THE IMPACT OF DIGITAL MARKETING ON FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE OF FASHION INDUSTRY DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC IN SRI LANKA

Abstract

The fashion industry can be identified as one of the most important contributors for the economy of Sri Lanka which is contributing over 6% of the country’s Gross Domestic Production (GDP). COVID 19 pandemic has resulted higher drawbacks in the management of the applications in the organizations as the human mobility has limited. Online transactions and the purchasing have evolved in different industries as the pandemic has caused many loses in the income compared with the pre COVID era. Along with this fact, digital marketing has identified as one of the best and timely need in improving the performances of the organizations. Accordingly, it is very important to identify the corrective measures and practise in implementing the digital marketing in financial performance increasing in the fashion industry organizations. The study has undertaken with the employees who are included in the fashion industry and as the number of employees are 1000+, the sample has selected as 278 with the reference to Anderson table of sample selection. Questionnaire has been distributed among the respondents to gather the needed information and collected data are used to analyse the impact of digital marketing strategies on the financial performances of the organizations. With the 100% response rate, it has recorded that respondents in the age of 36 to 45 years represents 47.84 %. The unmarried sector has been recorded with 36 % which is nearly 100 respondents of the sample. There are 37 % of the male in the sample recording 104 respondents. It has showed that many are in the diploma qualification of the certificate qualification and it is 57 % of the sample. It has recorded that many respondents are from the organisations which is operating for 4 to 10 years and this is 32 % of the sample. 37 % are using the digital media marketing in partially effective manner and rest are using the digital marketing in rarely. With the application of the regression analysis, hypotheses testing has recorded and it is showing that digital marketing is having direct relationship and impact on financial performance of the organizations. Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, Email Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Video Marketing, and Content Marketing has identified as the needed applications in management of the digital marketing in the fashion industry companies where the positive relationships in 90 % and 95 % confidence intervals are representing with the higher R squared value of 0.867. Thus, 86.7 % variation is showing here. Thus, the organizations are in a timely need to consider the digital marketing strategies to increase the financial performance to gain the maximum advantages in the developments in future.