The Use of Digital Marketing in MSMEs in supporting Business Continuity in Indonesia

Abstract

During the Covid-19 pandemic, Indonesian government had to restrict economic and social activities, resulting in a decrease in income and people’s purchasing power. This restriction influenced negatively on various industrial sectors including MSMEs,  in the forms of decreasing demand for the goods or services. This decrease in demand, then,  reduced the operating profits, often leading to business closures. However, digital marketing may alleviate hese problems. The purpose on this research is to obtain an overview of the digital marketing application by MSMEs, assisted by an Indonesian state-owned company (BUMN). This overview, then, can be utilized to provide solutions for MSMEs, especially in the field of marketing of the products and services. The data used in this study are primary data obtained through structured interviews and observation, as well as, secondary data collected from the MSMEs profiles. The interviews and observations were conducted on 16 business people (informants) from the MSMEs assisted by a-state owned company. The results of this research are: (1) 56.25% of the MSMEs are in Java and Bali (56.25%); (2) Most of the MSMEs are in handicraft sector (31.25%); (3) 75% of the MSMEs have utilized digital marketing; (4) 43.75% of the MSMEs update their social media contents everyday; (5) Half of those using digital marketing experiences the sales increase in the range of 10% to 50%. This study recommends training in digital marketing for MSMEs, starting from the use of the social media and chatting application to the creation of interesting contents for their social media.