The Micro-Influencers Effect on the Business Sustainability of Small Medium Enterprise: The Marketing Strategy Approach

Abstract

The outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic has significantly affected all the business units worldwide. Half of small firms unluckily have been also hit by such pandemic and then ended in the bankruptcy status due to several factors e.g., the failure in the marketing strategy application, especially in maintaining the related existing markets. This could be seen, for example, in the current customers preservation of small medium-sized enterprise and the way this firm invites the new buyers. Following this issue, this study however finds that less literatures discuss the dynamic of development of SMEs that are from in the Southeast Asia region, and to be more specifically, there are less studies focus on a specific marketing strategy perspective after the hit of COVID-19 outbreak. To this knowledge, this study then aims to fulfil the gap found in the literatures through the emphasis on certain marketing strategy viewpoints. This study applies quantitative approach and comes up with the finding, for the theoretical implications that the micro-influencer plays important role for the business quality and continuity of small enterprises. In the particular section of this paper, the detail explanation of managerial implications is also discussed.