A Dissertation Submitted for Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
Masters of Science in Business Administration in Corporate Management
(MBA-CM) of Mzumbe University.
Digital marketing is one of the strategies used by firms for marketing communication
and product promotion. Digital marketing contributes to marketing by connecting
with clients and leads to creating new business opportunities. Digital marketing
creates prospects for firms to interconnect and engage their target clients more
efficiently and effectively. Nevertheless, the prospects of this tool have remained
unexploited. The purpose of this research was to determine the extent of adoption of
digital marketing and its influence on the performance of SMEs in Tanzania.
Qualitative and quantitative approaches of research were conducted using semistructured interviews based on the research objectives; to identify the digital
marketing techniques employed by SMEs, to determine the influence of digital
marketing techniques on a firm’s revenue performance and to identify the challenges
of adopting digital marketing techniques in firms operations. The identification of the
digital marketing techniques employed by the SMEs helps to understand how the
firms use digital marketing. Most of the respondents agreed to employ the use of
social media like Facebook, Instagram and YouTube, marketing website like trip
advicer and booking.com and mobile applications (sms) and corporate website to
help firms to create awareness in their target market about their services and
products. The study also helps to understand the digital marketing influence on the
firm revenue performance. The intention of the study was to show the relationship
between the firms employs digital marketing techniques and its revenue status, either
the revenue increase, remain the same or decline. Most of the respondent agreed that
firm revenue increase after employs digital marketing techniques, while some
percent of the respondent say it’s revenue remain the same and minor percent of
respondents argue their revenue decrease after star employ digital marketing
techniques. Some Internal and external factors contribute to this revenue status to
particular firm. Identification of the challenges of adopting digital marketing
techniques in a firm's operations shows the merits of the digital marketing
techniques, on the other side it has demerits on the ways to apply it to the firms.
Human resources, time devotion are some challenges firms face during adoption of
the digital marketing techniques on operations.