Paper Title
Effect of E-Marketing on Non-Financial Performance of Small and Medium Scale Enterprises in Nigeria
Abstract
The electronic media drives the society today. This makes it essential that firms understand the electronic media as a contemporary marketing tool for growing their businesses. This paper examined the effect of electronic marketing tools on non-financial performance of SMEs in Nigeria. Specifically, the study focuses on website marketing, search engines, e-mail marketing, social media marketing and mobile telephony marketing as tools of e-marketing, being the most used e-marketing tools in Nigeria during the time of study (IWS, 2017; Alexa, 2017). Non-financial performance was used as a measure of SMEs performance. Also, all the SMEs that have effectively adopted e-marketing in the population were considered, irrespective of the nature of their business and time of adoption of e-marketing. This study employed descriptive design and cross-sectional research design in terms of time horizon. A well-structured 5 likert scale questionnaire was employed. The population of the SMES is made up of a total of 26,114 registered SMEs in six (6) states representing the six geopolitical zones in Nigeria and a sample size of 458 were used for the study. Data were analyzed using PLS-SEM to test the hypothesis. The paper found that website, search engines, e-mail, social media and mobile telephony as tools of e-marketing collectively influenced non-financial performance of SMEs in Nigeria. The study concluded that e-marketing tools were very useful in improving SMEs customers, growth and internal process. Also, it is valuable for SMES to adapt and use e-marketing tools in promoting their products as technology changes and new platforms emerge. The paper recommended that SMEs should adopt e-marketing tools for both communication and marketing purposes.
Keywords - Electronic Marketing, Performance, SMEs, Nigeria