A quantitative analysis of marketing strategy and its impact on small and medium enterprises sustainability

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are capable of stimulating economic growth, employment generation, and innovation. SMEs contribute immensely to the economy through job generation and the stimulation of local economies. All these notwithstanding, the majority of SMEs still encounter great challenges that stand in the way of their survival and growth. Two such key challenges are limited resources and ineffectual marketing strategies. Lacking good marketing, SMEs are not able to compete in the marketplace and win and retain customers. In this study, a quantitative design was employed to identify the impact of different marketing strategies on the sustainability of SMEs. A total of 275 respondents, all SMEs from diverse industries answered a self-administered, closed-ended questionnaire used in the research. A number of statistical techniques were employed in the research design to test the data, including the Pearson correlation coefficient, chi-square tests, multiple regression analysis, descriptive statistics, and hypothesis testing. Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 23 software was utilized to analyse the data. The research findings indicate that marketing concepts have a great influence on SMEs' sustainability, as shown by the critical performance indicators of market share, profitability, return on investment, and long-term performance. The independent variables examined customer participation, distribution channel, branding, pricing policy, promotion practices, and customer loyalty were reliable predictors of sustainability. Customer loyalty and branding were the two variables that impacted sustainability the most among all of these. In addition, a significant amount of the variance in SME sustainability was accounted for by the interaction of the independent variables. SMEs can focus on establishing a strong brand, improving customer loyalty schemes, establishing competitive prices, maximizing distribution channels, and implementing effective marketing campaigns according to the findings. By adopting these marketing strategies, SMEs can enhance their long-term survival prospects, increase market share, and attain consistent profitability and growth. SME managers and owners who want to maximize their sustainability in a competitive market will find the suggestions from these findings particularly useful.