The use of traditional marketing tools by SMEs in an emerging economy: a South African perspective

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) play a vital role in all economies around the world, they are responsible for creating of jobs, alleviating of poverty, contributing to innovation and to the gross domestic product of a country. However, many of these businesses face challenges and often fail within a short period of time. The success of small businesses is not only having products and a market to sell them to but also effective marketing of these products to the targeted market. A vast array of studies have investigated SME marketing tool usage however few have looked to SMEs in emerging economies and specifically to the traditional marketing tools such firms employ. Therefore the focus of this study was to describe the usage of traditional marketing tools employed by SMEs from a South African perspective. This study followed a quantitative research methodology whereby a self-administered questionnaire was distributed to SME owners within the Gauteng province of South Africa. Results obtained from this research indicate that SME owners mostly make use of print media while broadcast media is used selectively. Results obtained within this study will be of value universally to SME owners as it can be seen that all SMEs irrespective of geographic location face similar challenges