Publication: Di̇ji̇tal pazarlamanın küçük ve orta ölçekli̇ işletmeler tarafından kullanımı ve COVID-19 etki̇si̇ni̇n incelenmesi̇
Abstract
Gelişen teknoloji ile ortaya çıkmış bir kavram olan dijital pazarlama giderek daha da önemli bir hale gelmiştir. Dijital pazarlama araçlarından biri olan arama motoru ve sosyal medya reklam panelleri hayatın teknolojiye bağımlı hale gelmesi ile işletmeler için de müşterilerine ulaşmada önemli bir kanal olmuştur. Özellikle küçük ve orta ölçekli işletmeler için daha az maliyetler potansiyel müşterilerine ulaşmada son derece önemli bir role sahip olduğunu oldukça nettir. 2020 yılının başlarında ortaya çıkan, tüm dünyayı etkisi altına alan ve yeni varyantları ile devam etmekte olan COVID-19 Pandemisi ile dünyada dijital platformlara olan ilgi daha da artmıştır. Bu yönelim elbette pek çok farklı ölçekli işletmeler tarafından da bu şekilde gerçekleşmiştir ve dijital pazarlamanın birçok farklı kanalının yaygın bir şekilde kullanılmasını veya kullanımının artmasını sağlamıştır. COVID-19 Pandemisi ile dijital mecraların kullanımı artarken bu artışın dijital reklamlarının küçük ve orta ölçekli işletmelerde ne kadar önem kazandığı, pandemi öncesi ve sonrasında verdikleri reklam bütçelerinde ne gibi bir değişiklik olduğu, reklamlardan aldıkları dönüşlerin ya da etkileşimlerin nasıl değiştiği, satış ve pazarlamada ne gibi stratejiler izledikleri araştırmak için 10 küçük ve orta ölçekli işletmenin temsilcileri ile görüşülmüştür. Bu işletmeler seçilirken COVID-19 Pandemisi öncesinde de dijital pazarlama kanallarını aktif bir şekilde kullanıyor olmaları önemli bir rol oynamıştır. Bütün bu başlıklar ele alınırken işletme sahipleri ile yarı yapılandırılmış mülakat tekniği kullanılarak görüşme sağlanmıştır. Yarı yapılandırılmış mülakat tekniği nitel araştırma tekniklerinden birisidir. Bu yöntem ile COVID-19 Pandemisi öncesi ve sonrası bu işletmelerinin dijital pazarlama kanallarını kullanımında ne gibi değişiklikler olduğunu anlamaya yönelik sorular sorulmuştur. Bu soruların sonucunda COVID-19 Pandemisi bu işletmeleri başta olumsuz etkilese de sonrasında dijital varlıklarını ispatlayarak satışlarını arttırmalarına yardımcı olmuştur. Elbette COVID-19 Pandemisi öncesi de bu araçları kullanan işletmeler salgın sonrası bütçe artırımına gitmenin onlar için olumsuz bir sonucu olduğunu belirtseler de uzun vade de satış ve pazarlama süreçlerini oldukça olumlu etkilediğini söyleriz.
Digital marketing, a concept that emerged with developing technology, has become increasingly important. Search engine and social media advertising panels, which are one of the digital marketing tools, have become an important channel for businesses to reach their customers as life becomes dependent on technology. It is quite clear that especially for small and medium-sized businesses, lower costs have an extremely important role in reaching potential customers. With the COVID-19 Pandemic, which emerged in early 2020, affected the whole world and continues with its new variants, the interest in digital platforms in the world has increased even more. This trend has, of course, been realized in this way by many businesses of different sizes and has enabled the widespread use or increased use of many different channels of digital marketing. While the use of digital channels increased with the COVID-19 Pandemic, this increase shows how important digital advertisements have become for small and medium-sized businesses, what changes have occurred in the advertising budgets they gave before and after the pandemic, how the returns or interactions they received from advertisements have changed, what kind of changes in sales and marketing. Representatives of 10 small and medium-sized businesses were interviewed to investigate the strategies they follow. While choosing these businesses, the fact that they were actively using digital marketing channels before the COVID-19 Pandemic played an important role. While all these topics were discussed, business owners were interviewed using the semi-structured interview technique. Semi-structured interview technique is one of the qualitative research techniques. With this method, questions were asked to understand what changes occurred in the use of digital marketing channels of these businesses before and after the COVID-19 Pandemic. As a result of these questions, although the COVID-19 Pandemic affected these businesses negatively at first, it later helped them increase their sales by proving their digital presence. Of course, although businesses that used these tools before the COVID-19 Pandemic stated that increasing their budget after the epidemic had a negative result for them, it is possible to say that it had a very positive impact on their sales and marketing processes in the long term.
Digital marketing, a concept that emerged with developing technology, has become increasingly important. Search engine and social media advertising panels, which are one of the digital marketing tools, have become an important channel for businesses to reach their customers as life becomes dependent on technology. It is quite clear that especially for small and medium-sized businesses, lower costs have an extremely important role in reaching potential customers. With the COVID-19 Pandemic, which emerged in early 2020, affected the whole world and continues with its new variants, the interest in digital platforms in the world has increased even more. This trend has, of course, been realized in this way by many businesses of different sizes and has enabled the widespread use or increased use of many different channels of digital marketing. While the use of digital channels increased with the COVID-19 Pandemic, this increase shows how important digital advertisements have become for small and medium-sized businesses, what changes have occurred in the advertising budgets they gave before and after the pandemic, how the returns or interactions they received from advertisements have changed, what kind of changes in sales and marketing. Representatives of 10 small and medium-sized businesses were interviewed to investigate the strategies they follow. While choosing these businesses, the fact that they were actively using digital marketing channels before the COVID-19 Pandemic played an important role. While all these topics were discussed, business owners were interviewed using the semi-structured interview technique. Semi-structured interview technique is one of the qualitative research techniques. With this method, questions were asked to understand what changes occurred in the use of digital marketing channels of these businesses before and after the COVID-19 Pandemic. As a result of these questions, although the COVID-19 Pandemic affected these businesses negatively at first, it later helped them increase their sales by proving their digital presence. Of course, although businesses that used these tools before the COVID-19 Pandemic stated that increasing their budget after the epidemic had a negative result for them, it is possible to say that it had a very positive impact on their sales and marketing processes in the long term.