Research Analysis on Digital Marketing Adoption Assignment Sample

• Subject Name : Digital Marketing

Executive Summary

This research work is aimed at analyzing the effectiveness of the 'Do it yourself' (DIY) model, in adopting digital marketing techniques by small business organizations. The research work is a collective task of collecting data and analyzing it with the knowledge of available literature. The research work introduces the reader to the complex business problems that are evident in real-life cases. The idea of digital marketing has attracted everyone's views but its concept is hardly understood by the business class. At a time, when the world is growing smaller, traditional shops and marketing techniques are losing importance. People value their time and prefer shopping sitting in the comfort of their home. Also now, when the world has been hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic, the idea of digital marketing should be analyzed and applied in the best possible way.

This research work has identified the sample frame and then selected the sample for data collection. The research work has been done through an exploratory research design to leave no scope for any kind of ambiguity in the result. The Gantt chart provides an illustrative picture of the time frame that will be required, while the draft of the Likert scale illustrates the data collection method.

Table of Contents

Executive Summary

Introduction

Research Background

Problem of the Research

Research Aim

Research Objectives

Research Questions

Rationale of Research

Scope of Research

Literature Review

Methodology

Research Design

Units of Analysis

Research Assumptions 

Sampling Approach

Threats and Limitation of the Methodology

Timeline

Questionnaire Survey

Cover Letter

Likert Scale

Constructs and indicators of the Study

Conclusion

References

Introduction

Research Background

When goods and services are marketed through the internet, it is called digital marketing. Digital marketing serves the purpose of catering to the need of reaching out to maximum customers in minimum time, unlike physical marketing which is time and money consuming (Chaffey & Chaddwick, 2019). Products and services can be promoted and sold via social media platforms, email, and company websites and through search engines, as per the concept of digital marketing. With the help of digital marketing, organizations can also participate in brad collaborations for promotional activities. OnePlus promoted its recently launched mobile phone, OnePlus 8T in the online entertainment platform through Netflix, in the Indian mobile phone market. This example shows one of the many ways in which companies collaborate through digital marketing for creating brand awareness among the public. Such strategies increase the possibilities of attracting more customers towards the business.

Chaffey & Smith (2020) suggested that organizations can inculcate the real essence of digital marketingby paying attention towards the complexities ofinterconnections between the channels that are present in the mechanism of digital marketing. These interconnections deliver information through customer reviews in Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other social media platforms and company websites. Reviews and recommendations from celebrities and renowned personalities act as word of the mouth which help in increasing the customer base and result in effective social media marketing. Information can be obtained from the cross-channels if there is a proper coordination arrangement between them. If the customers remain present in the company websites for longer period of time, then the company and collect maximum informationfor optimal utilization of digital marketing. Eventually, the enterprises will be able to optimise the customer searches through including essential keywords in their webpage description. This is one of the cheaper ways of reaping the fruits of digital marketing in small businesses.

The small organizations of the UAE are becoming immensely depended on online marketing through digital media. According to Internet World Stats (IWS), the total penetration of the internet among the citizens of the UAE is 98%.The use of internet for businesses in the UAE extend to creating brand awareness, campaigning and promotion, and selling products. The increasing dependence of the business organization on digital marketing has also created new employment opportunities in the field of analytics, marketing and business planning, thus increasing the employment chances in the country. There has been a rapid growth of small, medium and micro enterprises in the UAE since the last ten years.All small business organizations face a common issue oflimitedfinances, technical installations, and manual labour.

Problem of the Research

Conversion rate reflects health and standard of all types of industries, markets and companies (Goldfarb & Tucker, 2019). The ratio of final revenue to the complete number of site visitors, for a given period of time, is described as the conversion rate in digital marketing domain. From the end of 2019, the business organizations of the UAE have been receiving very low conversion rates. A study conducted at the beginning of 2020 revealed that more than 20% of the business enterprises in the UAE were affected by lower conversion rates ("Latest Business news, market news, oil news, business analysis, aviation news", 2020). These enterprises included both big companies and small business firms. The main issue with digital marketing in the UAE is that it fails to generate enough traffic on the internet due to which the conversion rate is always lower.

There can be many reasons for lower traffic generation in online marketing sites. A recent study conducted in the online business sites of the UAE revealed the following reasons for lower traffic generation ("Nearly eight in ten UAE small businesses are now open as Covid-19 restrictions ease", 2020):

1. The average time for which users stay at a particular online shopping website is not even closer to one minute.

2. More than 20% of the internet users stay at only the first page of the online shopping website, and then they move to some other website.

3. The bounce rate of more than 70% of the UAE marketing websites is higher than the normal level. A higher bounce rate means that people are more eager to leave the page than to browse through all the tabs (Kannan & Li, 2017).

4. The site visitors do not feel encouraged to stay on the webpage as it does not cater to their interests.

Kotane, Znotina&Hushko (2019) stated that in case of business enterprises, which are small in size, the lower benchmark of the conversion rates should be higher than the larger and well-established businesses. For higher rates of conversion, two things should be kept in mind: traffic generation and engagement rate. In the small business firms of the UAE, both are very low. Secondly, the health of the business is indicated by the conversion rates. For small businesses, it becomes expensive to install other technical mechanisms to keep track of the progress. Conversion rates the in-built health indicators that show the reach of the business to its customers.One thing which is important for the businessmen to understand is that, if the customer traffic is high, this does not always mean that the rate of conversion will also be high (Palsmacker, Tilburg & Holthof, 2018). Conversion rates increase when sales through digital marketing increase. A higher engagement rate is therefore complementary to higher traffic generation for a higher conversion rate.

Digital Marketing is fast spreading and all business organizations are incorporating and upgrading it for higher sales. However, for small business organizations, there is a shortage of financial resources and hence, it is not possible to hire professionals for optimal digital marketing adoption. In such a case, the concept of 'Do It Yourself' (DIY) technology can be beneficial to such enterprises. In the words of Deiss & Henneberry (2020), DIY is the concept of incorporating new business ideas, technologies, and mechanisms in the organization without hiring any professional for the same.The DIY model was initialized utilized for personal improvement, motivation at school, and maintenance services. Over the years, this model has gained prominence in business behavior. Nowadays, business enterprises have spread their business ideas in several domains to attain expertise and minimize their costs to as much level as they can. Small business organizations do not have much idea about the concept and the applicability of the DIY model. Therefore, it is important to understand this model about the operation of small businesses.

Research Aim

The research aims to understand the applicability of doing it yourself technology in the domain of small business firms. To reap the maximum benefits of digital marketing, small business firms have to adopt the do it yourself technology to operate within the limited resources. As already seen, the optimal use of digital marketing in the small business firms of UAE is affected due to lower conversion rates and engagement rates. The aim of the research, therefore, centers on the effectiveness of the DIY model in improving digital marketing of the small business organizations of the UAE.

Research Objectives

The following objectives will be addressed in the research work:

1. Examining the feasibility of digital marketing for small business organizations.

2. Evaluating the advantages of digital marketing that accrue to the small businesses.

3. To identify various techniques available for the adoption of digital marketing in business organizations.

4. To identify and examine the best adoption technique available for small business organizations.

5. To critically analyze the effectiveness of the DIY model in the adoption of digital marketing by small businesses.

Research Questions

The primary research question for this research is "Is the DIY model effective for the adoption of digital marketing concepts and techniques for small business organizations?"

The secondary research questions are as follows:

1. Is digital marketing feasible for small business enterprises?

2. To what extent digital marketing helps small businesses?

3. What are the various techniques available for the adoption of digital marketing in business organizations?

4. Which digital marketing mechanism is effective for small businesses?

5. What is the importance of the DIY model in the adoption of digital marketing techniques?

Rationale of Research

Digital marketing is successful only with maximum online presence of an enterprise(Dodson, 2020). More the customers are engaged in the website of an organization, its online presence will increase. As the concept of digital marketing is gaining importance day by day, the need for online managers, data analytics, analytical business engineers, etc. is increasing. This has resulted in high prices which should be given to these specialists for their exceptional analytical skills. Small business organizations have a shortage of funds. Some of them even cannot afford a proper space for operation during the initial days. On the other hand, for these business organizations, digital marketing is the only best and cheaper way to grow and create their position in the market (Assimakopoulus et al., 2017). Under these circumstances, the DIY model gains importance as it provides scope for the small businesses for gaining enough knowledge of digital marketing.

The DIY model focuses on creating new models and techniques, innovating new ideas for business growth, understanding the data related to business, and solving crucial business problems (Nuseir, 2018). If business organizations incorporate the DIY behavioural model in their operations, not only the cost will come down but it will also open avenues for the training of the employees. The employees can learn new skills and improve their productivity. The rationale of this research is to bring out all the possible benefits that the DIY model can bring for small businesses. In UAE, the digital marketing industry is growing at a faster rate, but the business organizations are not being able to reap the maximum benefits from it. The study of the DIY model is necessary to understand its role in making businesses self-sufficient and resilient.

Scope of Research

The scope of the research will be to understand the feasibility of digital marketing for small businesses. Small businesses are growing in the UAE rapidly but the benefits they accrue from the digital marketing strategies have been decreasing at the same rate. This research will analyze the concept of digital marketing and its importance for small business firms in the UAE. The scope of this research extends to identifying the various techniques of digital marketing and also the best technique applicable to small business firms. Once the best technique for digital marketing is identified, it will become easier to decide the adoption model.

The main scope of the research is to understand the do-it-yourself behavioral model in the adoption of digital marketing technology. In this context, the research will study the pros and the cons of the DIY model and the extent to which they can be beneficial for small business organizations. As these firms have minimal financial and technical resources available, this research work will act as a guide for them.

Literature Review

Cole, DeNardin & Clow (2017) provided a pilot study that shows the attitude the small businesses have towards advertising. It starts with highlighting the importance of advertising in businesses and the extent to which the present-day companies especially the giants like McDonald's and State Farm. Advertising although considered as important for the present-day business by the big companies, is looked on with susceptibility and suspicion by the small businesses. It is considered a risky stake by the small businesses to invest in advertising and the same is seen in the way and extent to which the expenditure on advertisement is made. Thereafter, a survey was made in which a few findings were seen.

Whether the findings apply to all small businesses or the particular ones used in this sample is something to be seen through further studies. The following observations were made-

1. The research found that highly educated people especially the ones having expert knowledge of advertising are more skeptical than illiterate people to invest in advertising.

2. Social media marketing has seen an increase in traditional marketing due to the increase in the use of social media by consumers.

3. Only 30 % of businesses were found to have a company website.

4. Those who had the company website have shown that the use of a website for e-commerce was substantially low.

5. It was observed that the lack of advertising shows that small businesses may not survive for long.

6. Of the websites that were being used for the marketing, email, Facebook, and other social media platform use were found to be more prevalent.

7. The use of social media by businesses and the marketing strategy showed a positive relationship. However, the exact cause and effect were not known.

8. Social media helps to see what is the extent, interest, and sales in the market.

This studies although an important one was a study that excluded many things from its ambit. It did not study the different marketing strategies in detail and the exact cause and effect relationship between the marketing strategies and the response of small businesses towards it. These are the gaps in this article that would be covered in this research proposal.

Ritz, Wolf & McQuity (2019) attempted to analyze the use of digital media by small businesses. In this study DIY and TAM were used to understand the benefits and problems arising out of using the digital marketing techniques. It was seen that the small businesses do not use the digital platform due to lack of finances and the digital platforms also do not focus on the small businesses that much. Small businesses account for 60% of the GDP and employ a workforce equal to the large businesses, despite the that the attention that is received by small businesses as compared to the large businesses is minimal. By doing this, the digital market loses out on a huge range of customer base. Moreover, the consumer's satisfaction increases when digital marketing is used to have two-way communication rather than just a one-way supply of goods and services. The two models that were discussed in this study were the DIY and the TAM.

The use of DIY in digital marketing is thought to develop the business as per the manager's own choice and the satisfaction of the consumers increases manifold. The use of TAM, on the other hand, studies the perceived benefit of technology by the business. Small businesses even if they take up digital marketing do it themselves without any professional help. The usage of the DIY model makes the employer feel a sense of fun, control, and self-improvement. This way since the manager themselves is happy, it helps in the creation of a fun environment for the business as well as the other employees and the customer base as well. Digital marketing ensures two-way communication and Google Analytics is used to study the consumer base, consumer response, and the consumer's needs. But the TAM alone cannot be a motivating factor for small businesses.

Despite being good research that focused on an innovative idea, it can be said that the research was lacking in a few aspects. Firstly, this research only focused on the intentions and marketplace motivations. Another shortcoming was that the sample may note representative of all the owners. Technology-related issues and new methods and strategies may be ample but in this study, only two researches were used. So, that also forms a limitation and gap in the literature.

This article, written by Akpan, Udoh, & Adebisi,(2020)states some of the state- of- art technologies that are prevalent and can be used by the small businesses to establish digital marketing. This research is mostly explanatory but also sheds light on the implementation of the state of art technologies in small businesses. It also looks into the problems that the businesses face in implementing the state of art technologies. The first technology which revolutionized the digital platform is the internet and the web. The internet and the web is one of the earliest revolutionary technologies to help create digital marketing by providing the connection of the internet to the mobiles and devices.

WLAN also called Wireless Area Network has helped in providing internet services to the apparatuses. The Internet has provided opportunities for integration and interaction. Without the internet, this would not have been possible. Industrial Internet of Things or (IoT) is also one of the state -of= art technologies. IIoT is a sensor-equipped Industrial machine that has the capability of keeping the machines, people and computers connected. IIoT has the effect of bringing about the following changes- closed-loop design, increased consumer value, predictive maintenance, new service lines, and reduced labor cost. Cloud computing is  another such technology wherein the computers are given on lease for real-time without much interaction with the provider.

Cloud computing has the effect of simplifying the operations and the requirement of forecasting the need for natural resources is not felt. Big data analytics is the procedure wherein the data is retrieved from a wide volume of data for analysis. An online social network is an old source of big data. To face global competition, it is best that business intelligence and data mining is done properly. Artificial intelligence is another way of learning, reasoning and self-correction. It provides solutions for 3D to acquire objects that are moving and create a virtual environment to enhance the planning tasks. This study further maps out the limitations like the lack of internet opportunities in developing countries. Despite the huge number of population, internet penetration is very low in these countries. Small businesses in developing countries are also faced with poor economic and political conditions. There is also a lack of a strategic policy framework in developing countries for small scale industries and businesses.

This article although very comprehensive is just descriptive research and no empirical study has been undertaken to analyze the application of the technologies and the specific issues faced by small businesses in a particular area to implement the digital marketing aspect. Thrust is given only to the governmental policies or lack thereof, no connection is made of the eagerness of small businesses to implement the technologies and the issues they face in implementation.

Nallasivam (2020) focussed on the idea of explaining the different digital marketing agencies for the advancement of the small businesses. The paper explains the various options available and the extent and way of their uses. This paper however is not an empirical study taken to study the impact of various marketing techniques on small businesses. This is just an attempt to explain the various options available for the small businesses. The paper not only reviews the various options but also explains what digital marketing is and the use of digital marketing in the context of small businesses

It lays down different options like online marketing, offline marketing, using websites as a means of communicating with the customers or using two-way communications like social media where instant feedback is given by the customers, search engine optimization, google search, google analytics, ad-word, ad-sense, etc. The research paper puts all options out there and their pros and cons but does not explicitly provide for the most efficient technique of digital marketing for small businesses. That is the literature gap this research will focus on and deal with in one of the research questions. The proposed study will make empirical research of the most efficient technique for the use of digital marketing in small businesses.

Research by Garcia, Lizcano & Ramos (2016) throws light on a new approach that will increase the evolution of web technologies and is aimed at helping the marketing managers and the developers of web solutions. The study was an analytical study to show the importance and use of different digital marketing techniques. The Delphi method was used to analyze the best technique to enhance the recruitment and loyalty for online consumers in B2C setup. The sample was divided into different groups and the most effective strategy for each group was sought out.

The groups were divided into DDBB, campaigns, advertisements on the social network. Special digital marketing, after-sales service, and e-mail marketing are other groups that were dealt with in this study.

It was found that for leads recruitment Facebook and LinkedIn is the best. Social media networks help in segmenting the audience, identifying the audience, and can achieve high conversion ratios. Facebook was found to be a B2C type business and LinkedIn is best for B2C type business.

Display advertising, SEO, and SEM are the display type functions to be used for display type functions and they result in a high amount of segmentation and impact on direct audiences. Marketing on search engines was found to be equally effective. In terms of compensation actions, it was found that premium based compensation actions are most useful. The freemium strategy was found to be the most effective. As far as loyalty actions were concerned, e-mail marketing strategies were found to be the most effective. Experts suggested that leads should be generated by the campaign on Twitter and Facebook because these social networks share information in a non-intrusive way and the advertising campaigns are involved with new information and content. The expert recommended that for building a loyal base, the best network is YouTube for B2C business.

Despite involving the use of experts for their opinion and in-depth interview of the users and the business people, this study had its limitations. This study although involved the use of experts for an interview but the same was not enough to represent all views and the literature review was also not adequate to answer the research questions properly. This aspect of the research would be taken care of by the research intended to be taken up in this research proposal.

To understand the need for research on the need for digital marketing in small businesses, we need to have a look at the status quo. No research can be possible without starting on knowing the position of the subject matter of the intended research. It is only after this preliminary research is done that the matter can be taken further and the suggestions to incorporate digital marketing techniques can be made out. Thus, to start with we need to understand the digital divide between the rural and the urban businesses which encompass the most number of small businesses in a country.

Richmond, Rader & Lanier (2017) attempted to study the digital divide which has led to poor use of digital marketing techniques by small businesses. The study was conducted in North Carolina’s rural small businesses to have a look at the extent of the use of digital marketing techniques by small businesses. It was found that despite the fact the government had taken steps to ensure the use of broadband as a means of accessing information and as a form of infrastructure, the same cannot be said about making the small business aware of the benefits of digital marketing and providing help in making use of the same. The first thing that was checked was whether the business had a website and it was found that 43. 5% of the small businesses did not have a website and the small businesses that did have a page or a website were either government-owned or corporate businesses. The businesses which did have websites were owned by major companies like oil companies and only some of them were being operated by the small businesses themselves.

The next aspect that was considered in this research was the issue of functionality, i.e., what use were these websites being put to. It was found that out of 1101 websites only 439 websites had information only. The websites that were found to be more interactive had the option of being linked with Facebook and twitter like social media accounts. There was no option of using the internet for other purposes like setting an appointment or giving feedback or another way of interaction. As far as having a Facebook page is concerned, 70 % of businesses did have a Facebook page but this fact needs to be understood in the context that the Facebook page was a default one.

It was found that the Facebook pages that were given to the businesses were not functional in the respect that no proper business was carried on these pages. Over 45 % of the Facebook pages were found to be default pages. The default pages were excluded from this research.

That leaves the percentage of Facebook usage by small businesses at 27%. The usage of other social media was even lower than the usage of Facebook. LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram were used by only 2.5 % of the people and YouTube was used by only 8 % of the small businesses which is quite low as compared to the large businesses found in the cities.

It was henceforth concluded that there is a considerable level of a digital divide amongst the rural and urban folks. This divide albeit new is one to reckon with considering the importance of digital marketing in times where everything is brought to the customers through the internet. So, although there was the availability of the internet as infrastructure, there was no effort been done to use this infrastructure to adopt new state-of-art technologies and activities that flow from it. What stops the rural small businesses from adopting these technologies into their business is something that was kept out of the purview of this research. The reasons may range from lack of finances, lack of know-how to lack of competition or a combination of all others.

Dania (2016) talks about the need to amalgamate traditional marketing and digital marketing as it is found that digital marketing although needs to be adopted by the small businesses as it has leverage and advantages that traditional marketing does not have cannot be completely relied upon as the digital marketing has its perils. This article makes a distinction between the advantages and disadvantages of both methods. It starts with talking about the advantages of digital marketing like accessibility, less time consumed, interactivity, empowering effect, infinite audience, duration, rich content creation, adaptability, easy usage, personalization of the website, etc.

But the disadvantages of digital marketing are more or less if not equally similar in terms of their effect on the business. The biggest issue in digital marketing is the problem of fraud that can be from the end of either the consumer or the end of the business. Fraud people can easily copy a copyright and then use it to defraud people or to cause monetary and reputational harm to the business. Moreover, the customers also do not trust the online services that much as there is no option of touching the merchandise product and thus the trust level is low. Cash on delivery option is susceptible to be misused by the bogus customers who do not intend to buy anything. Moreover, the digital marketing is completely dependent on technology and if the technology snaps at any time, all the avenues of digital marketing will become defunct.

Traditional marketing on the other hand faster results as the information reaches the people instantly and the marketing done by traditional means is durable as many sites are in reality abandoned by the businesses and the level of trust is also high. But, traditional marketing has its own disadvantages. The difficulties is not measured, high cost of setting and maintaining, there is no interaction with the customers, the advertising is static and the pricing option are also not varied.

Methodology

The approach of application in conducting and completing the research is known as research methodology (Amber, 2017). Naturally, there will be uniqueness in the research methodology for each research. For example, for understanding the market penetration different methodology will be applied thanused in studying thestrategies of promotion. The former one requires analysis of the primary data of the customers while for the latter,evaluation of secondary data evaluation, collected from the internet, will have to be applied. The methodology of research is formulated after deciding the research aim and objectives (Daniel, 2018). Research methodology is a repository of the design of the entire research and the pattern in which the research and analysis ought to be carried out. The research pattern includes the methods of collecting data and analysing it with the relevant knowledge of literature. Without a proper methodology, the research does not get the right direction for completion.

Research Design

Fletcher (2016) defined research design as a complete strategy for logically planning the study. The importance of research design is that it enables the presentation and analysis of the collected data to reach the research aim. The action research design aims to research in an exploratory way. Herein, at first research about the problem is carried out, and then small actions are planned within the main action for better understanding. The sub-actions are known as interventions and allow for an in-depth analysis of the research problem and follow the required data collection and data analysis method.

A case study design, on the other hand, is more about the collection of secondary data from the internet, survey reports, and analyzing the already collected facts with the available literature. The present research aims to interrogate whether a model (DIY) is capable of solving an issue (the digital marketing adoption) of units (small businesses). In this research. A more exploratory research design should be adopted to understand the views of the businessmen in this regard. Hence, the action research design would be the best research design for this purpose.

Units of Analysis

A unit of analysis is the term assigned to the entity on which the study is based (Goddard & Melville, 2016). Units of observation, is, on the other hand, are the relevant source from data is collected or any other information that can be obtained for the research work. The observation units are contained within the unit of analysis. For example, in this research work, the units of analysis will be small business organizations. However, each unit of analysis will have units of observations which are businessmen, data analysts, programmers, marketing specialists, etc.

In this research, there will be two units of analysis: the small business organizations of the UAE and the literary sources that have been studied for understanding the concept of digital marketing. Generally, case studies and literary works are the units of analysis in secondary research. However, in this research, the data is collected from primary sources but the information is analyzed taking help from literary works. Hence, the respondents can be considered as primary units while the literature can be considered as secondary units of analysis.

Research Assumptions

Ontology is defined as the study of the world which is being investigated in the research (Hickson, 2016). The Ontological assumptions for this research are as follows:

1. The business world comprises of human beings who think logically.

2. The main motive of business organizations is making profits.

3. For making maximum profit, the business organizations want to increase their market presence.

4. The businessmen are progressive and are innovation thirsty.

5. Small business organizations have limited resources on financial constraints.

The epistemological assumptions are philosophical in nature and provide a basis to understand the type of knowledge required and know about their sufficiency for the research (Humphries, 2020). The epistemological assumptions for this research work are as follows:

1. The decisions of business organizations depend on each other's strategy.

2. Business decisions lead to competition in the field of pricing, cost-cutting, and technical implementations.

3. Human expertise has high value.

4. Digital marketing is widely acclaimed in business tasks but its knowledge is limited.

Sampling Approach

Sampling is defined as the method of collecting data from a small unit out of the larger population (King, 2016). The population is infinitely large and it is impossible to collect data from the population. Due to this reason, a subset of the population, call the sample is chosen for collecting data for the research work. There is an infinitely large number of small business firms in the UAE. Even on the internet, there is documentation of only a few famous ones. The approach to creating the sample would be to include both old and new small business firms in the UAE.

Mohajan (2018) defined sample frame as the part of the population from where the sample is drawn. Identically a population comprises of household, business organization. Hospitals, schools, etc. For this research work, the sample frame will be small business organizations. The unit of a sample frame possess identical features and hence aids the analysis. For this research work, questionnaires will be distributed among the employees and the owners of 10 small business organizations. The respondents will have to record their interests under a Likert Scale rating. Therefore, the data that will be collected will be primary. Both qualitative and quantitative analysis will be done in this research work.

Threats and Limitation of the Methodology

The limitations of this research work will be time and monetary constraints. One possible threat is that identifying the small business organizations from which abundant information can be collected. As questionnaires will be distributed, some respondents might skip some questions and this will leave a loophole in the analysis. As Murshed& Zhang (2020) identified, one defect of qualitative data analysis is that it does not lead to concrete results.Another limitation of this research work would be that traveling expenses for distributing questionnaires will be huge.

One mitigation strategy to reduce the financial burden would be to contact and convince small business owners, over the phone or video conferencing. The owners and the employees should be convinced that this research will benefit them immensely and hence they should help by providing correct and relatable information in the questionnaire. The questionnaires can be shared online via Google forms.

Timeline

A Gantt chart illustrates the timeline of the research work taking into consideration the adequate time required for each step (Pruzan, 2020). The Gantt Chart for this research work has been presented below:

Questionnaire Survey

Cover Letter

Hello Sir/Madam

Sub.: Questionnaire survey for use of the DIY model in digital marketing adoption

This is a questionnaire survey that is being conducted to understand the relevance of the 'Do It Yourself' (DIY) model in the adoption of digital marketing techniques. As you all know,

the internet has made the world a global village and hence digital marketing has become very important in businesses for reaching out to maximum customers.

The survey conducted will be used in research work, which will open doors for the expansion of your businesses. It is, therefore, an earnest request to all of you kindly take part in this survey and provide relevant information by answering some simple questions.

Thanking you.

Regards.

Likert Scale

A Likert scale is used for psychometric analysis by asking respondents to rate the options available based on their preferences (Humphries, 2020). The draft for the Likert scale for this research work is drawn below:

Constructs and Indicators of The Study

Conclusion

This research proposal aimed to draft the framework for researching the effectiveness of the DIY model for digital marketing adoption in small businesses. The proposal introduces the research background, research aim, and research problems, background of the research, and the objectives and questions. The introduction gives a brief idea of why the research is important and should be carried out with real-life data that is collected through primary sources. The literature review highlights all the concepts related to digital marketing ad DIY technology. The literature survey is an important part as it helps in analyzing the data and reaching relevant conclusions.

References

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