Where to invest in online marketing education in micro and small enterprises

Cabiddu, Francesca;Moi, Ludovica;Jaaskelainen, Pia;Pilař, Ladislav;Pitrová, Jana;Petkov, Rosen

2020-01-01

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Abstract

The aim of this paper is to identify the educational needs of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the field of online marketing. This paper extends a local Czech study via international research (Bulgaria, Finland, Hungary, Italy). Primary data was gathered using an electronic questionnaire (n = 376) focused on the enterprise side and semi-structured interviews (n = 18) with online marketing agencies. Based on a comparison of questionnaire survey results and semi-structured interviews the main problem areas in the effective use of the online marketing tools were identified (complexity of the individual tools; lack of human resources, time and finance, bad previous experience; lack of knowledge and competencies). The research results indicate the definition of recommendations for micro and small enterprises - the main emphasis should be given to create a course that will create specialists for communication with online marketing agencies with the general knowledge of each online marketing tool.