Digital Marketing Adoption: Determinants, Level of Adoption and Its Impact on Business Performance

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to investigate how women entrepreneurs are utilising digital marketing media for business marketing and what their perceptions are about digitalisation and the adoption of digital marketing. The aim is to identify the most influential determinants of digital marketing adoption amongst women entrepreneurs, their level of adoption of DM tools, and how their adoption behaviour impacts on the sales of the enterprise and, hence business performance. The findings are drawn based on primary data collected from 136 women entrepreneurs from the state of Karnataka. Hierarchical regression analysis, Somer’s D correlation Test and other descriptive statistics were used to make valid inferences to achieve the objectives of the study. Six factors (perceived expertise, enterprise readiness, perceived industry and regulatory pressure, size of the enterprise, perceived consumer pressure and perceived benefits) were revealed, strongly influencing the digital marketing adoption behaviour among women entrepreneurs. It was also found that the majority of women entrepreneurs exhibited a a low level of adoption, thus indicating that digital marketing adoption is still in its infancy. The results indicated that there was a positive impact of DM adoption level on sales and thus, it also enhanced the business performance of the enterprise.