18-0061)

e-ISSN: 2737-6362

julio – diciembre 2022 Vol. 5-2-2022

http://revista-
imaginariosocial.com/index.php/es/index

Recepción: 20 de mayo 2022

Aceptación: 20 de junio 2022

130-142

131

The research will allow the facilitators to know the communicative and cognitive

power of the students and their level of thought to address the skills, values and
identity from a creative, participatory point of view in the teaching-learning

process. The results indicate the presence of single and double dominance profiles
in marketing students, ruling out the triadic and total profiles; 40 individuals

(66.7%) have a simple dominance profile, 16 people (26.7%) have a double
dominance profile and 4 of the 60 students under study (6.7%) do not have any

type of profile. The research will allow teachers to know the communicative and

cognitive model of the students.
Keywords: SMEs, marketing, digital marketing, SEO, SEM.

Resumen
Las PYMES utilizan el marketing digital en sus canales digitales para llegar a sus

clientes de forma global. El marketing digital ha evolucionado a lo largo de los años y
seguirá creciendo en el futuro. El uso de diferentes herramientas actuales por parte de

las PYMES ha permitido que muchas de estas empresas se posiciones y mejoren su

presencia digital. Es así, que este artículo presenta, una revisión de cómo el marketing
digital orientado a las páginas web se ha convertido en un complemento para las

técnicas de mercadotecnia. Igualmente despliega las estrategias y herramientas que
más utiliza en el ámbito de las PYMES para contribuir a que se logren los objetivos de

estas unidades empresariales.

Palabras clave: SMEs, marketing, digital marketing, SEO, SEM.

Introduction

SMEs' development has resulted in SMEs getting a platform for marketing their

products, services, and brands. SMEs can reach out to more customers in the market.
This is done through the digital media utilized by the digital marketing campaigns.
Digital marketing has played a significant role in promoting SMEs as all businesses,

small or large, are given equal chances by digital marketing (De Pelsmacker et al.,
2018). The SMEs optimize their website so that when it is visible, the customers cannot

leave their website, have not purchased a product, or find specific information about

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the product or services they require.SEO, therefore, increases the customer purchasing

power of products from a website. To boost their Search Engine Rankings SMEs, invest
in Search Engine Optimization.SEO ensures more web engagement for customers who

need purchasing products. SEM increases the visibility of the brand, products, and
services to the target customers.

Different studies show how web accessibility and SEO and SEM are related. An

increase in web traffic reflects customers' interest in the website and increases the
potential for more sales to be sold on the web. The digital marketing strategies put into

place by these SMEs include understanding their brand and their target customers.
They define S.M.A.R.T. and create customer personas. They use some tools to conduct

their online research marketplace. They also perform competitive analysis. New web
technologies have contributed to digital marketing. The new technologies include

artificial intelligence, chatbots, blockchains, and others (Kotane et al., 2019). These
positively impact the SMEs product as they allow customers to try the product before
using it, tracts customer behavior, optimizing their campaigns in real-time.

To reach prospective customers, digital marketing is used in both small and medium-
sized companies (SMEs). Digital marketing includes the use of email marketing,
mobile phone messaging, and others. Digital marketing enables SMEs to reach more

targeted customers at a lower cost; it increases the ROI, enhances CRM, and allows
effective tracking of future campaigns in these businesses. In digital marketing,

customers are greatly influenced by both the negative and the positive reviews of a
product. It is, therefore, empowerment to customers, customers are offered a

personalized experience, and the brand image is improved (

Herhausen et al., 2020)

Development

Digital marketing evolved in the year 1990. The coming of the internet and the

development of the Web 1.0 platform resulted in the digital age. Web 1.o was a
platform that allowed individuals to search for information over the web but not share

using the website. The digital marketing era began in 1993 when Hot-wired purchased
some banner ads for advertisement (

Shalauddin, 2022)

. New technologies like Yahoo

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emerged in the digital market the following year. The launch of Yahoo, which made

close to one million hits, made the wholesalers change in the digital marketing era
space. Small and medium-sized businesses started optimizing their websites to pull in

higher search engine rankings. In 1998 google came to place, and Microsoft launched
the MSN search engine while Yahoo brought Yahoo web search into the market. The

internet burst is giving space to more and more businesses to operate effectively.

However, search engine traffic was identified in the year 2006. This search engine
traffic grew to about 6.4 billion in a single month. The development of the Web 2.0

made people become more active participants rather than passive. Its development
allowed people to interact with businesses. In 2004 the US businesses reported $2.9

billion through internet marketing and advertising. Social networking sites exist,
resulting in small and medium-sized businesses getting opportunities to market their

brands and products. To tailor promotions and marketing, cookies were developed to
track the customers' browsing habits and usage patterns of the business web (Kaabi et
al., 2019). Customers are therefore able to access products digitally marketed.

Various bodies of literature suggest that SMEs have grown at a higher rate in the last
decade and have recently gained momentum. The SMEs have been started by young

entrepreneurs who are against the traditional business rules. The young entrepreneurs
extensively work on innovation while taking higher risks. They are set apart from the

crowd by their entrepreneurial attitude. SMEs' primary source of customer acquisition
is online marketing; therefore, these young entrepreneurs enter the market knowing
their products would sell through online marketing. SMEs enterprises must create

awareness of their business to attract their target customers. It might be doom for such

enterprises' failure to accomplish brand awareness. Digital marketing, therefore,

enables customers to keep on buying from these enterprises when they are aware of
the products sold. SMEs utilize digital marketing to market products and services

(

Febriyantoro et al., 2019)

In order to reach out to more customers in the market, digital media are utilized in

digital marketing campaigns. The power of the internet is primarily used by the

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campaigns to ensure magnification of the effects of the campaign, and their impacts

are measured through online monitoring and measuring tools. For SMEs, the internet
has created a helpful marketing option for them. Digital marketing has played a

significant role in the promotion of SMEs. Equal chances are given to every business
by digital marketing (Desai, 2019). Regardless of the size of the business, there is a

similarity in the competitive environment.

SMEs have equal opportunities in the digital world. It also enables SMEs to earn more
impressive ROI. This is achieved because digital marketing focuses more on how to

make money from the marketing efforts. Online marketing offers an impressive return
on investment to SMEs. Digital marketing allows for the tracking of SMEs'

effectiveness. It makes it easy for these enterprises to monitor the effectiveness of their
campaigns. Campaigns can be monitored in real-time to understand if they work or

not (

Μπαρούτης, 2022)

. Digital marketing is sure for SMEs as it is cost-effective and

the return on investment is much higher when compared to the traditional method
used by the SMEs, which includes print and electronic media.

The digital marketing strategies put into place by these SMEs help define their brands;
they use and understand them. They identify their unique selling points (USPs) to

ensure their businesses succeed. It becomes easier for them to define their brand once
the USPs have been identified. Another strategy is to create customer personas by

understanding demographic information such as age, location, and gender and
incorporating the things that motivate customers to choose their products and
services. Google Analytics helps create the buyer personas and defines S.M.A.R.T. as a

strategy for marketing their business objectives and KPIs. The S.M.A.R.T. stands for

specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound goals (Medne et al., 2019). It is

defined by, for example, increasing the leads generated within six months from the
contact form by 20%.

SMEs identify their target market for their customers. Using a tool such as Google
Keyword Planner, Google Trends, or Facebook Audience Insights, the SMEs research

online marketplace places and identify their potential marketplaces, thus knowing

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where to get their customers. They perform competitive analysis by analyzing their

competitors using Social Bakers, SEMrush, and Similar Web tools. This information
enables SMEs to formulate business strategies ahead of their competitors. Social

Media is a strategy that SMEs use and plays a significant role in the marketing plan. It
is affordable and relatively effective; therefore, it works for B2b and B2C marketing

(Mitrega, 2019).

In the purchase decision process, most of the growing number of businesses in SMEs
use social media platforms. The business type determines the social media platform

that can optimize the strategy put into place by the business. Another digital marketing
strategy is an online advertisement. Most SMEs have started recently, and it is

unrealistic for businesses to expect customers to flock into the business immediately.
Exposure for these businesses can be increased through organic search and paid

advertisements such as display ads and Google AdWords. The paid ads offer different
benefits, including target customer reach, payment only when the customers click the
ads, budget control, and immediate results gain (

Dumitriu et al., 2019)

The process of improving the visibility of the website is termed SEO. SEO uses organic
search through different rankings algorithms on search engine results pages. The

SMEs optimize their website so that when the website is visible, the customers cannot
leave their website having not purchased a product or find certain information about

the product or services they require(

Poturak et al., 2022)

.SMEs use SEO experts to

identify the best keywords to optimize their website, thus increasing rankings in
organic results on search engines. SMEs invest in Search Engine Optimization to boost

their Search Engine Rankings. They use this practice to attract and get more valuable

traffic.

To increase their global reach and competition with more significant businesses and
corporations, SMEs use Search Engines. Therefore, SEO enhances SMEs' global

business visibility (Kumar et al., 2021). The effectiveness of the SEO approach puts
small companies ahead of large and well-known companies. While engaging in SEO

campaigns, SMEs tend to enjoy their benefits from this campaign. This includes an

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increase in the number of customers who visit the website, and more engagement of

the site, thus increasing sales growth per day; thus, sales revenues are raised.

SMEs endorse their goods, services, and brands through digital marketing, including

websites, social media, email, apps, and others. According to the research, customers
rely heavily on digital means to purchase products and services. Insights from the

google market revealed that customers who begin their searches on the Search Engines

include 48%, those at the brand sites include 33% and those that use the mobile apps
include 26%(Wang et al., 2016).In the US, SMEs have implemented different digital

marketing strategies, which have increased their market growth. They contribute to
50% of the US economy's gross domestic product and are growing by 11 percent

annually.

In a study by Moreno et al., (2013), there was a clear relationship between the web

accessing instructions and SEO on-page factors. Based on the results of this study, it
was found that there is a negative effect of the rankings on the SERPs caused by the

website accessing barriers. It was identified that the use of SEO techniques improved

the accessibility of SME websites. Webpage low rankings can be caused by poor
navigation on the website and the availability of specific web scripts. This is because it

is a barrier to user interactions and accessibility to the website. The web accessibility
and the SEO case study were done previously by experts in those fields. There was

evidence showing the relationship between web accessibility factors and SEO.
According to the study, search rankings can be negatively influenced by accessibility
barriers. It also showed that the link between web accessibility and SEO is the

accessibility to the web content. The study also showed the additional benefits of using

SEO.

An increase in web traffic reflects customers' interest in the website and increases the
potential for more sales to be sold on the web. At the retailer level, an increase in web

traffic predicts the number of sales that are likely to be sold. Web traffic is another
measure of the goal achievement for internet websites. This is because higher traffic

generates higher advertisement revenues placed on the site. Another indication of web

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accessibility is the customers' visit duration, which increases through SEO.

Measurement of visit duration to the customer is measured and has some advantages.
Visit duration is tied directly to the website revenue and promoting benefits. A longer

duration of website visits maintains the user's interest in that site. It gives more time
to customers to make decisions and complete their purchase transactions for acquiring

the product (

Makrides et al., 2020)

. Repeat visits are generated with the help of the

user interest, thus returning resulting in the long-term sales. SMEs use the website

duration as an indicator of future earnings. This is because the more extended web

visits result in higher returns in that particular month.

According to a study conducted in the United States, research dealt with 138 US web-

based businesses. It analyzed the visibility of the web-based on the search engines,
how it was ranked, its popularity, and its brand image (Serrano-Cinca et al., 2010).

The study found that SMEs achieve higher positions than large companies because
they are popular with their customers in digital marketing, especially blogs and online
marketing. With the help of Search Engine Optimization, they attained a higher

position because many websites linked to their virtual shops. However, the research
could have done more research on the relationship between internet positioning and

the performance of webs.

SEM is a form of digital marketing that allows SMEs to market themselves using paid

adverts on search engine results pages (SERPs). Bidding of keywords is done by the
advertisers in Google or Bing, which the customers might enter while looking for a
product or a service (Peter et al., 2021). This, therefore, allows the advertiser ads to

appear alongside results for the search queries. It is the only medium that allows the

advertiser’s products to be seen by the customers when they need to purchase products

or services.

Search Engine Marketing has become an important marketing strategy for SMEs. SEM

allows businesses to reach customers when searching for the products and services
that are offered in the business. SEM allows businesses to target specific customers in

regions, states, or cities. SEM allows businesses to schedule ads within the desired

138

period. It is cost-effective for businesses that work with smaller budgets. Upon the

customer seeing the ad, it is when the advertiser can pay. Using SEM ensures that
businesses are more visible to online users, thus increasing the number of customers

to visit the web, thus sales growth. Incorporating SEM into marketing allows a
business to be ahead of its competitors (

Acuna-Salazar et al.)

The development of new web technologies has contributed to the increased

effectiveness of digital marketing. The development of bots which are relatively
affordable for SMEs and flexible has made these businesses improve their customer

service. It is achieved through the bots quickly giving data and related answers, and
they take requests. The bots can be integrated into a website and get information to

use in digital marketing strategies (De cosmo et al., 2021). Cloud technology has
allowed SMEs to get massive customer data, thus giving away big data. Through this

technology, corporations can understand their customers, thus helping them create
more accurate targets and ads that are personalized.

Artificial intelligence has come into existence to hold the promise of making more

accurate, fast marketing decisions and predictions. Al is cognitive reasoning used and
applied in the computer and algorithmic process (

Mufadhol et al.,2020)

. This has

unleashed the creativity of digital marketing. Machine learning executes and tests
billions of data points which help marketers adapt and optimize their campaigns in

real-time. Blockchains have enabled marketers to use blockchain to track and keep
audiences engaged in their adverts. Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality allow
customers to try the products online before they buy thus allowing them to explore

products, ensure brand engagement, and buy simultaneously.

Conclusion

Digital marketing developed over the years and has resulted in the growth of SMEs.
SEO and SEM increase brand awareness by making products and services visible to

customers globally. Customers are greatly influenced by both the negative and the
positive reviews of a product in digital marketing. They also allow the SMEs to target

specific customers depending on the products they sell (Bala et al., 2018). Recently,

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customers have relied heavily on digital means to purchase products and services.

The incorporation of SEM by SMEs allows them to be ahead of their competitors.
Digital marketing has been impacted by the new web technologies. The use of bots,

for example, allows more accessible and quick replies to the customer's request for
their product. Blockchains have enabled marketers to use blockchain to track and

keep audiences engaged in their adverts. Different digital marketing strategies
implemented by SMEs include; understand their brands and unique selling points.

Creation of customer personas. They are performing competitive analysis. SMEs

should incorporate digital marketing in their businesses to grow and reach a wide
range of customers globally. New web technologies should be applied in digital

marketing.

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