Abstract
Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) play a vital role in all economies around the world, they are responsible for creating of jobs, alleviating of poverty, contributing to innovation and to the gross domestic product of a country. However, many of these businesses face challenges and often fail within a short period of time. The success of small businesses is not only having products and a market to sell them to but also effective marketing of these products to the targeted market. A vast array of studies have investigated SME marketing tool usage however few have looked to SMEs in emerging economies and specifically to the traditional marketing tools such firms employ. Therefore the focus of this study was to describe the usage of traditional marketing tools employed by SMEs from a South African perspective. This study followed a quantitative research methodology whereby a self-administered questionnaire was distributed to SME owners within the Gauteng province of South Africa. Results obtained from this research indicate that SME owners mostly make use of print media while broadcast media is used selectively. Results obtained within this study will be of value universally to SME owners as it can be seen that all SMEs irrespective of geographic location face similar challenges
Highlights
Despite the growth of internet usage and online marketing in recent years (Internet World Stats, 2014; Sledzik, 2014) it appears that many small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are still opting to utilize traditional marketing tools (OuterBrand, 2015; Sledzik, 2014)
This paper aims to investigate the extent to which South African SMEs utilize traditional marketing tools in their marketing actions
Findings obtained in this study take into consideration the respondents’ composition in terms of employee numbers, frequency of marketing plan updates and the monthly amount that SME owners spend on traditional marketing tools
Summary
Despite the growth of internet usage and online marketing in recent years (Internet World Stats, 2014; Sledzik, 2014) it appears that many small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are still opting to utilize traditional marketing tools (OuterBrand, 2015; Sledzik, 2014). While some SMEs are struggling to adopt new online marketing tools, many argue that their current traditional marketing tool usage is working and they do not feel the need to explore new options (OuterBrand, 2015). This paper aims to investigate the extent to which South African SMEs utilize traditional marketing tools in their marketing actions
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