The impact of digital marketing on business growth of local and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Nepal
Bhujel, Sunita (2025)
2025
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https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2025112730213
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2025112730213
Tiivistelmä
This paper examines the influence of digital marketing on the business growth of local small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Nepal by considering four tools: Social Media Marketing (SMM), Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Email Marketing Campaigns (EMC), and Paid Online Advertisements (POA). A quantitative research design was used, and a structured Likert-scale questionnaire was administered to 50 respondents, including SME owners, managers, and individuals knowledgeable about SME digital marketing practices. The analysis employed descriptive statistics, reliability tests, Pearson correlation, and multiple linear regression to test the relationship between digital marketing practices and key indicators of business growth, including sales, market reach, customer loyalty, and brand awareness.
The results of this study indicate that business growth was most directly affected by SMM with a strong positive relationship (r > 0.70) and the largest standardized regression coefficient (0.48, p < 0.01), which proves the existence of a strong positive correlation between active social media use and business growth. SEO and POA had moderate positive relationships (r 0.4060) and weak regression coefficients (= 0.1419, p > 0.05). In spite of the positive correlation (r ≈ 0.45), EMC did not have a significant independent effect in the regression model because its influence overlapped with other predictors. In general, the model accounted 58 percent of variance in business growth (R 2 = 0.58), which suggests that a multi-channel digital marketing mix, based on social media, is significant in SME growth.
The findings offer useful implications to SMEs and policymakers who wish to enhance digital adoption and add to the empirical data on the effectiveness of digital marketing in developing markets.
Keywords: Digital Marketing, Social Media Marketing, SEO, Email Marketing, Paid Online Advertisements, Business Growth, SMEs, Nepal, Multi-Channel Strategy, Regression Analysis.
The results of this study indicate that business growth was most directly affected by SMM with a strong positive relationship (r > 0.70) and the largest standardized regression coefficient (0.48, p < 0.01), which proves the existence of a strong positive correlation between active social media use and business growth. SEO and POA had moderate positive relationships (r 0.4060) and weak regression coefficients (= 0.1419, p > 0.05). In spite of the positive correlation (r ≈ 0.45), EMC did not have a significant independent effect in the regression model because its influence overlapped with other predictors. In general, the model accounted 58 percent of variance in business growth (R 2 = 0.58), which suggests that a multi-channel digital marketing mix, based on social media, is significant in SME growth.
The findings offer useful implications to SMEs and policymakers who wish to enhance digital adoption and add to the empirical data on the effectiveness of digital marketing in developing markets.
Keywords: Digital Marketing, Social Media Marketing, SEO, Email Marketing, Paid Online Advertisements, Business Growth, SMEs, Nepal, Multi-Channel Strategy, Regression Analysis.