Understanding Factors Influencing the Adoption of Digital Marketing Among Small Businesses: The Application of Decomposed Model of the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB)

Abstract

Digital marketing has seen rapid growth. Millions have been spent on the digital marketing tools. The increase in the investment in digital marketing is due its effect in increasing sales, improving brand image, increasing customer image, and reducing the overall marketing cost. to companies. Despite these advancements in marketing and its effects, these phenomena are not really observed in small and medium enterprises in developing and less developed country. This has motivated this study to analyse factors that influence the adoption of digital marketing among a group of entrepreneurs from low-income category that is under the assistantship of a state government agency in Malaysia. The sample comprises of 60 entrepreneurs from the group that have just attended digital marketing training have responded to the survey. The study employs a quantitative technique that utilizes the Decomposed Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) model that combines the TPB and the Theory of Acceptance Model (TAM). The result indicates that the dependent variable (Digital Marketing Adoption) can be significantly explained by the independent variables (Except Subjective Norm). The result also provides an important finding on the importance of the participants internal factors-Perceived Ease of Use (PEU), Perceived Usefulness (PU) and Perceived Behaviour Control (PBC) in improving the rate of digital marketing adoption. This provides an important insight into the future development of emarketing among the entrepreneurs from the lower income group in Malaysia. This indicates the importance of the role of effective training in e-marketing.