Running head: IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES
MICROBUSINESS MARKETING WITH NO TIME, NO MONEY, AND NO EXPERTISE—
RESEARCH AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS
FOR MICROBUSINESSES
by
George B. Krueger
A Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree
Doctorate of Business Administration
William Howard Taft University
January 2019
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES ii
© George B. Krueger, 2019
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES iii
WE, THE UNDERSIGNED MEMBERS OF THE COMMITTEE,
HAVE APPROVED THIS DISSERTATION
MICROBUSINESS MARKETING WITH NO TIME, NO MONEY, AND NO EXPERTISE—
RESEARCH AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS
FOR MICROBUSINESSES
by
George B. Krueger
January 2019
ACCEPTED AND APPROVED ON BEHALF
OF WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT UNIVERSITY
COMMITTEE MEMBERS
Jillian Skelton, Ed.D. Chair
Larry Ellis, Ph.D.
Michael Jones, Ph.D.
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES iv
Abstract
Microbusinesses are a specific type of small business that employ 9 or fewer people, including
the owner. Microbusinesses are a major factor in the national, regional, and local economies.
Microbusiness operators face the issues of limited time, money, and marketing expertise when
conducting daily operations. The purpose of the qualitative descriptive case study was to
describe the amount of time and money that microbusiness owners perceived to spend on
marketing. Time and money along with the perception of marketing expertise were then related
to the microbusiness sales performance. In this study, the respondents perceived that they did not
spend enough time on marketing because of daily challenges of running the business, but the
amount of time spent on marketing did not appear to be associated with sales performance.
Microbusiness operators perceived that they spent an adequate amount of money on marketing to
achieve their sales performance goals. In this study there appeared to be no association between
the money spent on marketing and sales performance. The microbusiness operators perceived
their marketing expertise to be adequate and higher levels of marketing expertise did appear to
have a positive association with sales performance. Improving the marketing budgeting process,
improving measurement of return-on-investment on the marketing spend, improving digital
marketing skills, and utilizing time-efficient marketing tools were key themes to increase
marketing effectiveness. The microbusiness marketing tools of personal selling, digital
marketing, relationship marketing, word of mouth, networking, and branding were found to
provide opportunities to improve sales performance by leveraging limited time, money, and
marketing expertise. The results of this study provide direction for microbusiness operators on
profitable time, money, and marketing expertise strategies to improve microbusiness sales
performance.
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES v
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Christine, Aksel, Sam, Joe, and Jacob for their support along this journey.
Thanks to my colleagues and administration at University of Wisconsin-Platteville for the
support. Thanks to my committee and Dr. Skelton for their direction and support. It has been a
fulfilling journey to achieve a life goal of a doctorate degree.
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES vi
Table of Contents
Page
List of Tables .................................................................................................................................. x
Chapter 1: Introduction ................................................................................................................... 1
Background of the Study .................................................................................................... 5
Problem Statement .............................................................................................................. 6
Purpose of the Study ........................................................................................................... 7
Research Questions ............................................................................................................. 7
Importance of the Study ...................................................................................................... 8
Research Design.................................................................................................................. 9
Definition of Terms........................................................................................................... 10
Assumptions, Limitations, and Delimitations ................................................................... 11
Summary ........................................................................................................................... 12
Chapter 2: Literature Review ........................................................................................................ 13
Literature Search ............................................................................................................... 19
Unique Aspects of Microbusiness Marketing ................................................................... 19
Marketing Conceptual Framework ................................................................................... 21
Entrepreneurial and Small-Business Marketing ............................................................... 25
Limited Time for Microbusiness Marketing ..................................................................... 32
Limited Money for Microbusiness Marketing .................................................................. 37
Limited Expertise for Microbusiness Marketing .............................................................. 41
Methodology ..................................................................................................................... 45
Summary ........................................................................................................................... 46
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES vii
Table of Contents (Cont.)
Page
Chapter 3: Methodology ............................................................................................................... 48
Background ....................................................................................................................... 49
Research Questions ........................................................................................................... 53
Methodology ..................................................................................................................... 54
Instrumentation ................................................................................................................. 55
Data Collection and Analysis Procedures ......................................................................... 56
Validity and Reliability ..................................................................................................... 58
Ethical Procedures ............................................................................................................ 59
Summary ........................................................................................................................... 60
Chapter 4: Findings ....................................................................................................................... 61
Findings............................................................................................................................. 63
Descriptive analysis of respondents ...................................................................... 63
Questionnaire and interview findings ................................................................... 64
Time spent on marketing ...................................................................................... 66
Money spent on marketing.................................................................................... 67
Marketing expertise .............................................................................................. 69
Relative importance of barriers to marketing effectiveness ................................. 70
Comparison to direct competition ......................................................................... 71
Exploration of microbusiness marketing strategies .............................................. 72
Researcher observations........................................................................................ 74
Discussion ......................................................................................................................... 76
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES viii
Table of Contents (Cont.)
Page
Theme: Narrow definition of marketing ............................................................... 77
Theme: Underestimation of time spent on marketing........................................... 77
Theme: Underestimation of the money spent on marketing ................................. 78
Theme: Lack of a marketing budgeting process ................................................... 78
Theme: Improvement of the return-on-investment process .................................. 78
Theme: High interest level in improving marketing expertise ............................. 79
Theme: High interest level in improving digital marketing expertise .................. 79
Theme: Traditional marketing strategies are effective ......................................... 79
Summary ........................................................................................................................... 80
Chapter 5: Conclusions, Discussion, Recommendations, and Summary ..................................... 81
Conclusions ....................................................................................................................... 82
Research Question 1 ......................................................................................................... 84
Research Question 2 ......................................................................................................... 86
Research Question 3 ......................................................................................................... 88
Exploration of Barriers to Marketing Effectiveness ......................................................... 90
Relative Comparison of Barriers to Direct Competitors................................................... 91
Microbusiness Marketing Strategies ................................................................................. 92
Discussion ......................................................................................................................... 95
Theme: Narrow definition of marketing ............................................................... 96
Theme: Underestimation of the time spent on marketing ..................................... 98
Theme: Underestimation of money spent on marketing ..................................... 100
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES ix
Table of Contents (Cont.)
Page
Theme: Lack of a marketing budgeting process ................................................. 101
Theme: Improvement of the return-on-investment process ................................ 101
Theme: High-interest level in improving marketing expertise ........................... 102
Theme: High-interest level in improving digital marketing expertise ................ 103
Theme: Traditional marketing strategies are effective ....................................... 104
Recommendations ........................................................................................................... 106
REFERENCES ........................................................................................................................... 109
APPENDIX A: Questionnaire .................................................................................................... 123
APPENDIX B: Observation Form .............................................................................................. 131
APPENDIX C: Informed Consent .............................................................................................. 132
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES x
List of Tables
Page
Table 1: Types of Microbusiness Interviewed .............................................................................. 63
Table 2: Sales Ranges of Participating Microbusinesses .............................................................. 64
Table 3: Satisfaction With Previous Year’s Sales Increase .......................................................... 65
Table 4: Satisfaction With YTD Sales Increase ........................................................................... 66
Table 5: Time Spent on Marketing ............................................................................................... 66
Table 6: Monthly Marketing Budget ............................................................................................ 67
Table 7: Monthly Marketing Budget Comparison to Sales Increases .......................................... 68
Table 8: Marketing Expertise Ratings .......................................................................................... 69
Table 9: Marketing Expertise Ratings Comparison to Sales Increases ........................................ 70
Table 10: Ratings of Barriers ........................................................................................................ 71
Table 11: Ratings of Comparison to Direct Competitors ............................................................. 72
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 1
Chapter 1:
Introduction
The United States Small Business Administration defined small businesses as having less
than 500 employees (U.S. Small Business Administration, 2017). Microbusinesses are defined
by the U.S. Small Business Development Administration Office of Advocacy as a small business
with nine employees or less (as cited in Headd, 2015). There are 3.8 million employer
microbusinesses in the United States (Headd, 2017). Microbusinesses are an important segment
of the United States economy, comprising 74.8% of private sector employers and employing
10.3% of private sector jobs (Headd, 2017). Microbusinesses are key components of local
economies and provide employment opportunities.
The actual definition of microbusiness is not definitive (Headd, 2015). The Association
for Enterprise Opportunity (2015) stated that microbusinesses are firms with zero to four
employees. The Association for Enterprise Opportunity reported 2.6 million employer firms that
employ 8 million people. These firms average $408,000 in sales (Association for Enterprise
Opportunity, 2015). Further adding to the complexity of the demographic analysis is that there
are 22 million nonemployer firms that average $45,000 in sales. Nonemployer firms employ only
the owner, having no other employees. For this study, microbusinesses are considered to have
nine or fewer employees, including the owner (Headd, 2015).
Microbusinesses are a subset of the small business market. Microbusinesses are typically
small and locally focused, providing limited products and services. The largest group are owners
who work full time with less than $50,000 in sales (Association for Enterprise Opportunity,
2011). Microbusinesses may be home based and provide a source of income for the owner.
Microbusinesses are typically based on the owner’s passion, skills, and expertise. There are low
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 2
barriers to entry for most microbusinesses (Association for Enterprise Opportunity, 2011).
Microbusinesses are often independent local business people who specialize in one type of
service or product.
Microbusinesses are critical for local economies. Microbusinesses provide products and
services that are vital for quality of life in communities, such as plumbers, builders, small
retailers, transportation, accountants, lawyers, medical services, real estate, insurance, specialty
products, and food service. Home-based businesses are an important component of business
development (Mattare, Monahan, & Shah, 2011). Indeed, encouraging and supporting
microbusiness is a viable local economic development strategy (Mattare et al., 2011). A thriving
microbusiness ecosystem has economic benefit for the community.
Microbusinesses create economic opportunity for the owners. Microbusinesses are often
started by displaced workers or people wanting to be their own boss (Association for Enterprise
Opportunity, 2011). There also may be limited local job opportunities, thereby creating the
personal drive to start a microbusiness (Mattare et al., 2011). Last, owners may have an expertise
that lends itself to operating a microbusiness such as automobile repair.
Entrepreneurs are considered small businesses as a result of their small number of
employees, often with nine employees or less. However, entrepreneurs are not considered
microbusinesses. Businesspeople are considered entrepreneurs when they start new businesses to
pursue new technologies or business ideas with the purpose of exponential growth (Fiore,
Niehm, Hurst, Son, & Sadachar, 2013). The entrepreneurial mind-set seeks out new
opportunities with a focus on exponential growth. Entrepreneurs have a different set of goals
than microbusiness people. Microbusinesses differ from entrepreneurial startups because they
have more modest goals and limited growth opportunities (Becherer & Helms, 2016).
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 3
The microbusiness segment has a unique set of challenges because of its small size and
lack of resources (Grimes, 2012). Microbusinesses are often resource constrained in comparison
to larger businesses. Indeed, managing a business of 100 or more employees is different from
managing a business of nine or fewer employees and entails a different set of operating issues on
a daily basis (Long, 2017). Previous research has identified the issues of limited time, money,
and marketing expertise as significant barriers to success for microbusinesses (Brown-Peterson,
2017).
Previous studies have found that marketing is critical to the success of the
microbusinesses (Long, 2017; Marom & Lussier, 2014; Premo-Hurt, 2016). The ability to
acquire and retain customers who provide sales to the microbusiness is a key success factor in
the survival of the microbusiness (Long, 2017). Specifically, small-business owners without
marketing skills have a higher chance of failure than small-business owners with marketing skills
(Marom & Lussier, 2014). Effective marketing is an important aspect of microbusiness success.
Microbusinesses are focused on operating the business on a daily basis (Monahan, Shah,
& Mattare, 2011). Daily operations require a microbusiness owner to have expertise over a broad
scope of business functions (i.e., finance, sales, operations, human resources, customer service)
along with their particular area of expertise (Solis, 2017). The challenge of managing the various
operating functions along with the challenge of adapting to a dynamic external environment can
be overwhelming to the microbusiness owner (Ab-Rahman, Mandrinos, & Hashim, 2015).
Because of their small size and broad scope of responsibilities, microbusiness ownership can be
challenging.
Researchers have identified gaps that create opportunities for future research on
microbusiness marketing (Gherhes, Williams, Vorley, & Vasconcelos, 2016; Premo-Hurt, 2016).
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 4
The use of digital marketing, specifically social media, is an opportunity for microbusinesses to
market to customers at a low cost. Researching successful social media marketing strategies was
identified as a subject to explore more fully (Brown-Peterson, 2017; Bruce, 2016; Caruth, 2016).
Small sample sizes have been an issue in many qualitative studies conducted on microbusiness
marketing strategies (Pai, 2017), Demishkevich (2015), Gandy (2015), and Fluker (2016)
recommended that studies with larger sample sizes would improve applicability of results along
with conducting microbusiness marketing research in other geographic areas. Premo-Hurt (2016)
recommended researching different geographic locations, selecting larger sample sizes, and
choosing a different conceptual framework for microbusiness success. Yang (2015)
recommended research on varied microbusiness sectors and industries.
This study addressed many of the gaps that were identified by previous researchers on
microbusiness marketing. The sample size was 18 participants, which is significantly larger than
previous qualitative studies. The research was conducted in southwestern Wisconsin. Conducting
research in this area added to the geographic diversity of the body of knowledge of
microbusiness marketing. Finally, the conceptual framework of constraints on time, money, and
expertise related to sales growth has been previously identified for further study.
The results of this study have the potential to help address specific marketing issues of
limited time, money, and marketing expertise, which can also aid in the understanding of
microbusiness marketing in the context of improving microbusiness performance. It can also
provide economic development organization information and tools to improve their support of
microbusinesses in their local areas. It adds to the body of knowledge on microbusiness
marketing.
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 5
Background of the Study
Effective marketing is a key factor of success for any business. Microbusinesses are
especially vulnerable to issues created by poor marketing (Premo-Hurt, 2016). The gain or loss
of just a few customers can be the difference between success and failure for a microbusiness. It
is critical for microbusinesses to effectively attract effectively, satisfy, and retain customers
because of their lack of size and critical mass.
Microbusinesses pursue marketing strategies such as networking, relationships, word of
mouth, and customer-focused activities in the context of their daily operations. Microbusinesses
tend to implement marketing strategies that fit their size, expertise, market position, and intuition
(Premo-Hurt, 2016). This is in contrast to larger firms that utilize a strategic marketing strategy
that is more conventional (Yang, 2015). In addition, researchers have identified digital marketing
strategies that can be implemented in the context of daily operations (Brown-Peterson, 2017;
Caruth, 2016; Demishkevich, 2015; Jenkins, 2015).
Microbusiness marketing has not been researched extensively (Premo-Hurt, 2016).
Monahan et al. (2011) found the body of research limited regarding microbusinesses in general
and that the focus of research was often on entrepreneurs. There has been significant research on
marketing for small and medium enterprises but little research on the subset of microbusinesses
(Gherhes et al., 2016). There was an opportunity to conduct qualitative descriptive case study
research that focused on limited time, money, and marketing expertise in order to understand
more completely the specific issues related to microbusiness marketing.
The microbusiness owner is often focused on daily operations, so marketing is not a
priority because of a lack of time (Demishkevich, 2015). In addition, there are issues of a lack of
money and marketing expertise that can hinder the marketing effort (Premo-Hurt, 2016).
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 6
Microbusiness owners who have an operating expertise that is the base of the business are often
not proficient in marketing (Gandy, 2015). A recurring theme in previous research is that
microbusiness owners need to address effectively the resource constraints of time, money, and
marketing expertise to improve marketing effectiveness (Au, 2015; Brown-Peterson, 2017;
Bruce, 2016).
This qualitative descriptive case study was intended to explore the issues of
microbusiness marketing in the context of limited time, money, and marketing expertise.
Microbusiness owners were interviewed on time and money spent on marketing along with their
level of marketing expertise. The perceived business performance was described in the context of
limited time, money, and marketing expertise. Microbusiness marketing strategies of personal
selling, networking, relationship building, digital, and word of mouth were also described.
Problem Statement
Reiner, Reimann, and Vitkauskaite (2016) stated that innovation (i.e., marketing) for
microbusinesses is difficult because of a lack of capital, expertise, and time. Impediments to
effective marketing include inadequate time, money, and expertise to develop and implement
successful marketing strategies (Premo-Hurt, 2016). A common theme researchers identified is
that microbusiness owners face significant issues regarding limited time, money, and marketing
expertise (Brown-Peterson, 2017; Schaupp & Bélanger, 2013). The problem statement is
microbusinesses have inadequate time, money, and marketing expertise to develop and
implement successful marketing strategies. The relationships among the time and money spent
along with marketing expertise to sales performance has not been specifically explored in
previous qualitative research. The research study focused on a descriptive case study analysis
that investigated the relationship of the microbusiness owner’s time and money spent on
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 7
marketing along with perceived marketing expertise to the owner’s evaluation of sales
performance.
Purpose of the Study
The purpose of the qualitative descriptive case study was to describe the amount of time
and money that microbusiness owners spend on marketing. The study described the
microbusiness owner’s perception of his or her marketing expertise. The three concepts of time,
money, and marketing expertise were related to the microbusiness owner’s perception of sales
performance. In addition, other aspects of microbusiness marketing related to time, money, and
marketing expertise were explored and evaluated. The location of the study was southwestern
Wisconsin.
The study benefits microbusinesses by identifying factors of success related to time,
money, and marketing expertise. The results of this study have the potential to provide direction
for microbusiness owners on profitable time, money, and marketing expertise strategies to
improve microbusiness sales performance. The study also provides recommendations and tools
for microbusinesses to develop and implement effective marketing strategies. In addition,
microbusiness support organizations that are involved in small business and economic
development can use the results to improve their support of microbusinesses. Communities can
benefit economically from more successful microbusinesses that provide employment, products,
services, and income to the local economic environment.
Research Questions
Microbusiness owners (nine or fewer employees) were interviewed in southwestern
Wisconsin. The study addressed the following research questions:
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 8
R1: What is the perception of microbusiness owner’s time spent on marketing to sales
performance?
R2: What is the perception of the relationship of money spent on marketing to sales
performance?
R3: What is the perceived relationship of marketing expertise to sales performance?
Importance of the Study
The gap in the microbusiness research was that the themes of limited time, money, and
marketing expertise had not been described in detail. There was also a gap in relating the themes
of limited time, money, and marketing expertise to sales performance. Further research has also
been recommended on key marketing themes of personal selling, digital marketing, relationship
building, networking, branding, and word-of-mouth marketing.
The study focused on the microbusiness segment of the small-business market.
Microbusinesses employ nine people or less, including the owner. The yearly sales of the
business were defined along with years in business. The respondents were questioned on their
perception of previous year’s and year-to-date sales performance. Microbusiness owners also
estimated the time per week spent on marketing, their perception of whether it is enough time to
achieve their goals, and their perception of time spent compared to direct competition.
Microbusiness owners also estimated the amount of money spent on marketing per month along
with their perception of whether it is enough to achieve their goals and their perception of money
spent compared to direct competition. Their perception of return on investment of the marketing
spend was also described. The microbusiness owner’s perception of their relative marketing
expertise was described along his or her perception of how his or her company compared to the
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 9
competition. The microbusiness owners were also queried on their use of specific marketing
strategies.
The purpose of the study was to describe the concept of limited time, money, and
expertise for microbusiness marketing. A descriptive analysis was performed on the concepts of
time, money, and marketing expertise effect on the microbusiness owner’s perception of
previous year and year-to-date sales performance. The results of this study provide direction for
microbusiness owners on profitable time, money, and expertise strategies to improve
microbusiness sales performance.
Research Design
A qualitative descriptive case study was chosen for this study to develop further the
previous research on microbusiness marketing that identified limited time, money, and marketing
expertise as themes that hinder the success of microbusiness marketing (Brown-Peterson, 2017;
Bruce, 2016; Premo-Hurt, 2016; Yang, 2015). A qualitative descriptive case study described
microbusiness marketing’s key aspects in the context of limited time, money, and marketing
expertise in detail to develop the themes previous microbusiness marketing research identified.
The researcher used Likert scales on the themes of limited time, money, and marketing
expertise to introduce the topics and describe the relative importance of each topic to the
participant. The respondents were asked open-ended questions when explaining their responses.
The interviews mix of demographic questions, Likert-scale responses, and open-ended questions
were intended to elicit information-rich responses.
Data collection was done by the researcher personally interviewing microbusiness owners
in southwest Wisconsin. The participants were not identified and the responses were anonymous.
Participants could end their interviews and withdraw their consent at any time. Face-to-face
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 10
interviews were recorded on a questionnaire (see APPENDIX A). The questions were focused on
the themes of limited time, money, and marketing expertise. Questions on marketing practices
had Likert scales and open-ended responses to elicit information-rich responses. The data were
compiled and analyzed by the researcher. The questionnaires will be kept in a secure location for
five years. After that time, the questionnaires will be destroyed.
Definition of Terms
Entrepreneur: A business where the owner is pursuing a technology-based strategy with
exponential growth potential (Mort, Weerawardena, & Liesch, 2012).
Entrepreneurial marketing: Marketing strategies that focus on creativity, and are
emergent, aggressive, and highly flexible (Anwar & Daniel, 2016).
Marketing: The actions and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and
exchanging offers of value with customers (American Marketing Association, 2018); the
promotion of the business to customers.
Microbusiness: A business with at least one employee, but no more than nine employees
(including the owner), that focuses on the owner’s expertise, and a local market (Association for
Enterprise Opportunity, 2015).
Networking: The microbusiness owner focuses on community involvement along with
local relationships with customers and influencers to promote his or her business (Gibbons,
2015).
Relationship building: A marketing strategy that emphasizes working closely with
customers to meet their needs and keep them satisfied (Fluker, 2016); satisfied customers then
are retained by the business for further business and also are a source of word-of-mouth
marketing.
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 11
Small business: Businesses that employ less than 500 employees (U.S. Small Business
Administration, 2017).
Word-of-mouth marketing: A marketing strategy where customers promote the
microbusiness through talking about their positive experiences; word of mouth is often leveraged
through social media to retain customers and gain new customers (Jenkins, 2015).
Assumptions, Limitations, and Delimitations
The assumptions of the study started with respondents’ honest responses to questions. A
key assumption was that the researcher worded the questions to elicit accurate responses. It was
also assumed that the researcher did not bias the responses to the questions during the interview.
The participants were assumed to have a suitable level of expertise in marketing to answer the
questions accurately. It was also assumed that the participants’ answers accurately represent and
were applicable to the population of rural microbusinesses.
Limitations of the study were related to participants’ answers and the rural location. The
information can be considered sensitive for microbusiness owners, which may bias how they
answered questions. Participants may not have truthfully divulge information on marketing
expertise that reflected poorly on their business. Participants may not have been willing to
provide truthful information on sales performance because of the sensitive nature of the subject.
The participants may have also overestimated or underestimated their results and provided
inaccurate responses. The participant’s perceptions may not have been an accurate representation
of the situation. The researcher may have been biased and used terms that were not familiar to
the participants, thereby reducing reliability and validity. The participants were in rural areas;
therefore, the results may not generalize to other areas.
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 12
The research study remained delimited in several ways. A qualitative case study provides
insight and information, but lacks quantitative analysis. The researcher chose to delimit the study
to rural areas. Urban areas were excluded because of the focus on rural microbusiness
development. The study was also delimited to the perceptions of the participants for their
answers.
Summary
Microbusinesses are an important sector of the economy. Microbusinesses focus on the
owner’s expertise and the local market. Microbusinesses employ nine or less people, including
the owner. Marketing is an important aspect of business success; however, microbusiness owners
are challenged with limited resources of time, money, and marketing expertise. The purpose of
this study was to describe the relationships among time, money, and marketing expertise on sales
results. The results of this study will aid in the improvement of marketing for microbusinesses
and support organizations to improve success.
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 13
Chapter 2:
Literature Review
Small businesses are a major driver of the economy. In the United States, there are 29.6
million small businesses (500 or less employees) that employ 57.9 million people (U.S. Small
Business Administration, 2017). The smaller businesses that employ less than 20 people make up
98% of the total number of businesses. Small businesses are also an important part of the
economic structure of communities.
A subset of small businesses is microbusinesses that employ nine or less people,
including the owner. Microbusinesses, such as building contractors, professional service
providers, small specialty retailers, and other enterprises that focus on the individual owner’s
skill sets make up the microbusiness segment. In smaller rural communities, niche markets offer
opportunities for microbusinesses (Dinis, 2006). Microbusiness owners are often more invested
in their communities than larger businesses (Sarra & Berman, 2017). Microbusinesses often
support local initiatives to promote the community through arts and social responsibility.
Microbusiness owners are often leaders of community-oriented associations such as chambers of
commerce and Main Street programs. Microbusinesses are an important part of local
communities and economies.
The dynamics of operating a microbusiness with less than nine employees are different
from a small business with more than 100 employees. Larger small businesses can afford to hire
specialists for key functional areas such as accounting, finance, human resources, marketing, and
supply chain. A microbusiness owner needs to have expertise over a broad range of functional
business areas along with a particular area of expertise (Solis, 2017). The challenge of managing
the various operating functions along with the challenge of adapting to a dynamic external
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 14
environment can be overwhelming to the microbusiness owner (Ab-Rahman, Mandrinos, &
Hashim, 2015). Because of the small size and broad scope of responsibilities, microbusiness
ownership can be challenging.
It has been established that marketing is one of the keys to success for small businesses
(Long, 2017). Successful implementation of marketing strategies creates competitive advantage
for firms (West, Ford, & Ibrahim, 2015). Competitive advantage is built through cost-effective
marketing strategies that attract customers. Superior offerings that build value for customers
along with excellent customer service build competitive advantage.
The Lussier model identified 15 variables that lead to success or failure of a small
business (Marom & Lussier, 2014). Of the 15 variables, two are directly applicable to
microbusiness marketing. One of the relevant aspects of the Lussier model is marketing.
Specifically, small-business owners without marketing skills have a higher chance of failure than
small-business owners with marketing skills. The other relevant aspect is capital. Small
businesses that are underfunded have a higher likelihood of failure. Capital was highly
significant at .004, whereas marketing was moderately significant at .108. The Lussier model
supports the theme that lack of money negatively affects small-business success. It also supports
the theme that marketing expertise is important to the success of a small business.
The acquisition and retention of customers through effective marketing strategies are key
processes for microbusinesses. Customer acquisition is a major issue for microbusinesses, with
44% of Australian microbusinesses indicating that their biggest business challenge is finding
clients (Flying Solo, 2017). Customer retention is one of the keys to successful microbusiness
marketing. Microbusinesses often rely on relationship marketing through word of mouth and
social media for both customer acquisition and retention (Jenkins, 2015; Yang, 2015). The ability
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 15
to attract and retain customers based on relationship marketing is a strategy that microbusinesses
can implement to build competitive advantage.
Microbusinesses have unique challenges because the owner has many daily management
responsibilities, including running operations, finance, sales, marketing, human resource
management, bookkeeping, and planning. Microbusinesses are focused on daily operations and
achieving short-term goals (Monahan et al., 2011). Microbusinesses are often more focused on
operations and providing income for a family. In many cases, microbusiness owners do not want
to grow because growth may negatively impact their lifestyle or employees (Weber, Geneste, &
Connell, 2015). Marketing may not be the priority on a daily basis nor be a major factor in the
strategic direction of the microbusiness because of the unique challenges of microbusiness daily
operations and the focus on the owner.
Microbusinesses often face intensely competitive markets where customers have many
options (Alom, Abdullah, Moten, & Azam, 2016). The situation where marketing is not a high
priority for microbusinesses can create competitive issues. For example, if the time to acquire
new customers is lengthy, a lack of focus on marketing can create a situation where there are not
enough customers to sustain the business. The microbusiness may also resort to using short-term
marketing tools that reduce price, resulting in a decline of margins (Krämer, Jung, & Burgartz,
2016). Using price as a marketing tool can produce short-term sales increases. However, this
strategy can result in attracting price buyers who are not loyal along with competitive price
reduction actions. These negative results can reduce profitability and threaten the viability of the
microbusiness.
Competitive issues can also arise as a result of the relatively small size of the
microbusiness. Small businesses have limited resources for marketing (Brown-Peterson, 2017).
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 16
This issue can be exacerbated if the microbusiness is competing with larger businesses that have
expertise, financial, and scale competitive advantages (Bruce, 2016). In addition, because of the
small size of a microbusiness, the loss of an individual customer may create a more significant
issue than for a larger business where loss of an individual customer is spread over a larger
customer base. The small size of a microbusiness is a significant issue in the context of
competitive positioning.
There are advantages to being small from a marketing perspective for a microbusiness.
The microbusiness owner is close to the market and customers. This can create an opportunity to
identify and act on market opportunities first. Acting on marketing opportunities first can create
competitive advantage (West et al., 2015). Microbusiness owners often possess insight on the
market that can create competitive advantages. Because of their small size and focus on daily
operations, microbusinesses can respond quickly to changes in customer needs (Liao, Rice, &
Lu, 2015). The microbusiness owner has no organizational structure to navigate thereby creating
a competitive advantage of organizational speed over larger businesses. The microbusiness also
may have low overhead costs, which can create a cost advantage compared to larger businesses
that have higher overhead costs.
Microbusinesses pursue marketing strategies that fit their size, expertise, market position,
and intuition (Premo-Hurt, 2016). Microbusinesses tend toward networking and customer-
focused marketing strategies rather than more conventional large-firm marketing strategies
(Yang, 2015). Larger firms with resources and expertise develop and implement long-term
marketing strategies that encompass marketing research, customer focus, opportunity analysis,
and implementation of extensive promotion strategies. In contrast, microbusiness marketing
strategies are more focused on the short term. This situation may put the microbusiness at a
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 17
strategic disadvantage because of the limited and reactive nature of short-term marketing
strategies.
The rise of digital marketing has added complexity and new promotion tools to an
already complicated marketing environment (Ryan, 2016). Larger businesses have the resources
to utilize digital marketing tools in their marketing strategies. Microbusinesses often struggle to
implement digital marketing strategies (Nikunen, Saarela, Oikarinen, Muhos, & Isohella, 2017).
Microbusinesses that are not utilizing digital marketing tools may be at a competitive
disadvantage.
Social media is an effective marketing tool for microbusinesses (Au, 2015). Social media
offers microbusinesses opportunities to connect and interact with customers on a personal basis.
It is cost effective and microbusinesses can build competitive advantage (Brown-Peterson,
2017). The social media adoption process of initiation, adoption, adaptation, acceptance, use, and
incorporation has resulted in social media positively affecting relationship marketing for
microbusinesses (Mandal, 2015). Successful microbusinesses utilize planning processes and
implement effective social media strategies to pursue cost-effective relationship marketing
strategies.
The issue of financial and time allocation priorities can lead a microbusiness not to invest
resources in marketing and put the microbusiness at a competitive disadvantage in the market.
The microbusiness owner has many uses for cash flow and capital, especially if the market is in a
downturn (Enqvist, Graham, & Nikkinen, 2014). Uses of capital include payroll, equipment
purchases, inventory, and operating expenses. Marketing also takes valuable time that the owner
needs to spend on other daily business operations such as delivering the product to customers to
generate sales (Fiore et al., 2013). Marketing can be expensive and time consuming, thereby
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 18
creating the situation where the owner focuses on higher priorities in the daily operation of the
microbusiness.
In addition to marketing not being a high priority, marketing can be time consuming and
complicated as a result of a turbulent operating environment (Marjanova Jovanov &
Temjanovski, 2015). Constant shifting of competitive markets, customer needs, and marketing
technology create a difficult environment for the microbusiness owner to allocate time to
marketing. Microbusiness owners are challenged by limitations on financial resources, time, and
marketing expertise (Brown-Peterson, 2017). The combination of a time consuming and
complicated marketing environment with resource constraints creates issues for microbusiness
owners.
Small business and entrepreneurial marketing have been studied, but microbusiness
marketing has not been researched extensively (Premo-Hurt, 2016). Monahan et al. (2011) found
the body of research limited regarding microbusinesses in general. The researchers also found
that the focus of research was often entrepreneurship and there is a dearth of research on the
specifics of microbusiness marketing (Monahan et al., 2011). Another study found a significant
body of research on small and medium enterprises but little research on the subset of
microbusinesses (Gherhes et al., 2016).
This chapter covers the current research on microbusiness marketing along with issue
identification. A general overview of small-business and entrepreneurial marketing is reviewed
because of the paucity of directly applicable microbusiness marketing research. There are many
applicable aspects of small-business and entrepreneurial marketing that can be applied to
microbusiness marketing.
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 19
Literature Search
The literature review was based on Google and EBSCO databases of professional and
academic literature. Specifically, Google Scholar, Google, ABI-Inform, ProQuest Dissertations
& Theses Global, and ProQuest Central. Journal articles, dissertations, books, and government
information were the main sources. The reference sources were 75% (79) within five years, 22%
(24) within 10 years, and 3% (3) beyond 10 years. The key search terms included microbusiness
marketing, microbusiness management, entrepreneurial marketing, entrepreneurial orientation,
small-business marketing, small-business management, small-business success, small-business
finance, marketing theory, marketing orientation, digital marketing, branding, social-media
marketing, microbusiness time management, microbusiness marketing expertise, and
microbusiness financial resources.
Unique Aspects of Microbusiness Marketing
Rural areas offer opportunities for microbusiness operations because of low cost of
operation, lifestyle, and location preference of the owner. Many microbusinesses pursue small
niche markets, especially in rural areas (Dinis, 2006). Niche marketing strategies are often
appropriate for rural firms because of their location and niche nature of their businesses. For
example, small businesses can successfully pursue niche strategies that emphasize relationships,
are innovative, and utilize green characteristics (Maziriri & Chinomona, 2016). Microbusinesses
can contribute to the overall vitality of a local economy, especially in rural areas.
In many cases, a microbusiness consists of one employee: the owner. The owner’s
knowledge, skills, and ability to make marketing decisions are key aspects that influence the
firm’s performance (Centeno, Hart, & Dinnie, 2013; Demishkevich, 2015). However, because of
the broad scope of business functions, the planning process is often truncated and tactical in
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 20
nature (Solis, 2017). Even though microbusinesses are tactical in nature, they still need to
innovate. The need to innovate is often difficult to fulfill because of lack of capital, access to the
required innovative technologies, the necessary experts (qualification), and general lack of time
(Reiner et al., 2016). The microbusiness owner faces many business management challenges,
including marketing.
A key aspect of microbusiness marketing is the use of technology. Digital marketing
tools were found to have a positive influence on marketing performance for small businesses
(Eid & El-Gohary, 2013; Sheikh, Shahzad, & Ishaq, 2017). Demishkevich (2015) found that
microbusiness owners can create a long-term competitive advantage by leveraging their
resources to compete online. Microbusiness owners who create digital marketing capabilities that
are valuable, difficult to imitate, and nonsubstitutable build competitive advantage.
Social media marketing has the potential to have a positive impact on marketing and
customer service for small businesses (Schaupp & Bélanger, 2013). However, developing and
implementing digital marketing strategies requires expertise that microbusinesses may not
possess or can afford to hire. Microbusiness owners face barriers such as lack of time, financial
resources, and knowledge that inhibits effective social media strategies (Au, 2015). Brown-
Peterson (2017) found that successful social media strategies for microbusinesses included the
concepts of relevance, responsiveness, engaging content, paid promotion, adequate time, and a
reasonable budget. Microbusiness owners have the opportunity to utilize better time and
financial resources through effective social media marketing strategies.
A microbusiness is typically focused on the owner’s specific skill set and expertise,
which may not include marketing. In addition, microbusiness owners tend not to have a formal
education in business or engage with external support agencies (Yang, 2015). Therefore, they
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 21
need marketing expertise support from community‐based networks (Miller, Besser, & Weber,
2010). This dynamic creates an opportunity for communities to support microbusinesses through
offering programs to increase marketing expertise.
Microbusinesses tend to use word of mouth, relationships, and networking marketing
strategies (Long, 2017). Networking is a viable marketing strategy for small community retailers
that accrues economic as well as social benefits from interactions with network members
(Razalan, Bickle, Park, & Brosdahl, 2017). Word of mouth from current customers is a time-
honored marketing technique and is a powerful marketing tool (Vázquez-Casielles, Suárez-
Álvarez, & Río-Lanza, 2013). These types of marketing tools are relatively low cost and fit into
the daily operations of the owner. Building relationships within the community is a natural fit as
a marketing strategy for the microbusiness owner.
There are key differences in marketing strategies based on firm size (Franco, de Fátima
Santos, Ramalho, & Nunes, 2014). Microbusiness marketing is different from larger firms
(Grimes, 2012). Larger firms have resources and dedicated personnel trained in marketing.
Microbusiness marketing issues have been defined by limited time, money, and expertise
(Brown-Peterson, 2017). The small size of a microbusiness dictates that the marketing strategy
needs to provide a relevant return on investment of not only money, but also time spent on
marketing by the owner. The marketing strategy also needs to fit into the owner’s daily operation
of the microbusiness. The nature of the small size of a microbusiness creates marketing
challenges.
Marketing Conceptual Framework
Marketing is important for the success of small businesses (Franco et al., 2014).
Conventional marketing strategy focuses on market segmentation, targeting, and positioning.
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 22
The marketing mix of product, price, place, and promotion (four P’s) is then developed around
the target customer’s needs. Market orientation, solutions-focused marketing, and branding are
also applicable to microbusiness marketing (Premo-Hurt, 2016). Developing and implementing
effective marketing strategies are important to microbusiness success even though
microbusinesses have resource limitations.
Market orientation is defined as focusing externally on the customer and meeting the
customer’s needs. Firms that are market oriented focus on the customer, respond quickly to
changes in the market, and strive to outperform direct competitors (Porter, 1990). Firms can
pursue competitive advantage through marketing strategies under the conceptual framework of
cost-leadership, focused cost-leadership–differentiation, differentiation, and focused
differentiation. These marketing strategies can be applied to reach business goals (Liao et al.,
2015). Firm capabilities in marketing that have a fit with the firm strategy positively impacted
short-term and long-term performance (Feng, 2013). Microbusinesses that focus on their
customers, adapt to their competitive environment, and develop marketing strategies that align
with their business strengths have the opportunity to create competitive advantage.
Firms that pursue a market-orientation strategy were found to improve word-of-mouth
marketing and customer relationships (Sayil, Donmaz, Simsek, & Akyol, 2016). In addition,
applying a specific framework of marketing activities to improve systematically the firm’s
degree of market orientation positively impacted business performance and customer satisfaction
(Gupta, Bridgman, & Sahi, 2015). Microbusinesses that pursue a market-orientation strategy can
improve their customer relationships and business results.
External focus is important to implement a market-orientation strategy. A complementary
strategy to external focus is internal marketing orientation. Khazaei, Khodadadi, and
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 23
Amirbakzadeh (2017) found that an internal marketing orientation that focuses on customers,
internal processes, learning, and growth had a positive effective on small-business performance.
The internal processes include operations management. The combination of an external-
marketing focus with an internal operational focus on customers can produce a competitive
advantage for the microbusiness.
The combination of external-customer focus and internal-marketing orientation aligns
with the daily operations focus of the microbusiness owner (Premo-Hurt, 2016). The tendency
for microbusiness owners to focus on daily operations creates an opportunity to leverage this
focus with marketing (Centeno et al., 2013). The alignment of marketing with daily operations
can create opportunities to utilize resources efficiently for the microbusiness owner.
The increase in the use of digital marketing has created additional opportunities to
implement a market orientation strategy through electronic marketing orientation (EMO). EMO
uses digital marketing tools, such as social media, to communicate with customers and increase
customer satisfaction (Habibi, Hamilton, Valos, & Callaghan, 2015). Shaltoni, West, Alnawas,
and Shatnawi (2018) presented that small business can use an EMO construct consisting of
management beliefs, initiation, and implementation activities. The application of EMO can
create competitive advantage for small businesses. EMO was also found to enhance business
performance by positively influencing innovation through shared knowledge and vision (Schulz,
Martin, & Meyer, 2017). EMO is a key opportunity to improve business results for
microbusinesses.
Market orientation improves the financial performance of small firms when linked with
brand orientation that ultimately produces positive brand performance (Laukkanen, Tuominen,
Reijonen, & Hirvonen, 2016). Market-orientation practices that increase brand relevance and
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 24
value can lead to positive brand performance. For example, the owner produces a product that
creates significant value to the customer. The value delivered to the customer increases the
perceived brand value to the customer. This increased brand value can result in higher sales,
market share, and profitability, thereby increasing brand performance.
Renton, Daellenbach, Davenport, and Richard (2015) found that small businesses use
brand management practices to build competitive advantage. Brand management practices
develop positioning, differentiation, and brand identity to customers. Brand management
practices build brand value and positive brand associations with customers. Small firms were less
sophisticated with brand management practices and tended to concentrate on building and
communicating identities. Medium-sized firms were more sophisticated and used more tools to
build brands along with leveraging identities. Medium-sized firms also created separate brand
identities whereas small firms tended use only one brand. Brand management is an excellent
strategy to build competitive advantage in microbusiness marketing.
Relationship marketing is a key strategy for microbusinesses (Premo-Hurt, 2016). The
microbusiness owner is also involved directly with the customer on a daily basis, which builds
relationships. Microbusinesses that build relationships with customers and satisfy their needs
better than the competition have an advantage. Indeed, relationship marketing can improve
organizational and financial performance (Radu, 2013). Customer preferences are a central focus
of relationship marketing (Sarathy & Banalieva, 2014). Bruce (2016) found that customer
retention was enhanced with a relationship marketing strategy. Caruth (2016) also found that
competitive advantage was enhanced when the small-business owner strongly emphasized the
importance of the customer experience provided by his or her business. The concept of
relationship marketing for microbusinesses is supported in the literature.
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 25
An interesting aspect of the small-business marketing strategy is the concept that the
small-business owner is often the brand of the business (Centeno et al., 2013). The extensive use
of relationship building, word of mouth, and networking in small business often requires that the
owner is the focal point of the marketing strategy. Microbusiness owners can build
differentiation and competitive advantage by developing their brand identity and communicating
it to customers through relationships and networking.
The issue for using conventional marketing strategies in microbusiness is that they
require time, money, and expertise that are in short supply to the microbusiness owner. Ettenson,
Conrado, and Knowles (2013) presented an alternative to conventional marketing (four P’s of
product, place, price, and promotion) in the context of business-to-business marketing called
Solutions, Access, Value and Education (SAVE). Conventional marketing focuses on product
rather than value and the advantage of being a trusted source. The construct of SAVE is solutions
rather than products, access rather than place, value rather than price, and education rather than
promotion. The SAVE construct fits effectively with the customer-focus mind-set of
microbusinesses. The SAVE concept can be used for microbusiness marketing strategies of
relationship marketing, branding, social media, word of mouth, and networking. The SAVE
concept has the potential to reduce the complexity of marketing, thereby reducing the resources
required for planning and implementing marketing strategies.
Entrepreneurial and Small-Business Marketing
Entrepreneurial marketing is similar to microbusiness marketing because of the focus on
the owner–founder (Franco et al., 2014). The owner is often the driving force and the brand
identity of the business. An aspect of being the driving force of the business is the owner’s vision
and strategic direction. Entrepreneurial marketing is often intuitive and situation specific rather
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 26
than strategic (Bettiol, Di Maria, & Finotto, 2012). In many cases, the owner is the marketer and
brand of the business. There are applications of entrepreneurial marketing to microbusiness
marketing, most namely branding, intuition, and situational opportunities.
Entrepreneurs often suffer from constraints and lack of resources related to time, money,
and expertise, which are similar to microbusiness marketing resource constraints (Kannampuzha
& Suoranta, 2016). The issue of lack of resources creates a situation where the owner must adapt
to the situation to achieve the business goals. Entrepreneurial marketing is emergent and uses
resources creatively (Anwar & Daniel, 2016). Entrepreneurial marketing is also based on
immediate and available resources (Kilenthong, Hultman, & Hills, 2016). This situation is
similar to microbusiness marketing where the owner will use resources creatively and include
marketing activities as an aspect of daily business operations.
In contrast to microbusiness marketing, entrepreneurial marketing as a concept comprises
opportunity creation, customer intimacy‐based innovative products, resource enhancement, and
legitimacy (Mort et al., 2012). Entrepreneurs may be driven by a lucrative new technology or
market opportunity that can result in exponential growth. In contrast, microbusiness owners
pursue business opportunities with limited technology and market opportunity. In addition,
entrepreneurs pursue opportunities that may entail high risk whereas typical microbusiness
opportunities are less risky. Entrepreneurs are typically more risk tolerant than larger businesses
(Ellen, Anantadjaya, & Saroso, 2014). Entrepreneurial and microbusiness marketing differ as a
result of technology, market opportunity, and relative risk of the business. Because of the
different business objectives, strategic direction, and levels of risk, entrepreneurs and
microbusiness owners address marketing from different perspectives. The mind-sets and goals
that drive entrepreneurial marketing are different from microbusiness marketing.
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 27
Even though entrepreneurial and microbusiness marketing are different as a result of
technology, market opportunity, and relative risk, there are aspects of entrepreneurial marketing
that are applicable to microbusiness marketing (Becherer & Helms, 2016). Niehm, Dorie, Jablon,
Fiore, and Hurst (2016) studied the effect of entrepreneurial marketing on small retail-related
enterprises. Entrepreneurial marketing focused on seeking out opportunities, focusing on the
customer, reducing risk, and creating value. In the study, the researchers found that
entrepreneurial marketing strategies had a positive effect on small-business financial
performance. These concepts align effectively with microbusiness marketing. There are
opportunities to apply entrepreneurial marketing concepts to microbusiness marketing.
A key aspect of entrepreneurial marketing is the concept of exploitation (Osiri, 2013).
Exploitation is where the firm focuses on a short-term marketing strategy to build competitive
advantage. This concept involves learning to service more effectively current markets and enter
new markets (Price, 2012). Marketing exploitation is a capability that is dynamic and based on
refining skills along with applying current resources effectively. The exploitation process seeks
to gain efficiencies and increase results by meeting customer needs. It also seeks to use
organizational skills, processes, and marketing capabilities to increase effectiveness. Learning,
implementation, and adapting to changing market conditions along with seizing marketing
opportunities are the keys to a successful market exploitation strategy. Exploitation strategies are
applicable to microbusiness marketing.
Entrepreneurs are often focused on growth as a measure of success (Franco et al., 2014).
However, growth may not be a goal for the microbusiness if the growth has a negative effect on
the owner’s lifestyle or employees (Weber et al., 2015). Entrepreneurs may have investors to
fund growth, whereas the microbusiness owner must fund the growth of the microbusiness
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 28
through debt and owner’s equity. Growth can also create operational issues for a resource-
constrained microbusiness. In contrast to an entrepreneur’s focus on growth, the microbusiness
may not have growth as a key marketing objective. The microbusiness owner may have
maintenance of the current state of the business rather than growth as a marketing objective.
Becherer and Helms (2016) also found that the concept of entrepreneurial marketing is a
valid strategy for small businesses that face uncertain market conditions and limited resources.
Innovation is a key strategy when facing resource constraints. Jayawarna, Jones, Lam, and Phua
(2014) studied the link between marketing and successful new entrepreneurial ventures. The
researchers found that marketing practices such as product–service innovation, market service
quality, and functionality had a positive effect on performance. These marketing functions were
directly related to the innovative nature of new entrepreneurial ventures. The ability of the
entrepreneur to adapt to unique market situations can lead to success. Similarly, the ability of a
microbusiness owner to adapt to unique market situations can also be a source of competitive
advantage.
O’Donnell (2011) identified key themes of small-business marketing as framework of
customer relationships, bottom up, use of technology, creative use of resources, and word-of-
mouth promotion. This framework outlines the marketing opportunities available to small
businesses in the context of daily operations. Daily interactions with customers offer
opportunities to build customer relationships and word of mouth. Bottom-up marketing focuses
on the customer and customer service also to build relationships. Creative use of resources
emphasizes low-cost marketing tools such as digital marketing, signage, customer service, and
building relationships. These key themes align effectively with addressing the issue of limited
money for marketing in the context of daily operations (Caruth, 2016). Microbusiness that
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 29
deploy resources creatively can increase their return on investment and achieve their marketing
goals.
The concept of integrating low-cost marketing with daily business operations was
supported by Gibbons (2015). The study found that small businesses use the themes of brand
awareness, community involvement, customer loyalty, and seizing operational opportunities as
successful marketing strategies. The themes are low cost, customer focused, and integrated into
daily business operations. The concept of integrating low-cost marketing with daily business
operations was also presented by Au (2015). Microbusinesses can leverage resources by
integrating marketing into daily operations with the added value of building small-business brand
awareness with customers.
Digital marketing strategies offer effective and low-cost marketing tools for
entrepreneurs, small businesses, and microbusinesses (Brown-Peterson, 2017). Digital marketing
tools such as Facebook are used to acquire and retain customers. Hassan, Nadzim, and
Shiratuddin (2015) found that using social media as a marketing tool, using the Attention,
Interest, Desire, Action model, built brand awareness for small businesses. However, while
digital marketing strategies can be low cost, they take expertise and time to implement
effectively for microbusinesses. Microbusinesses have the opportunity to utilize digital
marketing effectively to build competitive advantage (Taiminen & Karjaluoto, 2015). Digital
strategies should be a marketing focus for microbusinesses.
Au (2015) utilized diffusion of innovations theory to identify themes that aided in the
understanding of social media usage in marketing. Technological competence embodies
microbusiness owners being comfortable utilizing digital and social media marketing. The top
three social media platforms in the study were Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. These three
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 30
platforms composed an effective social media presence for microbusinesses. The utilization of
the social media platform included engagement with customers and posting relevant content on a
regular basis. Having effective communication skills is another theme in successful social media
marketing. Engagement with customers and generating followers is an outcome of effective
communication skills. Promoting the brand is another important aspect of social media
marketing. Effective branding provides a competitive and differential advantage over
competitors (Jenkins, 2015). Microbusiness owners who utilize social-media marketing can build
their brand, communicate effectively, increase sales, develop customer relationships, and
improve the return on investment of time and money spent on marketing.
Small businesses also vary by type of marketing strategy. The mind-set of the owner has
an influence on the decision-making process (O’Brien, 2016). The marketing strategy is
influenced by the owner’s mind-set, outlook, resources, and business objectives. Astuti, Afiff,
and Balqiah (2017) categorized small-business marketer typology by Aggressive, Mass, Value,
Traditional, and Minimizer. Aggressive marketers used all dimensions of marketing and had the
highest growth. Mass marketers tended to follow competitor’s strategy, did not innovate, and had
the lowest growth. Value marketers tended to focus on customer service and had better growth.
Traditional marketers focused on high quality products along with innovative and proactive.
They did not use e-marketing and had better growth. Minimizer marketers tended to use survival
strategies and minimal marketing strategy. They had lower, but interestingly not the lowest,
growth. The mind-set that influences the marketing strategy that the microbusiness owner
pursues has an influence on the growth and the marketing strategies.
The self-perception, business goals, outlook, and mind-set of the small-business owner
was found to have an effect on the marketing strategy. An Infusionsoft (2014) survey of small-
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 31
business owners identified four distinct types: Freedom Seekers, Passionate Creators, Struggling
Survivors, and Legacy Builders. Freedom Seekers started their business to pursue their lifestyle
goals. Passionate Creators love what they do and bring passion, pride, and commitment to their
small business. Struggling Survivors have concerns about the challenges of running a small
business on a daily basis. Legacy Builders view their small business as a practical economic
choice and stable over the long term. Infusionsoft’s survey showed distinct marketing strategy
differences between the different types of small-business owners. Legacy Builders tended to do
the least amount of marketing and were least likely to use marketing technology. Struggling
Survivors tended to be overwhelmed and risk averse in their business operations. Freedom
Seekers were found to use marketing tools in the pursuit of operational efficiency. Passionate
Creators had the highest levels of marketing spending and involvement in marketing technology.
Bruce (2016) also found that the microbusiness owner’s self-perception and business goals had
an effect on marketing strategies. Important aspects of microbusiness marketing are the owner’s
personality, business goals, marketing expertise, and self-perception.
The construct of SAVE offers a focused and intuitive method of developing marketing
strategy for microbusinesses (Ettenson et al., 2013). The microbusiness can focus on solutions
that meet the needs of the customer. Access is the method of distribution that the customer
acquires the product or service. The value of the product or service drives the price and serves to
position the product or service in the market. Customers are then educated on the solution,
access, and value of the product or service. This concept aligns with the microbusiness owner
who may not have the expertise, time, or money to pursue more sophisticated marketing
strategies. SAVE also aligns with the intuitive nature of decision making of the microbusiness
owner. Premo-Hurt (2016) supported the role of business owner as a marketing instrument and
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 32
utilizing resources efficiently in the pursuit of achieving marketing goals. SAVE is a less
complicated marketing concept that also has the potential to address the issue of a lack of
marketing expertise.
Effective microbusiness marketing needs to be customer focused, cost effective, and time
efficient (Gibbons, 2015). There are several applicable models, including conventional
marketing, marketing orientation, entrepreneurial marketing, and SAVE. The most effective
model will depend on the individual microbusiness owner’s product or service, competitive
environment, expertise, and available resources. Au (2015) identified themes of technological
competence, effective communication skills, branding, and acquiring external support.
Microbusinesses need to adopt an overarching marketing model and then apply the marketing
principles that are relevant to their business and customer base. Relationship marketing,
branding, networking, social media, and word of mouth are common marketing themes
throughout the marketing literature that successful microbusiness owners utilize.
Effective microbusiness owners use limited resources effectively. One study concluded
that an attribute of successful founders was that they were adept at using limited resources in
pursuit of business success (Osiri, 2013). Using limited resources to take advantage of marketing
opportunities can create value for microbusinesses (Spivey, 2016). The effective microbusiness
owner understands the concept of applying limited resources of time, money, and expertise to
produce positive results.
Limited Time for Microbusiness Marketing
The nature of a microbusiness operation is that the time allocated for marketing will be
limited. A survey conducted in Australia by Flying Solo (2017) found that microbusinesses
average two hours per week finding new business. Interestingly, 44% of microbusinesses spend
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 33
little or no time on marketing. This was because of repeat business and satisfaction with the
current size of the business. However, 25% of microbusinesses spend a day or more a week on
marketing. Brown-Peterson (2017) identified small businesses that spent up to 20 hours per week
on marketing. Clearly, some small businesses place a high priority on marketing from a time
perspective.
The issue of time management is critical to the success of the microbusiness. Small
businesses are faced with limited time for marketing (Gilmore, 2011). Microbusiness owners
face the issue of the combination of limited time and uncertainty of results from their investment
of time when allocating time to marketing (Premo-Hurt, 2016). Resnick, Cheng, Simpson, and
Lourenço (2016) found that small-business owners are often unsure if the marketing effort is
worth the time investment. Caruth (2016) also found that microbusinesses did not spend time on
social-media marketing because of a perceived limited return on investment. Microbusiness
owners who are dealing with time management issues may not prioritize marketing activities.
Microbusiness owners are responsible for daily business activities, including operations,
finance, human resources, sales, and customer service. Long (2017) found that microbusiness
owners who were too focused on daily operations may experience reduced growth potential.
Successful microbusiness owners must prioritize the tasks of their role and allocation of limited
resources (Fiore et al., 2013). The daily operations involve various priority activities of customer
service, financial management, and operations. Prioritizing and integrating marketing activities
in daily operations can be a strategy for using limited resources more effectively.
The issue of time management is exacerbated in some types of microbusinesses. Low-
tech microbusinesses face a difficult competitive environment and have to focus their time on
daily operations (Reiner et al., 2016). In addition, microbusinesses that operate in low-tech
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 34
environments have difficulty managing because of lack of capital, access to the required
innovative technologies, expertise, and general lack of time (Reiner et al., 2016). Turbulent
environments with scarce resources can create issues that arise in the daily operations, which
reduce the time available to spend on marketing.
The scope of daily responsibilities is a challenge for microbusiness owners. Managing
daily operations is challenging and time consuming (Hanninen, Jokela, Saarela, & Muhos, 2017).
According to the Flying Solo (2017) survey, 28% of microbusiness owners stated that there were
not enough hours in the day. In addition, 27% stated that they were dealing with too many
aspects of the business. When asked how busy the respondents were compared to previous years,
the rating was an average of 7.4, where 5 is “no change,” which indicates a higher level of
activity. This study concluded that microbusiness owners were generally overwhelmed. When
daily business issues are a priority, marketing is often neglected (Reiner et al., 2016). Adding to
the feeling of being overwhelmed is the microbusiness issue of a lack of staffing (Hillary, 2017).
Garcia (2015) found that without competent staffing, the microbusiness owner must personally
handle the daily operations, which can lead to burnout. The microbusiness owner who is faced
with priority issues of operating the business may neglect marketing.
Hiring marketing staff is a strategy to increase the amount of time spent on marketing.
However, hiring staff to work on marketing is simply not feasible for most microbusinesses
because of a lack of resources. When microbusinesses hire staff, Bruce (2016) found that they
hired based on convenience rather than knowledge. The lack of staffing, or hiring staff without
the proper level of marketing expertise, led to the microbusiness owner focusing on too many
daily activities and neglecting marketing (Reiner et al., 2016). The lack of resources for hiring
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 35
marketing staff leads to the microbusiness owner having to decide how much time to allocate to
marketing in the context of running daily business operations.
Planning marketing strategies and learning how to use marketing tools is time consuming
(Demishkevich, 2015). The marketing strategies and tools require the microbusiness owner to
spend time to learn how to use effectively both to generate a positive return on investment.
However, Premo-Hurt (2016) found that formal training on social-media marketing was not
necessary for success. Microbusiness owners often strive to be innovative, opportunistic, and
intuitive with their time management. The time issue is compounded with the need to spend time
learning new skills where there is no guarantee of a positive return on investment.
One of the strategies to address the time issue is to incorporate marketing strategies into
daily operations (Gibbons, 2015). Marketing strategies that are an integral part of daily
operations will create time efficiencies for the microbusiness. For example, relationship building
with customers is an important marketing strategy and an integral aspect of daily operations
(Fluker, 2016). Another example is for the microbusiness to focus on excellent customer service
as an aspect of daily operations. The daily focus on the customer creates referrals, brand loyalty,
and add-on sales (Premo-Hurt, 2016). The daily operational focus of the microbusiness owner
can add significant value to the marketing effort.
Word of mouth, building relationships, and networking are key factors in microbusiness
success (Spivey, 2016). These marketing tools can also be time efficient. Word of mouth can be
generated efficiently by customers and through social media (Au, 2015; Jenkins, 2015).
Relationship building through customer-service strategies is a routine part of daily operations
(Gandy, 2015). Networking creates efficiencies through network effects and leveraging
community relationships (Gibbons, 2015). These types of marketing strategies are low cost and
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 36
effective. A marketing strategy that focuses on word of mouth, relationship marketing, and
networking has the potential to be successful and provide a positive return on investment.
Another strategy to make time for marketing is by seizing operational opportunities.
Daily business operations provide opportunities to promote the microbusiness. For example,
seasonal small-business owners can take advantage of business opportunities by offering
additional services during slow seasons (Gibbons, 2015). Another example is that a satisfied
customer can be solicited to provide a testimonial during a service call. A successful
relationship-building strategy for microbusinesses is to seize opportunities to promote a
continuing relationship rather than a one-time transaction (Premo-Hurt, 2016). By seeking out
and acting on daily business operation opportunities, the microbusiness owner can leverage time
toward marketing with minimal financial investment.
Brand awareness is another marketing strategy that can create efficiencies. A brand that
has value communicates the business offer efficiently to customers. Jenkins (2015) confirmed
the importance of promoting a brand as a fundamental marketing strategy for microbusinesses.
Brand awareness, visibility, and availability can create new business opportunities and sales by
introducing the microbusiness to new clients (Gibbons, 2015). Branding is a key strategy for
microbusinesses and offers opportunities to achieve marketing goals efficiently.
Social media can be perceived as being time intensive with uncertain results (Au, 2015).
However, Caruth (2016) found that social-media marketing strategies were effective for small
businesses from both a time and return-on-investment perspective. When properly planned and
executed, the social media tools took minimal time and produced positive results. Social media
can be an effective and efficient marketing tool for microbusinesses.
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 37
Limited Money for Microbusiness Marketing
Microbusinesses often struggle with financial issues and marketing is often underfunded
(Jenkins, 2015). There are many uses of capital, of which marketing is just one, for the
microbusiness. The microbusiness owner must allocate limited capital to inventory, operating
expenses, payroll, and customer service. Funding marketing may be a low priority or there may
not be enough capital to fund all the microbusiness’s needs. Microbusinesses may have limited
money for marketing and lack of financial resources was found to be a key factor in
microbusiness failure (Spivey, 2016). Successful microbusinesses manage their financial
operations effectively.
Low-cost marketing is one strategy to address the issue of limited financial resources.
O’Donnell (2011) identified key themes of small-business marketing as a framework of customer
relationships, bottom up, use of technology, creative use of resources, and word-of-mouth
promotion. These themes focus on low-cost marketing and are customer-centric. The familiarity
with customer needs can create competitive advantage at a low cost. Familiarity reduces the need
for market research and the resources can be focused on the customer more effectively (Gibbons,
2015). In addition to being low cost, the themes support a customer-orientation strategy in daily
operations further increasing the efficiency of the marketing spend.
Jenkins (2015) conducted research that determined the most effective marketing for
microbusinesses was word of mouth and social-media marketing. Microbusiness owners interact
with the customers directly. The microbusiness owner is in constant contact with customers and
receives feedback in real time (Premo-Hurt, 2016). Word of mouth can also translate into
effective social media strategies by leveraging customer stories and successes online. Word of
mouth and social-media marketing can be cost-effective marketing tools.
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 38
Budgeting for marketing spending can be a challenge for microbusinesses. The amount of
money allocated to marketing varies. According to the U.S. Small Business Administration
(2018), a small business should budget 7% to 8% of sales to marketing. The amount spent should
be focused on brand development and promotion costs. A tool to pursue success with limited
financial resources is the concept of an intelligent budget. Creating an intelligent budget is one
strategy to measure the effect of marketing investment (Apfelbaum, 2015). An intelligent budget
adapts to the current marketing situation by measuring results and then adapting to the strategies
that yield results. The level of marketing spend will vary depending on market conditions,
product attributes, competitive activity, and financial resources.
Microbusinesses that are experiencing financial issues may need to allocate available
financial resources to areas other than marketing. Collecting money and cash flow were cited as
major issues by 25% of microbusiness owners in the Flying Solo (2017) survey. Cash flow issues
may drive the microbusiness owner to curtail spending on marketing (Garcia, 2015). Solis (2017)
found that poor financial decisions negatively impacted initial profitability in small businesses. A
microbusiness that is struggling to break even may not be able to afford an adequate level of
promotion spend. Indeed, financial issues are a major cause of microbusiness failure (Marom &
Lussier, 2014). Available financial resources are a critical aspect of marketing spending.
If the microbusiness does not need significant capital to operate, the lack of financial
resources may not be an issue. Garcia (2015) found that capital did not have a significant effect
on the success or failure of microbusinesses in Puerto Rico. In addition, microbusinesses may be
part time or hobbies that do not require high amounts of capital. Small service businesses such as
accountants and lawyers may have low capital requirements (DeMers, 2017). A low capital
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 39
requirement combined with low-cost marketing tools of word of mouth and social-media
marketing can minimize the negative effect of a lack of financial resources on the microbusiness.
Measuring return on investment from marketing is often difficult. This can further inhibit
investments in marketing (Reibstein & Pauwels, 2010). To address this issue, models have been
developed to assess marketing promotion campaign performance (Ewing, Stewart, Mather, &
Newton, 2014). Keegan and Rowley (2017) found that it was vital to measure the return on
investment on social-media marketing. Measuring digital marketing return on investment is
easier than measuring return on investment on traditional promotional tools because of the ability
to measure online customer activity through analytics. In addition, the issue of the focus on
short-term financial performance often results in a misalignment with the long-term financial
performance of the business (Smyth & Lecoeuvre, 2015). Measuring return on investment is a
key success factor for microbusinesses when faced with limited financial resources.
There are many marketing strategies that can be implemented at low cost. Indeed, Premo-
Hurt (2016) found that no study participants used any traditional media vehicles. Print, radio, and
television advertising can be expensive promotion tools. Instead, microbusinesses tended to
focus on low-cost sponsorship of community, industry-related groups, and events. The concept
of leveraging community relationships as a low-cost marketing strategy was confirmed by Yang
(2015). Because of a lack of financial resources, low-cost marketing strategies should be the
cornerstone of the microbusiness marketing strategy.
The concept of resource leveraging is also a viable strategy for small-business owners
(Jenkins, 2015). Resource leveraging integrates marketing strategies into daily business
operations. Networking and community involvement marketing strategies are low cost and cost
efficient. Microbusiness owners are often involved in the communities and through their contacts
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 40
can market cost efficiently (Yang, 2015). Networking with members of the community through
community organizations such as chambers of commerce and Main Street programs are cost-
efficient marketing methods (Gibbons, 2015). Lead generation through customer service can
result in new customers by providing excellent service to current customers that generates
referrals and word-of-mouth advertising. Referrals and word-of-mouth advertising are also
inexpensive marketing strategies. The Flying Solo (2017) survey found that 84% of
microbusinesses use word of mouth as a marketing strategy. Referrals from satisfied customers
have credibility and can be leveraged online through social media and the business Web site at
low cost.
Exploitation of opportunities is another key area to create low-cost marketing results.
Gandy (2015) found that small-business owners enjoy the freedom and autonomy of a
microbusiness, which lead to an ability to adapt quickly to market opportunities. Microbusiness
owners also have the freedom to make quick decisions to pursue opportunities (Gibbons, 2015).
Exploiting opportunities can improve marketing performance at low cost.
Digital marketing offers the opportunity to promote the microbusiness through low-cost
online tools to customers. Digital marketing includes Web sites, search, content, blogs, e-mail,
and social media. Most notably, engaging with customers on social media has proved to be
effective (Jenkins, 2015). Demishkevich (2015) found that digital-marketing results can be
improved through strategy planning and acquiring specialized knowledge, which are relatively
inexpensive. Using social media as a marketing tool following the Attention, Interest, Desire,
Action model was found to build brand awareness for small businesses (Hassan et al., 2015).
Digital marketing offers many low-cost marketing opportunities for the microbusiness owner.
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 41
Limited Expertise for Microbusiness Marketing
Limited expertise in marketing is a significant issue for business success (Marom &
Lussier, 2014). Microbusiness owners often struggle with key marketing functions of planning,
marketing research, advertising, and the implementation of the marketing mix (Resnick et al.,
2016). The lack of expertise can impede marketing effectiveness. Expertise in key marketing
capabilities has been positively linked to successful marketing performance (Haniff & Halim,
2014). A lack of expertise can create a competitive disadvantage and cause the microbusiness
owner to not produce positive results from the marketing program.
In many cases the expertise of the microbusiness owner is often focused on his or her
operational or business expertise rather than marketing (Cronin-Gilmore, 2012). The lack of
marketing skills can cause the microbusiness owner to fail to focus on marketing and not pursue
opportunities. The microbusiness owner who lacks marketing skills may also suffer customer
loss along with unsuccessful client acquisition efforts. This is a common issue for
microbusinesses with 44% of respondents in the Flying Solo (2017) reporting acquiring new
clients as their number one issue. Building expertise in marketing, customer acquisition, and
customer retention can improve the results of the marketing strategies.
Chanu and Sharma (2015) found that business education (including marketing) increased
the likelihood of success. The researchers also found that 22.7% of the sales- and marketing-
related problems for microbusinesses were related to lack of marketing knowledge. In this study,
lack of marketing knowledge was the number two ranked problem behind heavy competition and
was ranked by respondents above lack of demand for the product. Chinomona (2013) found that
the small-business owner’s expertise (including marketing) had a significant positive effect on
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 42
business performance. Improving the microbusiness owner’s marketing expertise can result in a
more successful business.
Microbusiness owner marketing expertise is also limited by the relatively low level of use
of marketing decision models by microbusinesses (Lilien, 2011). Microbusiness owners typically
use more intuitive and action-oriented marketing strategies rather than conventional marketing.
Conventional marketing strategies of segmentation, targeting, and positioning take time and
expertise to develop. Fluker (2016) found that marketing measurement needs to be tied to
product and service strategies to increase sales. Daily operation time constraints often limit the
time that can be devoted to obtaining the expertise to use more sophisticated marketing
strategies. The lack of expertise contributes to the lack of use of marketing decision models.
Digital marketing can be a challenge for microbusinesses to learn and use because the
digital technology marketing environment changes rapidly (Nikunen et al., 2017). The
microbusiness owner may lack digital marketing knowledge and not have the time to learn
effective digital marketing practices. This leads to microbusiness owners engaging in digital
marketing without a strategic plan (Demishkevich, 2015). The lack of a systematic approach
along with inadequate measurement of the results of digital marketing were identified as key
issues for small businesses (Demishkevich, 2015). Taiminen and Karjaluoto (2015) found that
many small businesses were not keeping pace with digital developments, mostly because of the
lack of knowledge of digital marketing. Digital marketing is often approached in a haphazard
manner with little or no structured planning. Microbusinesses can improve their marketing
results through effective planning, implementation, and measurement of digital marketing
strategies.
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 43
Successful digital marketing strategies are an effective tool to build competitive
advantage in a rapidly changing digital environment. Small-business owners can be more
successful in digital marketing by gaining knowledge and expertise in digital marketing
(Demishkevich, 2015). Utilizing digital measurement tools can enhance microbusiness owners’
ability to measure marketing results. When used effectively, digital tools can produce positive
results for small businesses (Taiminen & Karjaluoto, 2015). Chong, Shafaghi, Woollaston, and
Lui (2010) found that proactive approaches for using digital marketing technology led to
competitive advantage in the business-to-business operating environment. Microbusiness owners
who engage in building expertise in digital marketing can communicate with customers, promote
their brand, and measure the results.
Microbusiness owners need to have the expertise to develop product and brand marketing
strategies. Jenkins (2015) found that product differentiation and ambiance are unique
characteristics that guide product and brand marketing strategies for small independent
restaurants. Effective social media marketing enables the microbusiness to promote the owner as
the brand (Au, 2015). The ability of the microbusiness owner to position successfully the brand
can positively influence competitive advantage and profitability. Microbusinesses tend to use
product-focused marketing strategies and rely on service to differentiate from the competition
(Fluker, 2016). Social media was also found to be a key tool for brand development (Au, 2015).
Successful microbusinesses develop and implement effective product and brand marketing
strategies.
Distribution and place strategies are an important aspect of many microbusiness
marketing strategies. Distribution issues can create a difficult situation where the microbusiness
owner spends resources on distribution and reduces profitability. Bruce (2016) studied the effect
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 44
of direct-to-consumer sales for small farms in Maine and found that a lack of profitability was
related to a lack of educational knowledge. In addition, microbusinesses that had unique
products, effective selling strategies, and close proximity to customers were more profitable
when distributing direct to the consumer. Gibbons (2015) found that seasonal businesses needed
to focus on operational opportunities of slack resources during off seasons. Microbusiness
owners can improve marketing performance through exploiting opportunities in distribution and
place strategies.
Microbusinesses often lack market knowledge (Pai, 2017). The intuitive nature of
microbusiness owner’s decision making along with resource constraints may cause the
microbusiness owner not to invest in marketing research. In addition, a lack of marketing
expertise may cause the microbusiness owner not to value market research, but rather follow
their intuition. This situation can create an environment where suboptimal decisions are made as
a result of a lack of market knowledge (Pai, 2017). However, being close to the customer can
create advantages because of the focus on daily operations that enables the microbusiness to
react quickly to changes in the market (Liao et al., 2015). Microbusinesses need to make
effective marketing decisions in the context of increasing value to the customer and addressing
the competitive situation.
The SAVE model is an attempt to address the issue of a lack of business owner marketing
expertise (Ettenson et al., 2013). The SAVE model is intuitive and action oriented, which aligns
effectively with the microbusiness owner’s decision-making process. The microbusiness owner
first focuses on solutions. This encourages the microbusiness owner to focus on the customer and
seek out opportunities for solutions. Access focuses on how the customer acquires the product.
This lessens the focus on distribution and increases the focus on the ultimate customer. A focus
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 45
on value reduces the tendency to decrease price and encourages the microbusiness to view the
solutions offered in the context of value to the customer. Education focuses on what the customer
needs to know about the value of the solution in the context of the customer’s needs. In
comparison to conventional marketing strategies, the SAVE model is more focused, requires less
expertise, and aligns with the microbusiness owner’s focus on daily operations.
Entrepreneurs typically perceive themselves as having limited marketing expertise
(Gilmore, 2011). Limited marketing expertise exacerbates the issue of limited time and money
resources for microbusinesses. Microbusiness owners with limited marketing expertise may
make suboptimal marketing decisions leading to poor return on investment on the time and
money that is invested in marketing. However, there are opportunities to improve marketing
expertise for microbusiness owners through community and educational institution support
(Jenkins, 2015). There is opportunity for community and economic development organizations to
facilitate the improvement of microbusiness marketing expertise.
Methodology
The current research on microbusiness marketing has largely focused on qualitative case
studies. Recommendations for further research in microbusiness marketing have focused on
other geographic areas (Gandy, 2015), larger sample size (Demishkevich, 2015), and quantitative
studies (Yang, 2015). Specifically, the relationships among variables such as level of marketing
education, business size, and number of years in business were recommended for further
research (Demishkevich, 2015). Premo-Hurt (2016) recommended a different industry and
population along with using a different conceptual framework. Spivey (2016) recommended
studying the factors that influence business performance in the specific context of the business
environment. There is a need for a more research on microbusiness marketing.
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 46
These recommendations were pursued through the qualitative descriptive case study that
explored the relationship of the constraints of time, money, and marketing expertise on previous
year’s sales growth for microbusinesses. In addition to the concept of limited time, money, and
marketing expertise, other applicable areas were researched such as typology of the
microbusiness owner, time in business, and type of business. The geographic region of
southwestern Wisconsin was not previously studied. The microbusiness marketing concepts of
personal selling, networking, relationship building, word of mouth, and digital marketing were
explored in the context of limited time, money, and marketing expertise.
Summary
Effective marketing is critical to business success. Microbusinesses are challenged in
marketing because of their small size, lack of resources, and lack of marketing expertise. There
are opportunities to improve microbusiness marketing through resource leveraging, relationship
management, digital marketing, and networking.
Microbusiness marketing research has focused on qualitative case studies in the context
of determining how microbusinesses market and identifying issues related to marketing. The
body of knowledge of microbusiness marketing is limited because of the emphasis on
entrepreneur and larger business research. Typically, microbusiness marketing has been
researched in the context of business operations and as a factor in the overall success or failure of
the small-business enterprise (Fluker, 2016).
There has been limited research conducted on microbusiness marketing. The studies that
have been conducted have focused on microbusiness marketing strategies in the context of
perceptions of the microbusiness owners. Microbusiness marketing research has focused on
qualitative case studies in the context of determining how microbusinesses market and
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 47
identifying issues related to marketing. There has been little research conducted on the specifics
of how microbusinesses deal with the issue of resource constraints of time, money, and expertise.
The body of knowledge of microbusiness marketing appears to be limited because of the
focus on larger businesses with more opportunities for growth. The specific subset of
microbusinesses (nine or less employees) has been overshadowed by larger small- and medium-
sized businesses (up to 500 employees) and entrepreneurs. The concept of the effect of limited
time, money, and marketing expertise on sales performance has not been studied directly in
microbusiness marketing.
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 48
Chapter 3:
Methodology
Reiner et al. (2016) stated that innovation (i.e., marketing) for microbusinesses is difficult
because of a lack of capital, expertise, and time. Impediments to effective marketing include
inadequate time, money, and expertise to develop and implement successful marketing strategies.
The research study focused on a descriptive case study analysis that investigated the relationship
of the microbusiness owner’s time spent on marketing per week, money spent on marketing, and
the microbusiness owner’s perceived marketing expertise to the microbusiness owner’s
evaluation of previous year’s sales growth.
The purpose of the qualitative descriptive case study was to describe the amount of time
and money that microbusiness owners spend on marketing. The microbusiness owner’s
marketing expertise was also described. The three variables of time, money, and marketing
expertise were then related to the microbusiness owner’s perception of the sales performance. In
addition, other aspects of microbusiness marketing related to time, money, and marketing
expertise were explored and described. Specifically, previous research identified personal sales,
digital marketing, networking, word of mouth, relationship building, and branding as marketing
strategies that can be implemented in the context of limited resources.
The results of this study provide direction for microbusiness owners on profitable time,
money, and marketing expertise strategies to improve microbusiness sales performance. The
study provides recommendations and tools for microbusinesses to develop and implement
effective marketing strategies. In addition, support organizations that are involved in small
business and economic development can use the results to improve their support of
microbusinesses.
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 49
The qualitative descriptive case study was selected as the most effective methodology for
this research. Yin (2017) favored case study research when the research questions involved how
and why the researcher had no control over the events of the research, and the focus is current
phenomenon. The research on limited time, money, and marketing expertise are how and why
questions, the researcher has no control over the events, and describing how microbusinesses
address these issues in the context of daily marketing aligns with Yin’s concepts.
Qualitative research has the advantage of rich information and the interviewer can fully
explore the context of participant answers (Baskarada, 2014). The understanding of the impact of
limited time, money, and marketing expertise on microbusiness performance is enabled by the
qualitative methodology. The qualitative methodology also allows the researcher to explore the
marketing topics related to microbusiness marketing such as personal selling, networking,
relationship building, word of mouth, and branding in the context of limited time, money, and
marketing expertise.
This chapter outlines the methodology for conducting the study. The chapter provides the
details on study participants, sampling, questionnaire analysis, data collection, and data analysis.
The chapter also covers the role of the researcher and ethical considerations.
Background
Microbusiness marketing has not been researched extensively (Premo-Hurt, 2016).
Monahan et al. (2011) found the body of research limited regarding microbusinesses in general,
and that the focus of research was often focused on entrepreneurs. There has been significant
research on marketing for small- and medium-sized enterprises but little research on the subset of
microbusinesses (Gherhes et al., 2016). Studies that have been done on microbusiness marketing
have focused on qualitative analysis (Brown-Peterson, 2017; Fluker, 2016; Premo-Hurt, 2016).
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 50
These studies identified that microbusinesses have significant barriers to success because of
limited resources. There is a gap in the research on the specifics of the effect of constraints of
time, money, and marketing expertise on marketing that influences microbusiness performance.
The research results will be used to counsel microbusinesses on successful marketing strategies
in the context of limited resources.
Microbusinesses are a unique segment of the small-business market with unique
operating challenges that need to be more fully understood (Solis, 2017; Spivey, 2016). Research
has been conducted on entrepreneurial marketing and found that entrepreneurs were also faced
with constraints of time, money, and expertise (Kannampuzha & Suoranta, 2016). Other research
found that entrepreneurial marketing was significantly different from small-business marketing
(Mort et al., 2012). A qualitative survey exploring and describing limited resources in
microbusiness marketing would contribute to the body of knowledge on the unique aspects of
microbusiness marketing.
Three research methods were evaluated: qualitative, mixed methods, and quantitative.
Each of these research methods has advantages and disadvantages that were evaluated in the
context of this research. The researcher evaluated the research methods in the context of the
theme of understanding how microbusinesses operate in a daily environment of limited time,
money, and marketing expertise.
Qualitative studies provide rich information that can provide insight into the marketing
issues that microbusinesses face on a daily basis. The recent qualitative studies (Brown-Peterson,
2017; Fluker, 2016; Premo-Hurt, 2016) reached saturation on marketing issues for
microbusinesses and recommended further qualitative research on specific aspects of their
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 51
research. The qualitative studies on microbusiness marketing provided a base of information on
which to base this study.
A mixed-methods study combines qualitative and quantitative methods. A mixed-
methods approach provides the opportunity to combine the strengths of qualitative and
quantitative methods (Venkatesh, Brown, & Sullivan, 2016). The quantitative aspect of the
mixed-methods approach was rejected because there is no validated survey instrument to
measure time, money, and marketing expertise effects on business performance. The researcher
has previous experience with microbusiness research and found that a mixed-methods approach
was difficult to implement because of the limited body of research on which to build a mixed-
method study.
A quantitative study has been recommended to measure microbusiness marketing (Long,
2017). Quantitative studies on marketing expertise have been conducted for small and
entrepreneurial businesses and indicated that higher levels of marketing expertise led to
improved sales results (Garcia, 2015; Marom & Lussier, 2014). The specific aspects of limited
time and money have been identified by qualitative research as issues in microbusiness. There
have been no previous quantitative studies conducted on microbusiness marketing related to time
and money. In addition, the lack of microbusiness performance data limits the opportunity to
conduct a quantitative analysis.
Another aspect that led the researcher to decline to pursue quantitative research is that the
researcher found no validated quantitative survey instruments on the concept of limited time,
money, and marketing expertise. Lussier’s quantitative small-business success model has been
validated, but it contains only two marketing references (Marom & Lussier, 2014). In addition,
because of the subjective nature of participants estimating their time spent on marketing and their
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 52
perception of their relative level of marketing expertise, a quantitative study may not provide
valid and reliable results. Also, participants are providing an estimate of their sales performance,
which may further reduce validity and reliability of a quantitative study.
The five approaches to qualitative research are narrative, phenomenological, case study,
grounded theory, and ethnography (Baskarada, 2014). Narrative and phenomenological
approaches focus on individuals. Case studies and grounded theory are used to explore
processes, activities, and events. Ethnography is used to explore cultural sharing behavior. The
goal of the study was to explore and describe microbusiness marketing in the context of limited
resources. Therefore, a descriptive case study was chosen as the optimal research method for the
study.
The descriptive case study approach is used to study issues that are extensive and in-
depth descriptions of complex phenomena (Baskarada, 2014). Descriptive case studies describe
different aspects of a phenomenon in its context and can lead to theory building. A descriptive
case study approach was selected as the most effective research methodology. The understanding
of the impact of limited time, money, and marketing expertise on microbusiness performance is
enabled by the descriptive case study methodology. The descriptive case study methodology also
allows the researcher to explore the marketing topics related to microbusiness marketing such as
personal selling, networking, relationship building, word of mouth, and branding in the context
of limited time, money, and marketing expertise. The descriptive case study explored the
concepts of limited time, money, and marketing expertise in the context of microbusiness sales
performance. The descriptive case study approach was the most appropriate approach to develop
further the concepts of how microbusinesses can address the issue of the effect of limited time,
money, and marketing expertise on business performance.
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 53
The microbusiness owner makes decisions based on intuition and perceptions. The
microbusiness owner makes decisions on resource allocation on a daily basis (Premo-Hurt,
2016). The microbusiness owner’s decisions on how to spend limited time and money on
marketing is a key area of study. In addition, the microbusiness owner’s marketing expertise may
have a direct influence on marketing decisions. The interactions among time, money, and
marketing expertise further complicate the complex nature of the decision-making process.
These dynamics indicate that a qualitative descriptive case study would be the preferred research
method.
The purpose of the additional questions on microbusiness marketing strategies was to
have a base of qualitative data that is directly related to the daily operational issues of limited
time, money, and marketing expertise. The qualitative data on microbusiness business marketing
strategies will aid microbusinesses and microbusiness support entities in developing and
implementing marketing strategies in the context of limited time, money, and marketing
expertise. The additional questions on marketing will also enable the researcher to increase the
understanding of microbusiness marketing in the context of limited time, money, and marketing
expertise.
Research Questions
Microbusiness owners (nine employees or less) were interviewed in southwestern
Wisconsin. The study used a convenience sample of microbusiness owners. The questionnaire
was administered by the researcher. The questionnaire addressed the following research
questions:
R1: What is the perception of microbusiness owner’s time spent on marketing to sales
performance?
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 54
R2: What is the perception of the relationship of money spent on marketing to sales
performance?
R3: What is the perceived relationship of marketing expertise to sales performance?
Methodology
The research study used multiple cases’ qualitative data gathered through a questionnaire
to measure the owner’s estimate of time spent on marketing, money spent on marketing, and the
owner’s perceived level of marketing expertise. The owners were interviewed on their perception
of business performance. The qualitative descriptive research design method was chosen because
there is a gap in the body of knowledge on the impact of the relationship of time, money, and
marketing expertise to business performance for microbusinesses. The literature review indicated
that there is a high level of variance among microbusiness owners on the amount of time, money,
and the level of expertise related to implementing marketing strategies. A qualitative descriptive
research study explores the concept of limited time, money, and marketing expertise in relation
to microbusiness performance.
There have been qualitative studies on microbusiness marketing that indicated that higher
levels of marketing expertise led to improved results (Au, 2015; Demishkevich, 2016; Pai,
2017). However, there is a gap in the knowledge base on the levels of marketing expertise for the
specific subset of microbusiness. The qualitative descriptive case study methodology also allows
the researcher to explore the marketing topics related to microbusiness marketing such as
personal selling, networking, relationship building, word of mouth, and branding in the context
of limited time, money, and marketing expertise.
The population of microbusinesses in southwestern Wisconsin were firms with nine or
less employees. The sampling method was a convenience sample utilizing the researcher’s
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 55
personal relationships with microbusinesses and organizations that support small businesses to
recruit participants. The businesses were based in southwestern Wisconsin and have nine or less
employees. The participants were willing to undergo a 45-minute interview on microbusiness
marketing. The goal was a minimum of 15 completed qualitative questionnaires (Baskarada,
2014). At least 15 or more questionnaires provided a robust data set to analyze for the
exploration and description of microbusiness marketing with limited time, money, and marketing
expertise. At least 15 or more completed questionnaires also provided a rich set of information
on marketing strategies that microbusinesses used to address the issues of limited time, money,
and marketing expertise.
The nonprobability sample may have introduced bias into the study. Microbusinesses that
have relationships with the researcher and the support organizations may not be representative of
the population of microbusinesses. In addition, sampling error may occur because
microbusinesses that were interested in marketing may have been more likely to respond and
took the time for the interview. However, the researcher decided that the potential bias of a
convenience sample was outweighed by having respondents who were willing to have in-depth
discussions on their marketing strategies in the context of limited time, money, and marketing
expertise.
Instrumentation
The data collection method for this study was a questionnaire that was developed by the
researcher (see APPENDIX A). Qualitative questionnaires were referenced in developing the
questionnaire (Brown-Peterson, 2017; Fluker, 2016; Premo-Hurt, 2016). The researcher also
used previous small-business consulting and microbusiness marketing survey experience in
developing the questionnaire. The questionnaire consisted of Likert-scale questions and then
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 56
followed up with open-ended questions. The questionnaire began with the key demographic
descriptions of the microbusiness, including the specific type of microbusiness, number of
employees, sales, and length of time in business. The questionnaire covered the subjects of the
perception of the participant on time, money, and marketing expertise in relation to sales
performance. The questionnaire then inquired on the use of various types of microbusiness
marketing tools in the context of daily operations time management. The interviews allowed the
researcher to gather descriptive data about the specific issues of limited time, money, and
marketing expertise of microbusiness owners.
After the interview, the researcher filled out an observation form (see APPENDIX B) that
was used as a triangulation tool. The observations included a general overview of the business,
digital marketing examples, marketing evidence at the participant place of business, evidence of
marketing expertise in conversations with the participant, and a general evaluation of the
marketing strategy for the microbusiness. The triangulation compared the observations of the
specific microbusiness with the responses to the questions. The researcher evaluated the
alignment of the question responses with the observations.
Data Collection and Analysis Procedures
The researcher contacted the participants to gain their commitment to participate in the
research study. The researcher explained the purpose of the study and discussed informed
consent. When the participant agreed to participate, an appointment was scheduled at his or her
place of business. At the appointment, the informed consent form was signed (see APPENDIX
C) and the 45-minute interview commenced. The researcher observed the participant and the
place of business in the context of microbusiness marketing. After the interview, the researcher
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 57
observed the participant’s digital marketing strategies. All observations were recorded on the
observation form. The participants were provided a copy of their responses for their review.
The questionnaire was administered to the participants by the researcher. The
questionnaire used Likert-scale questions on the research topics and followed up with open-
ended questions to describe how the microbusiness addressed the issues of limited time, money,
and marketing expertise. Additional questions on microbusiness marketing strategies were
explored. The researcher had the opportunity to ask clarifying questions, observe how the
participant answered the questions, and observe the microbusiness marketing at the participant’s
place of business. The data were tabulated, coded, and organized using Microsoft Excel.
The data were analyzed by tabulating the demographic and Likert-scale data. The open-
ended feedback was coded for key words and phrases. Codes were developed that related to the
key aspects of the interviews. A final master code list was developed when the questionnaires
were completed. Similar to Premo-Hurt (2016), the codes were then developed into themes and
the responses summarized.
The interview data were stored in a master Excel spreadsheet. A second Excel
spreadsheet contained additional observational data and other evidence for triangulation.
Participants were simply identified by a number. There were no individual microbusiness
identifiers on the data stored in the spreadsheets.
Maintaining the chain of evidence is a key aspect of an effective qualitative case study
(Yin, 2017). The original questionnaires, the formally written summaries, and the observation
sheets were stored in a secure file cabinet in the researcher’s office during the study. The data
were stored in a password-protected drive on the researcher’s computer.
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 58
Validity and Reliability
The validity of the study relies on reducing risks that affect the ability to make
conclusions about the data. Reliability is the accuracy, precision, and consistency of
measurement. Researchers must validate that the study is both reliable and valid. Qualitative
studies are inherently subject to reliability and validity issues (Baskarada, 2014). There were
several issues in this study that were addressed to increase reliability and validity.
One issue the study presented was the sample validity. The participants in the study
should represent the population. The sampling strategy of personal contact and leveraging
microbusiness support organizations may inherently bias the sample. Another factor was that
microbusinesses that were in contact with microbusiness support organizations may not be
representative of the general population of microbusinesses. However, this bias was offset by the
quality and willingness of the participants to engage with the researcher on microbusiness
marketing research.
The sampling method may reduce internal validity because the researcher may bias the
participant (Merriam & Tisdell, 2015). Bias was minimized by the researcher focusing on the
questionnaire, listening carefully, asking clarifying questions, avoiding leading questions, and
minimizing giving feedback on responses. The risk was acceptable because the researcher
focused on not biasing the responses and administering the questionnaire consistently across all
participants.
External validity was tested by having colleagues review the questionnaire before
administration to study participants. The questionnaire was evaluated for accuracy, relevance,
and ease of use by participants. Three colleagues reviewed the questionnaire, and the researcher
incorporated their feedback to improve the questionnaire.
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 59
The reliability of the qualitative study was increased by using triangulation, employing
member checking, ensuring accurate descriptions, and spending time in the field. Triangulation
was a key aspect of improving validity (Denzin, 1978). The triangulation strategy was for the
researcher to observe the participant’s place of business for evidence of microbusiness marketing
strategies. Research was conducted on the participant’s digital strategies after the interview. The
observation form served as confirmation of the responses. The triangulation strategy was to use
questionnaire responses, observations, and research on digital strategies to confirm that the data
in the analysis were valid for each participant.
Data saturation is reached when no new information has been revealed and coding is no
longer feasible. Data saturation occurs when enough information has been collected to replicate
the study (Fusch & Ness, 2015). Failure to reach data saturation has a negative effect on the
validity of the research. Hennink, Kaiser, and Marconi (2017) presented the concept that code
saturation and meaning saturation are two separate issues in data saturation. Code saturation may
indicate that researchers have heard all the responses. Meaning saturation is where the
researchers go beyond the coding to a thorough and detailed understanding of the issues. The
research study achieved code and meaning saturation with 18 completed questionnaires. A
minimum of 15 questionnaires was projected to provide data saturation (Baskarada, 2014).
Ethical Procedures
The questionnaires carried no identifiers and were anonymous. The researcher provided a
brief explanation of the questionnaire and the opt-out directions. During the study, the
questionnaires and observation forms were stored in a locked drawer in the researcher’s office.
When the study was complete, the questionnaires and observation forms were transferred to the
researcher’s secure storage facility. After five years, the paper questionnaires will be destroyed.
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 60
The digital data will be stored on the researcher’s password-protected computer. After five years,
the digital data will also be destroyed.
The researcher obtained Institutional Review Board approval and complied with all rules
regarding participant rights. There were no foreseeable risks to the participants from
participating in the study. The researcher strived to be in compliance with university and
dissertation committee requirements at all stages of the research process.
The participants were clearly explained their rights and roles and signed the Informed
Consent Form. The questionnaire had the appropriate participant language and the participants
have access to the final dissertation. The participants were treated professionally by the
researcher. The participants were informed that they could elect to discontinue their participation
in the research at any time with no repercussions.
Summary
The purpose of the qualitative descriptive case study was to explore the effect of limited
time, money, and marketing expertise on microbusiness sales performance. The key
microbusiness marketing concepts of personal selling, networking, word of mouth, relationship
building, and branding were also explored in the context of limited marketing resources. The
results of this study provide direction for microbusiness owners on profitable time, money, and
expertise strategies to improve microbusiness sales performance. The results of the study also
provide direction to economic development organizations on microbusiness support strategies.
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 61
Chapter 4:
Findings
The microbusiness operating environment is challenging with daily issues of time,
money, and marketing expertise influencing sales performance. Microbusiness operators make
daily decisions on allocating resources, improving marketing expertise, and implementing
marketing strategies. The purpose of the qualitative descriptive case study was to describe the
amount of time and money that microbusiness owners spend on marketing. Time and money
along with the perception of marketing expertise were then related to sales performance. Specific
microbusiness marketing strategies that can affect sales performance were explored.
The researcher identified and contacted microbusinesses (nine employees or less) in
southwestern Wisconsin. The study used a convenience sample of microbusinesses. There were
18 respondents from a wide variety of microbusinesses. The researcher conducted all interviews.
All respondents completed the informed consent approval process (see APPENDIX C).
Qualitative research has the advantage of rich information and the interviewer can fully
explore the context of participant answers (Baskarada, 2014). Baskarada (2014) stated that 15 or
more questionnaires will provide a robust data set to analyze for the exploration and description
of the desired phenomenon. Eighteen questionnaires were completed with 89% (16 of 18) of the
respondents being microbusiness owners. One respondent was an employee who was a previous
owner of a microbusiness who moved to a marketing consulting role in a new microbusiness.
One respondent was the manager of the microbusiness. The two nonowners were included in the
data set because of their unique business types (business-to-business consultant and health care)
and extensive microbusiness marketing experience. Hence, the recurring description was
microbusiness operators.
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 62
The questionnaire (see APPENDIX A) consisted of Likert-scale questions and followed
up with open-ended questions. The detailed interviews enabled the researcher to gather
descriptive data about the specific issues of limited time, money, marketing expertise, and
specific marketing strategies of microbusiness operators. The research questions involved how
and why the researcher had no control over the events of the research, and the focus was current
phenomenon that aligned with Yin’s (2017) case-study research methodology. The data were
entered into Excel and analyzed by the researcher. Codes were developed to identify themes that
summarized and described the qualitative responses.
Triangulation is a key aspect of improving validity (Denzin, 1978). The triangulation
strategy was to use questionnaire responses, observations, and review of digital strategies to
confirm that the data in the analysis were aligned for each participant. The researcher observed
the participant’s place of business for evidence of microbusiness marketing strategies. The
researcher recorded the observations of the marketing evidence at the place of business except
for two business consultant participants. There were no physical locations for the consultants
because consulting is conducted at the client’s place of business. The data from these two
questionnaires were included in the study because of the extensive marketing expertise exhibited
by the respondents during the interview. The researcher also reviewed the digital strategies of
each respondent after the interview and recorded the observations on the observation form (see
APPENDIX B). All respondents utilized digital marketing strategies. The place and digital
observations aligned with the questionnaire responses from the participants.
In line with Baskarada (2014), data saturation was achieved through the administration of
18 questionnaires. The researcher pursued meaning saturation beyond code saturation (Hennink
et al., 2017). Meaning saturation was pursued through deep and detailed follow-up questions that
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 63
probed the participant’s reasoning for the responses. The barriers of limited time, money, and
marketing expertise were explored through direct Likert-scale questions, open-ended questions
to describe the reasoning behind the Likert-scale ratings, comparison to direct competition, and a
relative ranking of the relevance of each barrier. Data and meaning saturation were achieved.
Findings
Descriptive analysis of respondents. Microbusinesses employ nine employees or less,
including the owner. All 18 respondents employed nine people or less. If the business had part-
time employees, they were converted to full-time equivalents. Four of the businesses employed
only the owner. Nine of the businesses employed two to five people and five employed six to
nine people. The respondents were experienced in business with 72% having 10 years’ or more
of experience. A majority of the businesses (56%) interviewed had been in business 10 years or
more. There were four businesses in a start-up phase with less than 18 months of operation.
A key objective of the research study was to interview a broad base of microbusiness
types and industries. No type of business had more than three respondents. The businesses were
varied with 12 different types of businesses interviewed, as indicated in Table 1.
Table 1:
Types of Microbusiness Interviewed
Type of Microbusiness Number of Respondents
Service 3
Consulting 2
Retail Store 2
Restaurant-Hospitality 2
Financial Services 2
Travel-Tourism 1
Real Estate 1
Manufacturing 1
Health Care 1
Wholesale Distribution 1
(continued)
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 64
Type of Microbusiness Number of Respondents
Business Service (Business to Business) 1
Technology 1
The microbusinesses that were interviewed had a wide range of sales. The start-up
microbusinesses generated the lowest sales whereas the retail, professional services, travel-
tourism, and wholesale distribution businesses generated the highest sales. The sales ranges of
the participating microbusinesses are presented in Table 2.
Table 2:
Sales Ranges of Participating Microbusinesses
Yearly Sales Number Respondents % of Total
$1 to $12,000 1 6%
$12,001 to $50,000 1 6%
$50,001 to $100,000 2 11%
$100,001 to $500,000 7 39%
$500,001 to $999,000 3 17%
More than $1 million 4 22%
Questionnaire and interview findings. A Likert scale was used to quantify the
respondents’ answers to questions. The 5-point Likert scale ranged from 1 (“strongly disagree”)
to 5 (“strongly agree”). For subjects in specific areas of research interest, participants who
responded with a 4 (“agree”) or 5 (“strongly agree”) were asked to describe the rationale for their
ratings. The descriptions provided the information for coding, analysis, identification of common
themes, and insight.
Marketing was perceived to be important to the success of the microbusiness with
respondents averaging a 4.4 rating. A 4.4 score is indicative of strong agreement with the
concept that marketing is important to business success. Indeed, there were no ratings of 1 and
only one rating each of 2 or 3. All remaining respondents rated the importance of marketing a 4
or 5.
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 65
Aggressive sales growth had an average rating of 3.6, indicating a positive stance on
growing sales. Nine (50%) respondents rated 4 or 5 seeking to grow aggressively sales. Seven
(39%) responses were neutral at 3, indicating that they were satisfied with their current sales
levels and not aggressively seeking to grow sales. Two microbusinesses were not interested in
growing sales because of being at capacity at the time of the study.
Respondents were asked about their satisfaction with previous full year’s sales
performance growth on a Likert scale. There were four start-ups that could not answer this
question since they were not in business during that time period. The average of the respondents
was 3.6, indicating a positive average satisfaction level. The average year-over-year sales
increase for the microbusinesses that responded was 26%. Overall, the respondents had a
positive sales performance for the previous full year. The satisfaction with previous year’s sales
increase is presented in Table 3.
Table 3:
Satisfaction With Previous Year’s Sales Increase
Satisfaction Number of Respondents Average Previous Year’s Sales Increase
5 = Very Satisfied 4 51%
4 = Satisfied 5 20%
3 = Neutral 1 5%
2 = Dissatisfied 3 25%
1 = Very Dissatisfied 1 -20%
The participants were questioned about their year-to-date (YTD) sales performance
compared to the previous year. The study was conducted in August. Four start-up businesses
were excluded from this calculation because of their lack of sales comparison data to the
previous YTD. The satisfaction with the YTD sales increase is presented in Table 4.
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 66
Table 4:
Satisfaction With YTD Sales Increase
Satisfaction Number of Respondents Average YTD Sales Increase
5 = Very Satisfied 2 44%
4 = Satisfied 5 20%
3 = Neutral 4 6%
2 = Dissatisfied 2 3%
1 = Very Dissatisfied 1 -5%
Compared to the previous full year sales performance, sales growth slowed on a YTD
basis. The respondents reported an average of 15% compared to the previous full-year average of
26%. The respondents reported a satisfaction with the sales performance at 3.3 compared to the
previous full year satisfaction rating of 3.6. On average, the success of the sales performance
YTD was less than the sales performance of the previous year for these microbusinesses.
Time spent on marketing. A major issue for microbusiness operators is time spent on
marketing. The microbusiness operators were queried on their perception of the amount of time
they spent on marketing per week. Overall, 78% of the respondents stated that they spent less
than 1 hour per day on marketing. The data on time spent was skewed to the low end of the
measurement scale. The perceptions of the time spent on marketing of the participating
microbusinesses are presented in Table 5.
Table 5:
Time Spent on Marketing
Time Spent on Marketing Per Week Number of Respondents Percent of Total
Less than 1 Hour 10 56%
1–5 Hours 4 22%
6–10 Hours 1 6%
More Than 10 Hours 3 17%
When asked if they perceived that they were spending enough time on marketing to
achieve their goals, the average response was 2.3, indicating that respondents perceived that they
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 67
were not spending enough time on marketing. Respondents were then queried on the daily
challenges of running a microbusiness and the impact on the time spent on marketing.
Respondents averaged a 3.7 (indicating positive agreement) on their responses to the question if
the daily challenges of running a business negatively impacted the time spent on marketing. The
respondents who rated the question a 4 or 5 were then asked to describe the reason for their
rating. The respondents focused on daily business functions, customer service, not enough staff,
and crisis management as significant operating issues that reduced available time to spend on
marketing. The microbusiness operator was immersed in the daily business operations and time
allocation to marketing was found to be an issue. Comments such as “in charge of everything,”
“putting out fires,” “constant interruptions,” and “crisis management” indicated that the daily
challenges of running a microbusiness reduced the time spent on marketing.
Money spent on marketing. The amount of money spent on marketing is a key focus
area for microbusiness operators. The microbusiness operators were queried on their perception
of the amount of money they spent on marketing per month. The perceptions of the money spent
on marketing of the participating microbusinesses are presented in Table 6.
Table 6:
Monthly Marketing Budget
Monthly Marketing Budget Number of Respondents
Less than $100 5
$101-$500 9
$501-$1,000 1
$1,001-$2,000 2
Greater Than $2,000 1
The budgeting method that microbusiness operators use to make decisions on the amount
of money to allocate to marketing was the next subject of inquiry. When asked about their
marketing budgeting method, 6% used a fixed amount per month, 56% spent what was left over
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 68
and what could be afforded, and 28% used a combination of methods. Cost minimization was
identified by 11% of the respondents. The objective of cost minimization is not to have a budget
for marketing, but rather spend as little on marketing as possible. Microbusiness operators used a
variety of budgeting methods.
Generating sales increases for the amount of money spent on marketing is a key focus
area for microbusiness operators. There does not appear to be an association with the amount of
money spent on marketing to the previous year or YTD sales performance. The sales
performance for microbusinesses not in a start-up phase for the previous year and YTD were
compared to the amount of money spent on marketing per month in Table 7.
Table 7:
Monthly Marketing Budget Comparison to Sales Increases
Monthly Marketing Budget Number of
Respondents
Previous Year’s
Sales Increase
YTD Sales Increase
Less than $100 4 30% 35%
$101-$500 7 12% 8%
$501-$1,000 0 0% 0%
$1,001-$2,000 2 30% -2.5%
Greater Than $2,000 1 100% 20
Microbusiness operators appear to spend an adequate amount of money on marketing to
achieve their sales performance goals given the average satisfaction rating of 3.6 and average
sales increase of 26% for the previous year. The microbusiness operator’s average sales growth
during the current YTD was 15% and rated a 3.3 satisfaction level. While sales growth and
satisfaction were lower on a YTD basis when compared to previous full year, the respondents
were satisfied with the YTD sales performance.
The respondents were neutral on measuring return on investment on the marketing spend
with an average rating of 3.1. The rating of 3.1 indicated a neutral satisfaction where they
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 69
perceived they were spending an adequate amount of money on marketing and were not willing
to spend more without assurance of a positive return on investment on the additional marketing
spend. There were only five Likert scale ratings at 4 or 5 (28%) on measurement of return on
investment of the marketing spend. The descriptions of their return on investment of the
marketing spend were Google or Facebook analytics with five mentions, customer response with
four mentions, and sales generated with two mentions.
Marketing expertise. The perceived level of marketing expertise was explored with the
microbusiness operators. The respondents were asked to rate their level of marketing expertise
on a 5-point Likert scale of 1 (“low level”) to 5 (“high level”). The overall perception of all
participants of their marketing expertise was adequate with a rating of 2.9. The perceptions of the
respondent’s level of marketing expertise are presented in Table 8.
Table 8:
Marketing Expertise Ratings
Marketing Expertise Rating Number of Respondents
5 = High Level 1
4 = Between Adequate and High 3
3 = Adequate 8
2 = Between Adequate and Low 6
1 = Low Level 0
The perceptions of their level of marketing expertise compared to the sales increases of
the participating microbusinesses not in start-up phase are presented in Table 9. There does
appear to be an association of higher levels of marketing expertise with previous year’s sales
performance. There does not appear to be an association of higher levels of marketing expertise
with YTD sales performance.
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 70
Table 9:
Marketing Expertise Ratings Comparison to Sales Increases
Marketing Expertise Rating Number of
Respondents
Previous Year’s
Sales Increase
YTD Sales
Increase
5 = High Level 1 30% 0%
4 = Between Adequate and High 2 60% 19%
3 = Adequate 5 29% 17%
2 = Between Adequate and Low 6 15% 15%
1 = Low Level 0 0% 0%
Participants were asked to rate their satisfaction with the previous year’s sales
performance. The microbusiness operators who rated their previous year’s sales performance 5
averaged a 3.5 rating on their marketing expertise, which was higher than the average marketing
expertise rating of 2.9. In this study, higher levels of marketing expertise did appear to have a
positive association with sales performance.
All respondents, regardless of Likert-scale rating, were asked to describe their marketing
expertise. When respondents described their marketing expertise, there were eight mentions that
their current skill set was adequate (capable), five mentions that they learn new tools, and three
mentions each of education, industry tools, and previous marketing experience. There were four
mentions that the microbusiness operator was not capable of marketing. Tactical promotion tools
such as social media, videos, fliers, Web sites, content, signage, campaigns, customer
promotions, and public relations were solely focused on by seven of the respondents. Sales
activities were mentioned twice. Customer service and branding were mentioned once. The
descriptions of marketing expertise tended to be tactical and focused on daily activities.
Relative importance of barriers to marketing effectiveness. Microbusiness owners
face the barriers of lack of time, money, and marketing expertise when pursuing marketing
effectiveness. Lack of time, lack of money, lack of marketing expertise, return on investment of
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 71
the marketing spend, and marketing is not a priority in daily operations were identified as
barriers to marketing effectiveness. Respondents were asked to rate the relative importance of
each barrier in the context of marketing operations by major barrier, substantial barrier,
somewhat of a barrier, and not a barrier. The purpose of this question was to solicit feedback on
the relative importance of barriers to marketing effectiveness.
Table 10:
Ratings of Barriers
Rating of Barrier Lack of
Time
Lack of
Money
Lack of Marketing
Expertise
Return on Investment
of Marketing Spend
Not a
Priority
Major 4 2 0 1 0
Substantial 6 2 4 2 0
Somewhat 7 9 11 9 5
Not 1 5 3 6 13
Lack of time was rated the most important barrier with four ratings of major and six
ratings of substantial. Lack of money was the next most important barrier with two ratings of
major and two ratings of substantial. Lack of marketing expertise and return on investment of the
marketing spend were considered to be largely somewhat of a barrier. Marketing was a priority
to 13 (72%) of the microbusinesses.
Comparison to direct competition. Direct competition is an important issue for the
microbusiness operator on a daily basis. There may be few barriers to entry and customers may
be price driven in the microbusiness competitive environment. Customers may have many
alternatives and switching costs may be low. The microbusiness operators were interviewed on
their perception of how they compare to direct competitors on time, money, and marketing
expertise. The participants were asked if they perceived that they spent more time, about the
same, or less time on marketing than their direct competition. The question was repeated for
money and marketing expertise. The responses are summarized in Table 11.
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 72
Table 11:
Ratings of Comparison to Direct Competitors
Comparison to Direct Competitors Time Money Marketing Expertise
More Than 28% 17% 39%
About the Same 33% 17% 22%
Less Than 39% 67% 39%
Respondents favored the perception that they spent less time on marketing than direct
competitors. When asked about their perception of marketing expertise in comparison to direct
competitors, there was a perception of parity overall. In contrast, 67% of the respondents
perceived they spent less money than their direct competitors. This was double the response of
both more than and about the same.
Exploration of microbusiness marketing strategies. The microbusiness marketing
strategies of personal selling, digital strategies, relationship marketing, word of mouth,
networking, and branding have been identified as effective strategies that can improve marketing
effectiveness. These marketing strategies were explored using Likert-scale questions, ratings,
and open-ended questions. The purpose of exploring these specific marketing strategies was to
measure the respondent’s perception of effectiveness, identify common themes, and identify
opportunities to address the barriers of lack of time, money, and marketing expertise.
The personal selling process was explored with 72% of the microbusiness operators
responding that they were always involved in the personal selling process. An additional 17%
were often involved in the selling process for a total of 89% of microbusiness operators actively
involved in the personal selling process. The respondent was the primary point of contact for
customers with 67% of the mentions. Key descriptions of personal selling from the respondents
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 73
were face-to-face selling and education of customers. Customer service was also a key
description.
Digital strategies were deemed to be important to the success of microbusiness marketing
by respondents in this study. The importance of digital strategies averaged a rating of 4.4 on the
Likert scale. The digital tools that were identified were Web site, Facebook, Instagram,
YouTube, search, Twitter, and forums. The respondents’ perceptions of the effectiveness of
digital strategies were rated a 3.6, which is positive. The measurement tools mentioned were
analytics, sales conversions, customer feedback, and customer response (i.e., phone calls and
coupons).
The microbusiness operators’ personal satisfaction with their own digital expertise rated a
2.8, which was negative. There were only five Likert scale ratings at 4 or 5 out of 18
questionnaires on personal satisfaction with their own digital expertise. When asked to describe
their expertise responses included, “trial and error” and “figure it out.” There were mentions of
learning-specific digital tools such as YouTube, Google, and Facebook. One respondent hired a
vendor to manage the digital strategy.
Relationship marketing was rated an important marketing strategy at 4.9 on the Likert
scale. Specifically, face-to-face or direct contact was the number one response with 11 mentions.
Networking was mentioned eight times and customer focus was mentioned seven times.
Community visibility was mentioned six times and education was mentioned four times.
Word of mouth was rated as an important marketing strategy at 4.9. Asking for referrals
from customers was the number one response with eight mentions. Word of mouth was linked
with relationship marketing, garnering five mentions. Customer focus had four mentions and
location was identified as a word-of-mouth strategy with two mentions.
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 74
Networking was rated as an important marketing strategy at 4.6. Local organizations such
as chambers of commerce, community organizations, economic development organizations, and
local government agencies were identified by 50% of the respondents. Community, organization,
and customer events were identified by 33% of the respondents. Personal relationships and being
visible in the community were identified by 20% of the respondents.
The microbusiness operators were asked about the concept of being the face of the
business that is both the brand and the focal point of the marketing. The average response rating
was 4.7, which indicates a high level of agreement with this strategy. The respondents’
descriptions of their branding strategies focused in on the key areas of customer relationship
building, personal service, and relating to the individual needs of customers. Face branding was
identified in the descriptions as an overt strategy in 50% of the interviews.
Researcher observations. The researcher filled out the observation form (see
APPENDIX B) that was used as a triangulation tool after each interview. The observations
included a general overview of the business, digital marketing examples, marketing evidence at
the participant’s place of business, evidence of marketing expertise in conversations with the
participant, and a general evaluation of the marketing strategy for the microbusiness. The
observations of how the respondents answered questions and the relative level of confidence in
the response provided context for the descriptions. The triangulation compared the researcher’s
observations of the specific microbusiness with the participants’ responses to the questions. The
researcher evaluated the alignment of the responses with the observations. Of the 18 interviews,
14 were conducted at the respondent’s place of business. One retail store microbusiness
respondent did not want to conduct the interview at the place of business because he could not
focus on the interview in that environment. That interview was conducted at a coffee shop. One
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 75
interview for the restaurant-hospitality microbusiness was conducted at the researcher’s home
because of numerous scheduling issues with the respondent. The researcher visited the two
businesses after the interviews and observed the marketing environments. The two consultant
interviews were conducted at coffee shops because of the microbusiness being based at the
respondent’s home. For the consultant interviews, a physical place assessment was not
performed. Both consultants had extensive digital marketing presence along with their observed
marketing expertise. In all cases, the observations were consistent with the interview responses.
The researcher observed that activities such as customer service, customer inquiries, and
sales calls were considered daily business activities rather than marketing activities. The
researcher observed that the personal selling process was considered a routine part of customer
service and daily business operations rather than a marketing strategy. These observations led to
the insight that microbusiness operators were underestimating the time they spend on marketing.
The observation of the researcher was that the marketing budgeting process was based on
judgement and intuition rather than data and analysis. This observation was based on the
vagueness, indirect responses, and a lack of confidence in the responses by the microbusiness
operators. The observation of the researcher was that measuring the return on investment of the
marketing budgeting was a difficult subject for microbusiness operators. The answers were
vague and disjointed. The researcher had to ask numerous questions and follow up repeatedly to
solicit answers. Respondents also lacked confidence in their answers. These observations led to
the insight that improvement in marketing expertise should include data-driven budgeting and
return on investment analysis.
The microbusiness owner’s marketing strategy revolved around building and maintaining
relationships with customers, influencers, community members, and business organizations.
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 76
Discussions on relationship marketing, networking, branding, and word-of-mouth marketing
elicited positive responses and high levels of descriptive feedback. The researcher observed that
the respondents were confident in their descriptions of these specific strategies and confident in
their ability to implement these strategies during daily business operations. The terms
relationship marketing and word of mouth were used interchangeably during the discussions with
respondents. The researcher observed that networking was linked to relationship and word-of-
mouth marketing in the discussions. These observations led to the insight that rather than
relationship marketing, word of mouth, networking, and branding being separate and distinct
concepts, they were integrated as one general concept in the microbusiness operator’s marketing
strategy.
The researcher observed that the microbusiness owner’s involvement in customer service,
personal selling, and daily business operations can result in a face-branding strategy even if it is
not an overt strategy. The respondents who did not overtly identify a face-branding strategy still
practiced a face-branding strategy through their actions of visibility and dealing with customers
personally. This led to the insight that face-branding strategies are a key aspect of microbusiness
marketing strategy and a source of competitive advantage.
Discussion
One of the objectives of this study was to achieve a thorough and detailed understanding
of the issues of the effect of limited time, money, and marketing expertise on marketing
performance. Through the interview and observation processes, the researcher gathered detailed
data about the specific issues of limited time, money, marketing expertise, and specific
marketing strategies of microbusiness operators. The detailed descriptive data were coded and
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 77
analyzed. The analysis identified themes that provided insight into the specific issues related to
limited time, money, marketing expertise, and specific microbusiness marketing strategies.
Theme: Narrow definition of marketing. The first theme that emerged was the narrow
definition of marketing as promotion and advertising. Microbusiness operators in this study
defined marketing as promotion and advertising. Personal selling and customer service were
considered to be routine daily operational activities. A more holistic view of marketing with a
focus on customer acquisition, engagement, and retention may yield a more effective marketing
strategy.
Theme: Underestimation of time spent on marketing. A theme emerged that
microbusiness operators narrowly defined marketing as promotion and advertising when
estimating the time spent on marketing. They spent time on customer service, sales, and
customer relationships but did not consider these daily operating activities to be marketing. This
indicates that microbusiness owners underestimate their time spent on marketing by not
including customer activities and the sales process.
Limited time was ranked the number one barrier by the respondents. The respondents
also perceived that they were not spending enough time on marketing to achieve their goals.
However, by analyzing their time spent on customer service, sales, and customer relationships,
microbusiness operators may be spending enough time on marketing to achieve their goals. The
satisfaction levels of 3.6 and 3.3 for previous full year and YTD sales performance along with
26% and 15% sales increases respectively indicate that they are spending enough time on
marketing, which is in direct contrast to their perception of not spending enough time on
marketing.
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 78
Theme: Underestimation of the money spent on marketing. Microbusiness operators
in this study narrowly defined marketing as promotion and advertising. They spent time on
customer service, sales, and customer relationships but did not consider these daily operating
activities to be marketing. This suggests that microbusiness owners were not considering the
staffing costs of customer service and personal selling in their costs of marketing. The
microbusiness operators were satisfied with their marketing spend. A more robust analysis of the
total marketing investment that includes staffing costs may yield a more accurate assessment of
the amount of money spent on marketing.
Theme: Lack of a marketing budgeting process. The theme emerged that setting a
marketing budget was based on intuition and judgement rather than data and analysis. The
highest proportion of respondents (56%) used the affordability method where they spent what
they perceived they could afford. Cost minimization was identified by 11% of the respondents as
their budgeting method. The researcher observed a lack of confidence in their description of their
ability to use data in the marketing budgeting process. This lack of a marketing budgeting
process hinders the measurement process of marketing results. The lack of a marketing
budgeting process also negatively impacts the measurement of return on investment of the
marketing spend. There is an opportunity to improve microbusiness marketing results through
the use of a data-driven marketing budgeting process with reliable measures of results and return
on investment.
Theme: Improvement of the return-on-investment process. The theme emerged that
the respondents did not measure return on investment effectively. The researcher observed that
respondents were willing to spend more money on marketing if they were confident of a positive
return on investment. The lack of effective return-on-investment measurement led microbusiness
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 79
operators to conclude that they should only spend what they could afford or use a cost-
minimization strategy. An effective return-on-investment analysis would enable the
microbusiness operators to measure the return on investment of the marketing spend.
Theme: High interest level in improving marketing expertise. Microbusiness
operators perceived that their marketing expertise was adequate. A theme emerged that
microbusiness operators were interested in improving their marketing expertise. The rating for
interest level in improving marketing expertise was positive at 4.1 on the Likert scale. There did
appear to be an association between higher perceived marketing expertise and sales performance
in this study.
Theme: High interest level in improving digital marketing expertise. Digital
marketing was a key area of improvement identified by respondents. The satisfaction on digital
marketing expertise was rated a low 2.8 on the Likert scale. A theme emerged that microbusiness
operator’s digital marketing expertise, as one respondent stated, “needs improvement.” The
researcher observed that respondents lacked confidence and had difficulty describing their digital
marketing strategies. Education of microbusiness operators on digital marketing expertise is an
opportunity to improve microbusiness marketing results.
Theme: Traditional marketing strategies are effective. The theme emerged that
respondents considered the traditional marketing tools of personal selling, relationship
marketing, word of mouth, networking, and branding strategies to be effective. The researcher
observed that a majority of respondents exhibited a competent skill set and effective
implementation of traditional marketing strategies. In addition, traditional marketing tools are
low cost and can be integrated into daily operations. There is an opportunity to integrate overtly
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 80
traditional marketing strategies into daily operations thereby increasing the efficiency of time
and money allocated to marketing.
Summary
The purpose of the qualitative descriptive case study was to describe the amount of time
and money that microbusiness operators spend on marketing. Time and money along with the
perception of marketing expertise were then compared to the previous year and YTD sales
increase. In addition, specific microbusiness marketing strategies were explored to identify
opportunities to improve microbusiness marketing performance.
There were 18 respondents who represented 12 different types of microbusinesses,
ranging from start-ups with low sales to established businesses with sales in excess of $1 million.
The respondents rated the importance of marketing to be high with a 4.4 rating. Respondents
were satisfied with their previous year’s sales performance with a 3.6 rating and an average year-
over-year’s sales increase of 26%. In this study, there was no direct association found between
the time or money spent on marketing to sales performance. There did appear to be an
association between higher levels of marketing expertise and higher sales performance for the
previous year. In this study, respondents who rated their marketing expertise 5 on the Likert
scale had higher than average sales performance. Themes emerged that microbusiness operators
had a narrow definition of marketing, the time spent on marketing was underestimated, the
money spent on marketing was underestimated, there was a high interest level in improving
marketing expertise, there was a lack of a marketing budgeting process, improvement of the
return-on-investment process was needed, there was a high interest level in improving digital
marketing expertise, and traditional marketing strategies were effective.
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 81
Chapter 5:
Conclusions, Discussion, Recommendations, and Summary
Microbusinesses are an important segment of the United States economy (Headd, 2017).
Microbusinesses are key components of local economies and provide employment opportunities,
but microbusiness marketing has not been researched extensively (Premo-Hurt, 2016). Previous
studies identified that microbusinesses face significant barriers to success because of the effect of
the constraints of time, money, and marketing expertise (Brown-Peterson, 2017; Fluker, 2016;
Premo-Hurt, 2016).
This study addressed the gap in research on the effect of limited time, money, and
marketing expertise related to marketing performance as measured by sales performance.
Microbusiness operators were interviewed on their perceptions of the amount of time and money
they spent on marketing. They were queried on their perception of their level of marketing
expertise. The microbusiness operators were queried on their relative satisfaction with the sales
performance of the previous full year and current YTD. Their perceptions of time, money, and
marketing expertise were then compared to their sales performance. The study also explored
specific microbusiness marketing strategies that were identified as successful in previous studies.
The strategies were personal selling, digital marketing, relationship building, word of mouth,
networking, and branding.
Previous studies recommended larger sample sizes, a wide variety of types of
microbusinesses, and additional geographic areas (Demishkevich, 2015; Fluker, 2016; Gandy,
2015; Pai, 2017; Yang, 2015). The sample size was 18 respondents, which was significantly
larger than previous qualitative studies. A wide variety of microbusinesses from various sectors
and industries were interviewed compared to previous research that focused on specific types of
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 82
businesses. The research was conducted in a rural area of southwestern Wisconsin, which had
not been previously studied. The interviews were conducted by the researcher. The data were
compiled and coded for analysis along with theme identification. The researcher also observed
the participant’s digital marketing and place of business (where possible) for evidence to
triangulate the questionnaire responses.
Conclusions
There were 12 types of microbusinesses interviewed. The size of the microbusinesses
varied from start-ups with low sales to enterprises with sales more than $1 million. Of the 18
respondents, 16 were the owners of the microbusiness. The other two respondents were a
manager and an employee. Both the manager and the employee had extensive knowledge of the
microbusiness and the marketing operations. The respondents were experienced with 72%
having more than 10 years of experience and 56% of the businesses operated for at least 10
years. The sample represented a wide variety of microbusinesses.
The microbusiness operators perceived marketing to be important to success with an
average rating of 4.4 on the Likert scale. The 5-point Likert scale ranged from 1 (“strongly
disagree”) to 5 (“strongly agree”). For microbusinesses that had physical locations, the
researcher observed the physical location for evidence of the importance of marketing. The
researcher also reviewed the digital marketing for all participating microbusinesses. The
observations of the researcher confirmed that marketing was an important aspect of their
business operations.
The microbusiness operators were questioned about their position on aggressive sales
growth. The respondent’s average rating was 3.6 on the Likert scale, indicating a positive stance
on pursuing aggressive growth. Nine (50%) of the respondents rated a 4 or 5, seeking to grow
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 83
aggressively sales. Two microbusinesses were not pursuing sales growth as a result of being at
capacity at the present time. In addition, seven (39%) responses were neutral at 3, indicating that
they were relatively satisfied with their current sales.
The five microbusiness operators who rated a 5 on aggressive growth spent the most time
on marketing with two responses of more than 10 hours, two responses of one to five hours, and
one response of six to 10 hours per week. The five lowest ratings on aggressive growth all spent
less than one hour per week on marketing. Three of the five respondents who rated a 5 on
aggressive growth perceived that they spent more time than their direct competition on
marketing. In contrast, three of the five respondents with the lowest rating on aggressive growth
perceived they spent less time on marketing than the direct competition. In this study,
microbusiness operators who were pursuing an aggressive growth strategy perceived that they
spent more time on marketing than microbusiness operators who were less aggressive on
pursuing sales growth.
Sales performance was measured based on their past full year’s percentage increase over
the previous year. There were four start-ups that did not respond to this question since they were
not in business during that time period. The average year-over-year sales increase for the
microbusinesses in operation in the previous year was 26%. When asked to rate their satisfaction
with that performance, the Likert scale rating was 3.6, indicating a positive average satisfaction
level. A total of nine of the 15 who responded (60%) rated their satisfaction a 4 or 5. The four
respondents who rated their satisfaction 5 averaged 51% sales increase, which was higher than
the average. On average, the microbusinesses in this study were successful at increasing sales
during this time period.
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 84
Sales performance was also measured on a YTD basis. The study was conducted in
August with more than 50% of the year completed. The average sales growth was 15% with a
3.3 satisfaction rating. Start-up businesses were again excluded from this calculation. A total of
seven of the 15 who responded (47%) rated their satisfaction a 4 or 5. The two respondents who
rated their satisfaction 5 averaged 44% sales increase. On average, the sales performance YTD
decreased when compared to the sales performance of the previous year for these
microbusinesses. The respondents were also less satisfied with their YTD sales performance
compared to the previous full year.
Research Question 1
One of the major issues for microbusiness operators is time allocation to the broad scope
of daily business activities. This led to the research question of what is the perception of
microbusiness operator’s time spent on marketing to sales performance? The average Likert-
scale rating of 2.3 indicated that the perception of the microbusiness operators was that they did
not spend enough time on marketing to achieve their goals.
When asked to estimate the amount of time they spent on marketing, 56% responded that
they spent less than one hour per week, 22% stated they spent one to five hours, 6% spent six to
10 hours per week, and 17% spent more than 10 hours per week. The data on time spent were
skewed to the low end of the measurement scale with 78% of the respondents stating that they
spent less than one hour per day on marketing. In this study, there appeared to be no direct
association between time spent on marketing and sales performance.
The daily challenges of running a microbusiness can negatively impact the time spent on
marketing (Premo-Hurt, 2016). This concept was confirmed in this study. Respondents averaged
a 3.7 rating (indicating positive agreement) to the question of whether the daily challenges of
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 85
running a business negatively impact the time spent on marketing. The respondents who rated
the question a 4 or 5 were then asked to explain the reason for their rating. The four issues that
arose from the responses were daily business functions, customer service, not enough staff, and
crisis management. Comments such as “in charge of everything,” “putting out fires,” “constant
interruptions,” and “crisis management” indicated that the daily challenges of running a
microbusiness created significant issues in time management for microbusiness operators. The
data indicated that microbusiness operators perceived that the daily challenges of running a
microbusiness negatively impacted the time spent on marketing.
In this study, microbusiness operators defined marketing as tactical promotion that they
spent money on such as digital, mass traditional advertising (i.e., newspaper and radio), public
relations, sponsorships, and short-term purchase incentives (i.e., deals). Microbusiness operators
considered marketing as promotion that they paid for and accounted for as a variable marketing
expense. They did not consider their own staffing cost to be a marketing cost. A theme emerged
that microbusiness operators did not view marketing as a strategic business function, but rather
narrowly defined it as promotion and advertising. The narrow definition of marketing led to the
theme that microbusiness operators underestimated the time they spent on marketing.
The descriptions of daily challenges by the respondents included references to customer
service, customer needs, and personal selling. Microbusiness operators spent time on customer
service, sales, and customer relationships, but did not consider these business activities to be
marketing in this study. This indicates that microbusiness operators underestimated their time
spent on marketing by not including customer activities and the sales process. This theme also
suggests that there is opportunity to integrate marketing into daily business operations to increase
the time spent on marketing.
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 86
Microbusiness operators perceived that they were not spending enough time on
marketing to achieve their sales goals. In contrast, the microbusiness operators were satisfied
with their sales performance for the previous full year and YTD. The dissonance between
microbusiness operators perceiving that they were not spending enough time on marketing and
satisfaction with sales performance supports the theme that microbusiness operators were
underestimating the time spent on marketing. In this study, there appears to be no direct
association between the time spent on marketing and sales performance.
Research Question 2
Microbusinesses often struggle with financial issues and marketing is often underfunded
(Jenkins, 2015). The research question was what is the microbusiness operator’s perception of
the relationship of money spent on marketing to sales performance? Respondents were satisfied
with their sales performance, rating the 26% average sales increase year over year at 3.6 on the
Likert scale. The respondents were less satisfied with YTD sales increase of 15% with a 3.3
Likert-scale rating.
When questioned on their marketing budgets, 28% of respondents estimated they spent
less than $100 per month on marketing, 56% of respondents spent $101 to $500, 6% spent $501
to $1,000, 11% spent $1,001 to $2,000, and 6% spent more than $2,000 per month. The
respondents who spent less than $100 per month averaged 30% sales growth year-over-year
growth. The largest cluster of respondents who spent $101 to $500 averaged a 12% sales
increase. For this sample of microbusinesses, there did not appear to be a direct association
between the money spent on marketing and sales performance.
When asked to compare themselves to their direct competition, 17% of the respondents
perceived they spent more than their direct competition on marketing, 17% about the same, and
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 87
67% perceived they spent less than the direct competition. The perception of 67% of the
respondents that they spent less than the competition on marketing may indicate that there is
opportunity to increase the level of spending on marketing to improve sales performance. The
researcher observed a theme that microbusiness operators were willing to spend more money on
marketing, but were not convinced that the higher spend had a positive return on investment.
One of the issues that related to the perception of poor return on investment of additional
marketing money was that the process of setting a marketing budget was not well-defined by the
respondents. Asked about their marketing budgeting method, 6% used a fixed amount per month,
56% spent what was left over-what can be afforded, 28% used a combination of methods, and
11% did not have a budgeting method but rather used cost minimization. The researcher’s
observation was that marketing budgeting for these microbusiness operators tended to be based
on judgement, perception, and intuition. The researcher observed vagueness, indirect references,
and a lack of confidence in the responses. These responses align with Premo-Hurt’s (2016)
findings that microbusiness operators make decisions based on their intuition and perceptions.
The theme emerged that there was a lack of a data-driven marketing budgeting process.
Measuring return on investment from marketing is often difficult. This can further inhibit
investments in marketing (Reibstein & Pauwels, 2010). When queried on their measurement of
return on investment on the marketing spend, the average Likert-scale rating was neutral at 3.1.
This neutral rating indicates an equilibrium where they perceived they were spending enough
money on marketing. When questioned on their level of marketing spend, the microbusiness
operators stated they would be willing to spend more money on marketing if they were confident
of a positive return on investment. Caruth (2016) presented research that marketing measurement
needs to be tied to sales generation. There were only two mentions of measuring return on
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 88
investment by sales results from respondents. Improved measurement of return on investment is
an opportunity for microbusiness operators to increase marketing performance.
The researcher observed that the microbusiness operators in this study had difficulty
describing their return on investment measurement process. The responses were limited in
number and the respondents provided vague answers on measuring the return on investment of
the marketing budget. There were few positive digital analytic responses that support the
conclusion by Demishkevich (2015) who found that small businesses had an inadequate
measurement system for digital marketing results. The observation of the researcher was that
respondents were neither confident nor precise in their descriptions of measuring the return on
investment of the marketing budget. The theme that improvement of the return-on-investment
process is an opportunity to improve microbusiness marketing performance was supported.
Microbusiness operators perceived that they were spending an adequate amount of
money on marketing and, on average, were satisfied with their sales performance. They
perceived that they spent less than their direct competition. They tended to set their marketing
budgets using the affordability method, relying on judgement and intuition. The respondents had
difficulty measuring the return on investment on the marketing budget. In this study there
appears to be no direct association between the money spent on marketing and sales
performance. The themes emerged that a data-driven marketing budgeting process and
measurement of return on investment are opportunities to improve microbusiness marketing
performance.
Research Question 3
Limited expertise in marketing is a significant issue for business success (Marom &
Lussier, 2014). Expertise in key marketing capabilities has been positively linked to successful
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 89
marketing performance (Haniff & Halim, 2014). In this study, the research question was what is
the perceived relationship of marketing expertise to sales performance? The respondents were
asked to rate their level of marketing expertise on a 5-point Likert scale of 1 (“low level”) to 5
(“high level”). The overall rating of the perception of the microbusiness operator’s marketing
expertise was adequate at 2.9 on the Likert scale. There was only one microbusiness owner who
rated his or her marketing expertise a 5, and two rated a 4. There were eight ratings of 3 and six
ratings of 2. There were no rankings of 1. Microbusiness operators who rated their satisfaction
with their year-over-year sales performance 5 averaged a 3.5 rating on their marketing expertise.
When asked to compare their perception of their marketing expertise to the direct competition,
39% responded that they perceived that they had more marketing expertise than the direct
competition, 22% responded about the same, and 39% responded less, which supports the
perception of the respondents that their marketing expertise on average was adequate. In this
study, there appeared to be a positive association between the level of marketing expertise and
previous year’s sales performance.
When asked to describe their marketing expertise, there were eight mentions that their
current skill set was adequate (capable), five mentions that they learn new tools, and three
mentions each of education, industry tools, and previous marketing experience. The theme that
marketing was narrowly defined as promotion and advertising was supported in the respondent’s
descriptions of their marketing expertise. Tactical promotion tools such as social media, videos,
fliers, Web sites, content, signage, campaigns, customer promotions, and public relations were
described by seven of the respondents. Sales activities were mentioned twice. The core
marketing concepts of customer service and branding were mentioned once. The researcher
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 90
observed that marketing expertise descriptions were focused on short-term promotions and
tactical in theme.
There were four mentions that the microbusiness operator was not capable of marketing.
Concerns over marketing capability included the time and effort that negatively affected other
operational areas of the business, the small size of business that did not have the scale to afford
marketing, and that the microbusiness operator did not enjoy the marketing activities.
Microbusiness operators also mentioned that they were “old school” and not capable of applying
modern digital marketing strategies. Of the four microbusiness operators who stated they were
not capable of marketing, two of the microbusiness operators were start-ups, one had a 20% sales
decline, and one had a 25% sales increase.
Microbusiness operators were interested in improving their marketing expertise. The
average Likert-scale rating was 4.1, which indicated a high interest. The researcher observed a
high level of interest in improving their marketing expertise when participants responded to the
question. The theme emerged that microbusiness operators had a high-interest level in improving
their marketing expertise in general and a specific high-interest level in improving digital
marketing expertise. In this study, there appeared to be a positive association between the level
of marketing expertise and sales performance.
Exploration of Barriers to Marketing Effectiveness
The barriers of lack of time, lack of money, lack of marketing expertise, return on
investment of the marketing spend, and marketing is not a priority in daily operations were
explored from a relative importance perspective. Respondents were asked to rate the relative
importance of each barrier in the context of marketing operations by major barrier, substantial
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 91
barrier, somewhat of a barrier, and not a barrier. The purpose of this area of inquiry was to
explore the relative importance of these barriers to marketing effectiveness.
Lack of time was rated the most important barrier with four ratings of major and six
ratings of substantial. These responses support the low 2.3 Likert-scale rating when the
microbusiness operators were asked if they spent enough time on marketing to achieve their
objectives. The lack of money was the second most important barrier with two ratings of major,
two ratings of substantial, and nine ratings of somewhat. The researcher observed that
respondents related the lack of money to the lack of return on investment on the marketing
spend. Return on investment of the marketing spend was the third most important barrier with
nine responses that it was somewhat of a barrier and six responses that it was not a barrier.
Microbusiness operators rated the lack of marketing expertise as the fourth most important
barrier. Marketing is not a priority was the least important barrier with 13 of the 18 (72%)
participants responding that it was not a barrier. This supports the previous 4.4 Likert-scale
rating of the importance of marketing. The respondent’s ratings of the relative importance of
each barrier confirmed the Likert-scale ratings for the barriers of time, money, and marketing
expertise.
Relative Comparison of Barriers to Direct Competitors
The microbusiness operators were questioned on their perception of how they compare to
direct competitors on time, money, and marketing expertise. The questions asked the respondents
to perceive if they spent more, about the same, or less time on marketing than their direct
competition. The question was repeated for money and marketing expertise. Respondents
favored at 39% the perception that they spent less time on marketing than direct competitors
compared to 33% who thought they spent about the same amount of time and 28% who
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 92
perceived they spent more time. The ratings were similar for marketing expertise with 39% who
perceived they had less, 22% about the same, and 39% who perceived they had more marketing
expertise than their direct competition. In contrast to similar ratings for time and marketing
expertise, 67% of the respondents perceived they spent less money than their direct competitors.
This was double the response of both more than at 17% and about the same at 17%. There may
be a dissonance between the respondent’s perceptions that they were spending an adequate
amount of money on marketing to achieve their sales performance goals based on the perception
that they spent less than the direct competition. The perception of 67% of the respondents that
they spent less money on marketing than their direct competitors supports the theme that
microbusiness operators would be willing to spend more money on marketing if they were
confident of a positive return on investment.
Microbusiness Marketing Strategies
The purpose of this aspect of the descriptive case study was to support and further
explore previous research on successful microbusiness marketing strategies. Specifically, the
concepts of personal selling, digital strategies, relationship marketing, word of mouth,
networking, and branding were explored. These marketing strategies were explored in the
context of the daily operational issues of limited time, money, and marketing expertise.
Gibbons (2015) found that the small-business marketing strategies of brand awareness,
community involvement, customer loyalty, and seizing operational opportunities were
successful. These marketing strategies are low cost, customer focused, and integrated into daily
business operations. O’Donnell (2011) identified key themes of small-business marketing as a
framework of customer relationships, bottom up, use of technology, creative use of resources,
and word-of-mouth promotion. These themes focus on low-cost marketing and are customer
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 93
focused. The marketing strategies of branding, customer service, relationship marketing,
networking, and word of mouth are low cost and can be integrated into daily operations, thereby
creating competitive advantage.
Personal selling was an integral part of the microbusiness operator’s marketing strategy
in this study. There was an emphasis on personal selling with 89% of microbusiness operators
responding that they were highly involved in the personal selling process. The microbusiness
operators were the primary point of contact and education for customers. Even though personal
selling was an important microbusiness marketing strategy, a theme emerged from the research
that personal selling was not considered marketing by microbusiness operators. It was considered
a routine daily operational activity. Personal selling was not accounted for in their estimates of
time, money, or marketing expertise. This supports the themes that microbusiness operators
underestimate the time and money spent on marketing.
Caruth (2016), Brown-Peterson (2017), and Jenkins (2015) found that digital strategies
were important in small-business success. These findings were supported in this study. Digital
strategies were deemed to be important to the success of microbusiness marketing with an
average rating of 4.4. The respondent’s perception of the effectiveness of digital strategies was
rated 3.6, which was positive. The microbusiness operator’s personal satisfaction with their own
digital expertise was rated a 2.8, which was negative. In addition, the researcher’s observation
was that the respondents’ answers were vague and lacked confidence. A theme emerged that
improvement in microbusiness operator’s digital marketing expertise can provide opportunities
for increased marketing effectiveness.
Bruce (2016) found that relationship marketing was an effective small-business
marketing strategy. This concept was supported by the microbusiness operators rating
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 94
relationship marketing importance high at 4.9. The microbusiness operators focused on face-to-
face or direct contact, networking, and customer service. Being visible in the community and
educating customers were also deemed important by respondents. The researcher observed that
the exploration of relationship marketing elicited positive responses and high levels of
descriptive feedback. The microbusiness operators valued the relationships with their customers
and stakeholders. The microbusiness operator’s marketing strategy revolved around building and
maintaining relationships with customers, influencers, community members, and business
organizations.
O’Donnell’s (2011) research on the importance of word-of-mouth marketing was
supported in this study with a 4.9 Likert-scale rating from the microbusinesses. In this study,
respondents focused on asking for referrals from customers. Word of mouth was mentioned by
respondents when discussing relationship marketing and customer focus, indicating that the
marketing strategies were interrelated. Similar to relationship marketing, the researcher’s
observation was that this question elicited positive responses and high levels of descriptive
feedback. The terms relationship marketing and word of mouth were used interchangeably
during the discussions with microbusiness operators. Word of mouth was perceived to be a
successful marketing strategy for microbusiness operators in this study.
Networking was rated important with a 4.6 rating, which supported Premo-Hurt’s (2016)
research. Respondents’ networking strategies in this study focused on local organizations such as
the local chamber of commerce, community organizations, economic development organizations,
and local government agencies. Being visible in the community at events such as parades and
meetings along with personal relationships were identified as networking opportunities by the
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 95
microbusiness operators. The researcher observed that networking was directly linked to
relationship and word-of-mouth marketing in the discussions with respondents.
Bruce (2016) and Gandy (2015) found that the operator’s personality played an important
role in relationship building with customers. This concept was explored with the microbusiness
operators. They were asked about the concept of being the face of the business that was both the
brand and the focal point of the marketing. The average response rating was 4.7, which indicated
a high level of agreement with this strategy. The respondents’ descriptions of their branding
strategies focused on the key areas of customer relationship building, personal service, and
relating to the individual needs of customers. Face-branding was identified in the descriptions as
an overt strategy in 50% of the interviews. The researcher observed that the microbusiness
operators’ involvement in customer service, personal selling, and daily business operations can
result in a face-branding strategy even if it was not a stated overt strategy.
The theme emerged that traditional marketing strategies were perceived as effective.
Relationship building, word of mouth, networking, and branding strategies were used extensively
by the respondents. The respondents interconnected the terms and used them interchangeably.
Traditional marketing strategies can be cost and time efficient.
Discussion
The concept of microbusiness marketing with limited time, money, and marketing
expertise was the subject of this descriptive case study. Microbusiness operators make decisions
based on their intuition and perceptions and on resource allocation on a daily basis (Premo-Hurt,
2016). The microbusiness operator’s decisions on how to spend limited time and money
resources on marketing is a key factor in microbusiness success. In addition, the microbusiness
operator’s marketing expertise has a direct influence on marketing decisions (Gandy, 2015).
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 96
Marketing was a priority with microbusiness operators rating it a 4.4 on its importance.
The marketing was not a focus barrier was rated as not a barrier by 72% of the respondents,
which supports that marketing was a priority to the respondents in this study. These findings
confirm Pai’s (2017) research that marketing was important to microbusiness operators.
Theme: Narrow definition of marketing. Even though marketing was a priority to
microbusiness operators, they described a narrow definition of marketing. Microbusiness
operators in this study defined marketing as promotion and advertising. Personal selling and
customer service were considered to be routine daily operational activities. The researcher
observed that the higher-level strategic marketing models such as market orientation were
mentioned by only three of the respondents. The theme of a narrow definition of marketing limits
the opportunities to implement strategic marketing strategies and activities.
Businesses that developed a market orientation strategy to implement a specific set of
marketing activities had improved business performance and customer satisfaction (Gupta et al.,
2015). Specifically, the marketing concept of four P’s is applicable to microbusiness. The four
P’s can be applied to microbusiness marketing strategies to pursue a market orientation direction.
The application of the marketing orientation may result in a strategic view of marketing with a
focus on customer acquisition, engagement, and retention. The microbusiness operators may
benefit from a strategic view of marketing with its focus on customer satisfaction. The
application of strategic marketing on a daily basis may aid the microbusiness operator in using
time more effectively. This focus may yield a more effective marketing strategy by positioning
marketing as a strategic tool rather than focusing on tactical promotion. The result of an effective
marketing strategy is a higher level of satisfied customers, which increases marketing
performance. A microbusiness operator who focuses on a more strategic view of marketing has
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 97
the opportunity to create competitive advantage through a more focused and effective marketing
strategy.
In addition to implementing the marketing orientation as a business strategy, the
promotion mix was an area that the researcher observed to need improvement. The first
improvement was to expand the promotion mix from a focus on short-term direct customer
promotions, mass advertising, and digital to include personal selling and public relations. The
respondents focused on short-term, price-oriented promotions, advertising, and digital tools.
Personal selling was not considered as a promotion tool, but rather a routine daily operating
activity. Public relations is a promotion tool that fits microbusiness marketing strategies. Public
relations creates information that can be used to educate customers, garner free publicity, supply
digital content on Web sites, and provide social media content. The strategy of using all the
promotion tools of public relations—direct customer promotions, personal selling, mass
advertising, and digital—can increase the effectiveness of the promotion strategy.
In addition to using all of the promotion tools, the promotion tools should be coordinated,
integrated, and leveraged to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of the promotion strategy.
The marketing orientation focuses the promotion on the customer’s needs. For example, a
microbusiness may be in a situation where the customer needs a high level of information to
make a decision. Public relations can be used to create content that is valuable to the customer
and information rich. The public relations content can be used in advertising and sales materials.
The public relations content can be posted on the digital platforms, including Web site, social
media, and e-mail. The content can be used in the personal selling process to educate customers
during the sales call. The leverage of public relations content can create a more effective
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 98
promotion strategy and is cost effective. The leverage of content across the promotion tools is a
key area of improvement for microbusiness marketing.
Theme: Underestimation of the time spent on marketing. Flying Solo (2017) found
that 44% of the microbusinesses spent little or no time on marketing. This study supported this
finding with 56% of the respondents spending less than 1 hour per week on marketing. When
respondents were asked if they generally spent enough time on marketing each week to achieve
their goals, their response was negative at 2.3. Lack of time was also identified in this study as
the most significant barrier of the three barriers of lack of time, lack of money, and lack of
marketing expertise. Microbusiness operators perceived that they were not spending enough time
on marketing.
Microbusiness operators who were pursuing an aggressive growth strategy perceived that
they spent more time on marketing than microbusiness operators who were less aggressive on
pursuing sales growth in this study. Respondents pursuing aggressive growth also perceived they
spent more time than their direct competition on marketing. The growth goals of microbusiness
operators appear to have an association with their time allocation to marketing in this study.
The perception that they were not spending enough time on marketing was contradicted
by the marketing performance, as measured by sales results. The previous year’s average sales
increase was 26% and the relative satisfaction was positive with a 3.6 rating. While YTD
average sales increase slowed to 15% and the satisfaction rating declined to 3.3, the results were
positive. There was a dissonance between the perception of not spending enough time on
marketing and achieving positive sales results. This may be related to the lack of measurement of
marketing results, which rated an overall neutral rating of 3.1.
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 99
When daily business issues take priority, marketing was often neglected (Reiner et al.,
2016). The perception of microbusiness operators not spending enough time on marketing also
may be driven by the pressure of daily operations reducing the amount of time allocated to
marketing. Respondents identified customer inquiry and customer service as routine daily
activities rather than marketing activities. A theme arose that microbusiness operators were
underestimating the time spent on marketing as a result of not considering personal selling and
customer service activities as marketing.
Gibbons (2015) presented a strategy to make time for marketing by seizing operational
opportunities. The daily operational activities of a business that include personal selling,
handling customer inquiries, and customer service create an opportunity to integrate promotion
activities into the daily activities. The researcher observed that respondents in this study
supported this concept by focusing on personal selling and customer relationships in daily
operations. A more focused effort on integrating marketing in daily operations has the potential
to increase efficiently the time spent on marketing to improve marketing results.
Lack of staffing has been identified as an issue in microbusiness marketing. Hillary
(2017) found that lack of staffing contributes to the feeling of being overwhelmed by
microbusiness operators. In this study, only two microbusinesses hired staff to conduct
marketing activities. Lack of staffing is also related to the lack of money barrier, as
microbusinesses may not have the financial resources to hire more staff. In contrast, adding more
staff has the potential to add time resources to address the barrier of lack of time to spend on
marketing. Microbusiness operators may want to consider hiring staff to increase the time
resources available to allocate to marketing.
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 100
In this study, there appeared to be no association between the time spent on marketing
and sales performance. This could be a result of underestimating the time spent on marketing and
not considering activities such as personal selling and customer service as marketing. Another
reason was that businesses such as real estate management and wholesale distribution did not
appear to be sensitive to promotion activities in this study. These types of business are operations
and customer-service focused. In many cases, a successful microbusiness operation attracts and
retains customers through customer satisfaction rather than promotion. This concept supports the
focus on daily operations with an emphasis on customer service as a marketing strategy that is
time efficient.
Theme: Underestimation of money spent on marketing. In this study, microbusiness
operators perceived that they were spending enough money on marketing and, on average, were
satisfied with their sales performance. Indeed, 28% of respondents spent less than $100 per
month on marketing. A contributing factor to relative satisfaction with the marketing spend was
that selling costs and customer service costs were considered operating costs rather than
marketing costs. Another contributing factor was that microbusinesses focus on relationship
marketing, word of mouth, and networking, which are inexpensive marketing strategies. If the
cost of the microbusiness operator’s time spent on personal selling, relationship building, word
of mouth, networking, and customer service were quantified, it would increase the level of
marketing spend.
Gibbons (2015) and Au (2015) presented the concept of integrating low-cost marketing
with daily business operations. The studies found that small businesses use the themes of brand
awareness, community involvement, customer loyalty, and seizing operational opportunities as
successful marketing strategies. This concept was supported in this research study.
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 101
Microbusiness operators emphasized community involvement, customer focus, and customer
satisfaction in their descriptions. The microbusiness operators interrelated the marketing
activities of relationships, word of mouth, and networking in their descriptions. These three
strategies can be leveraged in daily business operations and interactions with customers to
improve marketing performance.
Theme: Lack of a marketing budgeting process. The underestimating of marketing
costs and lack of measurement of return on investment may be directly related to the lack of
analysis on setting marketing budgets. In this study, 56% of microbusiness operators set
marketing budgets using the affordability method, which focused on intuition and judgement. If
the microbusiness operator does not use data and objectives to set the budget and the baseline of
comparison, the measurement of results and return on investment can be challenging.
Microbusiness operators may also lack the marketing expertise to create marketing objectives,
collect data, and analyze the data. Improving the ability of the microbusiness operators to
implement a data-driven marketing budgeting process is an opportunity to improve marketing
operations.
Theme: Improvement of the return-on-investment process. In this study, the
respondents had issues with measuring the return on investment of the marketing spend.
Microbusiness operators were neutral when asked to evaluate the effectiveness of their
measurement of return on investment of the marketing spend. The researcher observed that
respondents were hesitant in their answers and only five of 18 (27.7%) rated the return on
investment measurement 4 or 5 on the Likert scale. The descriptions of their ratings were brief,
vague, and disjointed. Only two mentioned sales results as a measurement of return on
investment. In addition, 67% of the respondents identified lack of return on investment as a
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 102
barrier to their marketing effectiveness. A theme arose that microbusiness operators would spend
more on marketing if they were confident of a positive return on investment for both the money
and time invested. There is an opportunity to improve marketing operations through measuring
return on investment of the marketing spend.
Theme: High-interest level in improving marketing expertise. Marketing expertise
has been identified as a significant influence on business success (Marom & Lussier, 2014).
Expertise in key marketing capabilities along with business education, including marketing, have
been shown to influence positively marketing performance (Chanu & Sharma, 2015; Haniff &
Halim, 2014). This study supported the concept that higher levels of marketing expertise have a
positive effect on marketing performance. Microbusiness operators in this study perceived their
marketing expertise as adequate at an average rating of 2.9 on the Likert scale. Microbusiness
operators who rated their sales performance 5 averaged a 3.5 on their marketing expertise.
Improving the marketing expertise of microbusiness operators is a strategy that has potential to
improve marketing performance.
The narrow definition of marketing was identified in this study as an issue that may
negatively influence marketing performance. Education on strategic marketing using marketing
orientation, including four P’s analysis, has the potential to impact positively customer
acquisition, engagement, and retention. Moving from a tactical limited promotion emphasis to a
strategic marketing emphasis may improve the utilization of limited time and money resources,
thereby resulting in enhanced marketing performance.
The narrow definition of marketing also creates opportunities to expand and improve the
promotion mix for microbusiness operators. Education on the key promotion areas of personal
selling, public relations, digital, customer promotions, and mass advertising can create the
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 103
opportunity to expand the microbusiness operator’s promotion tools. In addition, the integration
of the tools in daily operations can create time and money efficiencies. The coordination and
integration of the promotion mix can create efficiencies to improve the effectiveness of the
marketing spend.
Microbusiness operators in this study were interested in improving their marketing
expertise. When asked to rate their level of interest in improving their marketing expertise, the
response was positive with an average rating was 4.1 on the Likert scale. This creates the
opportunity for small-business support organizations to offer education opportunities such as
seminars, classes, and individual business support. Microbusiness operators should also be
encouraged to seek out educational opportunities to improve their marketing expertise.
The microbusiness strategy is typically focused on the operator’s specific skill set and
expertise, which may not include marketing. In addition, microbusiness operators tend not to
have a formal education in business or engage with external support agencies (Yang, 2015).
Therefore, they need marketing expertise support from community‐based networks (Miller et al.,
2010). This dynamic creates an opportunity for communities to support microbusinesses through
offering programs to increase marketing expertise.
Theme: High-interest level in improving digital marketing expertise. Digital
marketing strategies have been identified as key tools for successful microbusinesses (Jenkins,
2015). The findings of this study confirmed the concept that digital marketing was an important
marketing tool for microbusinesses. The importance of digital strategies averaged a rating of 4.4
on the Likert scale. The microbusiness operators’ perceptions of the effectiveness of digital
strategies was rated a 3.6, which was positive. However, the microbusiness operators’ personal
satisfaction with their own digital expertise was rated a 2.8, which was negative. There are
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 104
opportunities to improve the effectiveness of digital marketing strategies of the microbusiness
operators through education.
Effective digital marketing includes the use of analytics. The use of analytics to measure
key performance indicators such as Web site visits, conversions, social media engagements, and
lead generation can support the measurement of return on investment of the marketing spend.
Analytics and return-on-investment measurement are integral aspects of digital marketing
strategies.
The digital marketing environment is dynamic. The researcher observed that the
respondents were interested in improving their digital marketing expertise, but concerned about
the time and money needed to implement digital strategies. There is a need for small business
support organizations to offer education on digital marketing opportunities.
Theme: Traditional marketing strategies are effective. Microbusinesses tend to use
word of mouth, relationships, and networking marketing strategies (Long, 2017). This study
supported this conclusion. Relationship building, word of mouth, networking, and branding
strategies were used extensively by the respondents. The respondents interconnected the terms
and used them interchangeably. The theme emerged that traditional marketing strategies were
perceived as effective. These strategies can create opportunities for low-cost and time-efficient
marketing activities to increase return on investment on money and time spent on marketing. In
addition, traditional marketing strategies can be integrated into daily operations, which can create
time and money efficiencies.
Relationship marketing was rated a high priority with a 4.9 score. This confirms Premo-
Hurt’s (2016) conclusion that relationship marketing was an effective marketing tool. Word of
mouth was rated a high priority with a 4.9 score. The terms relationship marketing and word of
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 105
mouth were used interchangeably during the researcher’s discussions with microbusiness
operators. The researcher observed that relationship marketing and word of mouth were
enthusiastically embraced by microbusiness operators in their descriptions of their marketing
strategies. Another benefit of relationship and word-of-mouth marketing strategies is that these
strategies can also be leveraged through digital marketing on social media. By leveraging
relationship marketing and word of mouth through digital strategies of Web site content along
with social media, the positive messages can be communicated to customers efficiently.
Networking was rated a high priority with a 4.6 rating by the respondents. This supports
the concept that networking is effective and cost efficient (Gibbons, 2015; Yang, 2015). This
strategy includes working with local chambers of commerce, community organizations,
economic development organizations, and government agencies. Local events and being visible
in the community were also viable strategies that were identified by respondents. The researcher
observed that networking was linked to relationship and word-of-mouth marketing in the
discussions. Microbusiness operators considered networking and community involvement to be
key relationship building and word-of-mouth strategies.
The extensive use of relationship building, word of mouth, and networking in
microbusiness marketing offers the opportunity for the operator to be the focal point of the
marketing strategy. This supports the concept that the small-business operator is often the brand
of the business (Centeno et al., 2013). The respondent’s descriptions of their branding strategies
focused on the key areas of customer relationship building, personal service, and relating to the
individual needs of customers. The researcher observed that the microbusiness operator’s
involvement in customer service, personal selling, and daily business operations can result in a
face-branding strategy even if it was not an overt strategy.
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 106
Recommendations
The definition of marketing for microbusinesses needs to be expanded to include strategic
marketing, all customer-facing activities, and all promotion tools. A more strategic view of
marketing to include customer service, customer inquiries, and the sales process would provide a
more accurate assessment of time spent in marketing. The marketing orientation strategy needs
to be more fully defined and used as a base for the marketing strategy. The promotion mix of
public relations, direct customer promotions, personal selling, mass advertising, and digital needs
to be applied using the leverage of traditional marketing with digital. A microbusiness operator
who focuses on a more strategic view of marketing has the opportunity to create competitive
advantage through a more focused and effective marketing strategy.
Daily business operations centered on the customer can be a competitive advantage for
microbusinesses. Being close to the customer can create competitive advantage because of the
focus on daily operations that enables the microbusiness to react quickly to changes in the
market (Liao et al., 2015). Microbusiness operators should seek out marketing opportunities
when conducting daily operations. For example, the customer-service process should be
analyzed for relationship marketing opportunities. An effective customer inquiry process creates
the opportunity to generate a positive relationship with the customer. The microbusiness operator
uses personal sales skills and education to turn the customer inquiry into a sale. A testimonial
could be solicited from the customer. The customer testimonial would be used on the Web site
and on social media. The daily business operation of customer service offers opportunities to
leverage marketing time and money to increase sales and return on investment.
The variable of marketing expertise was found to have a positive association to sales in
this study. Marketing expertise can be increased through training for microbusiness operators
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 107
that is offered at the local level by community organizations. Specific topics should include
personal selling, digital marketing, networking, word of mouth, relationship building, and
branding. Training for microbusiness operators should be offered by local chambers of
commerce, economic development organizations, and educational institutions.
This descriptive case study built on previous case studies by interviewing a larger sample
of microbusiness operators across a broad variety of businesses. A recommendation is for further
research on the time invested in marketing activities beyond the narrow definition of promotion
and advertising that was identified in this study. A quantitative study exploring the relationship
of money spent on marketing to sales performance is another area of interest. The researcher
observed that the barriers of limited time, money, and marketing expertise were interrelated.
Research on the interrelationship of the barriers to microbusiness marketing performance is
recommended. Further research on digital marketing and analytics has the potential to improve
the return on investment of the marketing spend in this critical area.
Summary
There are several limitations in this research study. The study was conducted in
southwestern Wisconsin, which may limit the generalization opportunities because of the rural
nature of the area. The respondents were a convenience sample of microbusinesses, which may
not be representative of the general microbusiness population. The descriptive case study was
relatively small in number of respondents, which may lead to inaccurate conclusions. The
respondents may have been biased by the researcher during the interview process.
This study benefits microbusinesses by identifying factors of success related to time,
money, and marketing expertise. The findings of this study have the potential to provide
direction for microbusiness operators on effective time, money, and marketing-expertise
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 108
strategies to improve microbusiness sales performance. The study also provides
recommendations and tools for microbusinesses to develop and implement effective marketing
strategies. In addition, microbusiness support organizations that are involved in small business
and economic development can use the findings to improve their support of microbusinesses.
Communities can benefit economically from more successful microbusinesses that provide
employment, products, services, and income to the local economic environment.
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 109
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APPENDIX A:
Questionnaire
Microbusiness Marketing Survey
1. Number of employees, including yourself (if employ part-time convert to full-time
equivalents)
a. 0-1
b. 2-5
c. 6-9
d. 10 or more
2. Your years of business experience
a. 0-1
b. 2-5
c. 6-9
d. 10 or more
3. Years in business (current business)
a. 0-1
b. 2-5
c. 6-9
d. 10 or more
4. Which of the following best describes your role in the business:
a. Owner
b. Manager
c. Employee
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d. Other____ please specify__________
5. Which of the following best describes your business: Retail___ Restaurant/Hospitality__
Professional___ Construction/Trade___ Service ____ Arts___ Agriculture Production___
Financial Services___ Health Care___ Real Estate___Manufacturing___Other___
6. Yearly revenue (sales):
a. $0
b. $1-$12,000
c. $12,001 to $50,000
d. $50,001 to $100,000
e. $100,001 to $500,000
f. $500,001 to $999.000
g. Over $1 million
7. How aggressively are you attempting to increase the revenue of your business?
1 2 3 4 5
Not Aggressive Neutral Very Aggressive
8. As a percentage how much did your revenue increase (decrease) last year compared to
the previous year? ____%
9. How satisfied were you the revenue increase (decrease) last year?
1 2 3 4 5
Not Satisfied Neutral Very Satisfied
10. As a percentage how much did your revenue increase (decrease) this year-to-date
compared to the previous year? ____%
11. How satisfied are you with the revenue increase (decrease) this year?
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 125
1 2 3 4 5
Not Satisfied Neutral Very Satisfied
12. How important is marketing to the success of your business?
1 2 3 4 5
Not Important Neutral Very Important
13. How much time per week do you typically spend on marketing?
a. Less than 1 hour
b. 1-5 hours
c. 6-10 hours
d. More than 10 hours
14. I generally spend enough time on marketing each week to achieve my goals.
1 2 3 4 5
Strongly Disagree Neutral Strongly Agree
15. I perceive that I spend _________time on marketing than my direct competition.
a. More
b. About the same
c. Less
16. Which marketing budgeting method best fits your business
a. I spend X% of sales on marketing
b. I spend a fixed amount per month almost every month
c. I spend what is left over and what I can afford
d. I use a combination of methods
e. None of the above
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17. How much do you estimate that on average you spend on marketing per month:
a. Less than $100
b. $101-$500
c. $501-$1,000
d. $1,001-$2,000
e. More than $2,000
18. I perceive that I spend _________ money than my direct competition on marketing.
a. More
b. About the same
c. Less
19. I measure my return-on-investment (ROI) for my marketing spend.
1 2 3 4 5
Strongly Disagree Neutral Strongly Agree
20. If applicable (4 or 5) what methods do you use to measure your ROI on your marketing
spend?
21. How would you rate your level of marketing expertise?
1 2 3 4 5
Low Level Adequate High Level Expertise
22. Describe your perception of your level of marketing expertise.
23. I perceive that I have _________ marketing expertise than my direct competition.
a. More
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b. About the same
c. Less
24. What is your level of interest in improving your marketing expertise?
1 2 3 4 5
Not Interested Neutral Very Interested
25. How often do you personally sell to customers?
a. Always
b. Often
c. Sometimes
d. Seldom
e. Never
26. Describe your involvement in the selling process to your customers.
27. How much of a barrier are the following to improving your marketing operations?
(Check one box per horizontal line for each type of barrier.)
Type of Barrier Not a barrier Somewhat a
barrier
Substantial
barrier
Major barrier
Lack of time
Lack of money
Lack of
marketing
expertise
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 128
ROI of the
marketing spend
Not a priority
28. Due to the daily challenges of running a business I struggle to spend enough time on
marketing.
1 2 3 4 5
Strongly Disagree Neutral Strongly Agree
29. If applicable (4 or 5) describe the specific daily challenges of running a business that
detracts from your time that you spend on marketing.
30. Digital marketing tools (websites, social media, and online) are an important aspect of
my marketing strategies.
1 2 3 4 5
Strongly Disagree Neutral Strongly Agree
31. If applicable (4 or 5) describe your key digital marketing tools and strategies.
32. How effective are your digital marketing strategies?
1 2 3 4 5
Not Effective Neutral Very Effective
33. If applicable (4 or 5) how do you measure the effectiveness of your digital marketing
strategies?
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 129
34. I am satisfied with my digital marketing expertise.
1 2 3 4 5
Not Satisfied Neutral Very Satisfied
35. If applicable (4 or 5) describe your digital marketing expertise.
36. Relationship building is an important marketing strategy for my business.
1 2 3 4 5
Not Important Neutral Very Important
37. If applicable (4 or 5) describe your relationship building strategies.
38. Word-of-mouth marketing is an important marketing strategy for my business.
1 2 3 4 5
Not Important Neutral Very Important
39. If applicable (4 or 5) describe your word-of-mouth marketing strategies.
40. Networking is an important marketing strategy for my business.
1 2 3 4 5
Not Important Neutral Very Important
41. If applicable (4 or 5) describe your networking marketing strategies.
42. I am the “face” of the business (brand) and the focal point of the marketing for my
business.
1 2 3 4 5
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 130
Strongly Disagree Neutral Strongly Agree
43. If applicable (4 or 5) describe your “face” of the business branding strategies
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 131
APPENDIX B:
Observation Form
Observation Form
No Time, No Money, No Expertise Microbusiness Marketing Research Project
1. Overview of the business.
2. Digital marketing examples.
3. Marketing evidence at the place of business
4. Evidence of marketing expertise in conversations.
5. General evaluation of marketing strategy of the microbusiness
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 132
APPENDIX C:
Informed Consent
July 1, 2018
Dear Survey Respondent:
Small businesses are an important segment of our economy and our local communities.
Marketing is critical to the success of small businesses. In many cases, small businesses have
issues with time, money and marketing expertise related to developing and implementing
successful marketing programs.
I am a Doctoral Student at William Howard Taft University conducting research on marketing
practices for small businesses. Small businesses that employ 9 or fewer employees are
considered to be microbusinesses. The research is intended to better understand microbusiness
marketing in the context of limited time, money and marketing expertise. This letter is an
invitation for your contribution to my study.
The research is a qualitative descriptive study involving microbusinesses in southwest
Wisconsin. I am conducting the interview and recording responses. Please sign the “Informed
Consent” form. The survey is approximately 40 simple questions and the interview will take
approximately 30-45 minutes. All responses will remain confidential and your anonymity will be
ensured. Your responses will contribute to this unique research about the specific marketing
issues that microbusinesses face on a daily basis. The research will be available online at Taft
University or by contacting me.
I greatly appreciate your participation in this research. Please let me know if you have any
questions concerning this study or the enclosures. I may be reached at 608.732.7801 or at
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 133
Sincerely,
George B. Krueger
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 134
Informed Consent Form
Microbusiness Marketing with No Time, No Money and No Expertise—Research and
Recommendations for Improving Marketing Results for Microbusinesses
Respondent: ________________________
George B. Krueger, a doctoral student at William Howard Taft University is conducting this
study. You were selected as a possible participant because you operate a small business and your
views on marketing will provide information to analyze and use to develop marketing support
strategies for microbusinesses.
Please read this form and ask any questions you may have before agreeing to participate.
Background & Purpose of the Research Project
Marketing is critically important to the success of small businesses. However, marketing can be
difficult for small businesses due to a lack of:
•Time. Microbusiness owners have numerous demands on their time such as daily
operations and financial management. Marketing is often not prioritized versus other
realities of operating a small business.
•Financial resources. Microbusinesses are often undercapitalized and do not spend
enough money on marketing to drive revenue.
•Expertise by the owner. Most microbusiness owners are operationally focused and do
not have a background, education nor expertise in marketing.
This investigation seeks to gather information on actual marketing practices by microbusinesses.
Microbusinesses are provided a survey of 40 questions. The data will be analyzed and strategies
developed from the information produced by the research project to more effectively support
microbusiness marketing resulting in more prosperous communities.
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 135
Respondent Participation
Participation participating in the interview process and answering questions related to your
business. The survey is anonymous with no individual identification of surveys. The results of
the study will be published. The results will also be provided to the economic development
organizations, will be available at my LinkedIn page and by direct request.
Confidentiality
The records of this study would be considered private information. Private information herein
means information ascertained by the investigator and constitutes research involving human
subjects. Private information includes information about businesses provided by the respondents.
Participation in the survey is anonymous. No information will be published that would make it
possible to identify a participant. Only the candidate/researcher would keep and safeguard the
research records.
Voluntary Nature of this Study
Your decision whether to participate would not affect your current or future relationship with the
candidate/researcher or the associated University. If you decide to participate, you are free to
withdraw at any time without prejudice.
Compensation
Participation in this study is completely voluntary. You would not receive monetary
compensation/reward for your participation. The personal benefits of your participation are as
mentioned in the following section.
Benefits of Participating in this Study
Microbusinesses are an important sector of the economy. Microbusinesses focus on the owner’s
expertise and the local market. They are small employing 9 or less people including the owner.
IMPROVING MARKETING RESULTS FOR MICROBUSINESSES 136
Marketing is an important aspect of business success, however, microbusiness owners struggle
with limited resources of time, money and marketing expertise. The purpose of this study is to
study the relationship between time, money and marketing expertise on sales results. The results
of this study will help microbusinesses and support organizations to more effectively market to
drive business success.
Risks of Participating in this Study
There is minimal risk to participating in this study, meaning that the risks of harm anticipated in
the proposed research are not greater than those ordinarily encountered in daily life. If at any
time during completing the survey you wish to not continue simply draw a line across the survey
and it will be discarded.
Contacts and Questions
You may ask any questions you have by contacting the researcher by telephone at 608.732.7801
or by e-mail at [email protected].
Statement of Consent
I have read the information herein, I have asked questions and received answers, and I have
received a copy of this form. I consent to participate in this study.
_____________________________________________ _____________________
Participant/Subject Date