Digital Marketing Adaptation of Market-ready Local Producers in Sorsogon

Technological advances affect business operations. Digital revolution has reached manufacturing, finance, and most especially, marketing. Online shopping is common, but not all businesses are using this to their advantage to improve their branding and connection with their target market groups. This research examines Sorsogon's market-ready local producers' digital marketing adaptation. Twenty-five market-ready local producers serve as respondents through purposive sampling. The study used survey-questionnaire to collect data. The results indicated that market-ready local producers employed Meta Business Suite/Facebook as their primary digital marketing tool and platform. Shopee and Lazada were also utilized. Social influence was a substantial factor in the respondents' decision regarding the adaptation of digital marketing. Increase in sales growth and customer referral and retention were the major impacts of the adaptation in terms of sales while brand image enhancement, diversified domestic markets and guided product improvement needs in terms of market reach. Nevertheless, market-ready local producers perceive this undertaking as an additional burden or source of stress in the absence of a manager or staff to oversee it. Moreover, limited budget for sponsored advertising was also a significant challenge. The research was constrained by the time allotment for data collection and the absence of more precise categorizations according to asset size and industry. Further investigation might be directed towards the attitude or behavior of micro-business proprietors towards digitalization as the principal determinant in the adaptation to digital marketing.