The Study on Digital Marketing Influences on Sales for B2B Start-Ups in South Asia

Abstract

South Asia has seen a digital revolution in recent years. The number of persons who use the internet has risen drastically. They use it for shopping, social media and online sales. However, there exists a literature gap as far as the effect of outbound digital marketing in B2B markets is concerned. The research builds a model based on brand and consumer interactions in Indian B2B markets using a vector autoregressive model to systemically analyze the cost and outcome of digital marketing efforts by the start-ups operating in South Asia. The multivariate time series analyzed in identifying simultaneous and consistent impacts by the start-ups. We use Vector autoregressive model as it allows us to analyse the relationship among the factors as it changes over time. The research finds evidence for the conceptual framework in South Asian markets. The results prove that sales are greatly influenced by digital media, and outbound marketing efforts, predominantly word of mouth, has a huge impact in building a brand image as it spread over in the social media platforms. It is observed that the digital marketing strategies and consumer interaction are the same across South Asia, but its effect varies from country to country within South Asia thus suggesting a need of developing a new strategy in digital marketing for B2B markets.