A Perspective Over Modern SMEs: Managing Brand Equity, Growth and Sustainability Through Digital Marketing Tools and Techniques

Abstract

On their way towards assuring growth and long-term sustainability, many modern small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) from the European Union have set building a stronger brand as one of their primary goals. To achieve this, an integrated framework for managing the continuous enhancement of their brand equity level by adopting digital marketing tools and techniques (DMTTs), has increasingly become a necessity for most of the modern SMEs. However, even if such an approach provides plenty of benefits, such as better audience targeting and reduction of traditional marketing expenses, implementing these complex processes in their business models poses a series of challenges like choosing the best selection of DMTTs. For this reason, a conceptual model is proposed in the first part of the paper, with the aim to highlight a framework that will help underline the links between DMTTs and other key elements that can provide an increase in brand equity of SMEs, thus contributing to growth and enhancing the sustainability level. Following the proposed model, research aimed at two main directions has been conducted in the second part. The first direction was to analyze the degree in which modern SMEs from the European Union located in Romania dedicate themselves toward embracing sustainability goals and principles. The second one represents an analysis using also the SPSS software solution on the most used selections of DMTTs mentioned in the presented conceptual model. The results obtained provide a starting point for those modern SMEs that choose to follow the path of sustainability by creating and enhancing their brand equity through DMTTs.

Sustainable Brand Management of Alimentary Goods

“…The reason is that consumers adapt supply chain practice to the real socially responsible behavior of the company and they perceive their own value across the prism of the market performance of the company and its transformation into real corporate citizenship [11]. So it is obvious that brands strongly affect overall sustainable development of the society as they can be considered as a powerful tool to create and maintain public opinion [12]. According to the above mentioned, brands are becoming parts of people's lives all over the world.…”

Digital Marketing for Sustainable Growth: Business Models and Online Campaigns Using Sustainable Strategies

“…The Internet has become a tool for the sustainable growth of many companies; now, these companies have to adapt their business models to allow their product and service sales 24 h, seven days a week as well as to enable global shipments for the use of strategies of e-commerce that have become increasingly more ambitious and global [16].…”

“…In this context, it is obvious that saving and the sustainability of the resources that companies use to analyze, collect, and download data are supported by the use of tools that enable data management [16]. Accordingly, new business models can increase the profitability of their strategies by, for example, reducing the number of employees working on (or algorithms employed for) data analysis [20].…”

The Role of Sustainability in Brand Equity Value in the Financial Sector

“…For example, as seen in Figures 1-3, the relationship between ESG score and brand value, although positive, was not constant and varied over time. Tools such as SPSS softwares solution adopted for SMEs using digital marketing tools to managing brand equity [107] could be a further research for all firms in the financial sector that seek a continuous sustainable trend. Thus further managerial implications on a practical level with an integrated model that takes into account the social, environmental and economic performance for the creation of sustainability-oriented brand value in the financial sector is needed.…”