Influence of Digital Marketing Strategies on the Performance of Clothing Fashion Brand Retailers in Garden City Mall, Nairobi County

Abstract

The aim of the study was to establish the influence of digital marketing strategies on the performance of clothing fashion brand retailers at Garden City Mall, in Nairobi County, Kenya. The specific objectives that guided the study were; to determine the influence of content marketing on performance of clothing fashion brands retailers at Garden City Mall in Nairobi County, Kenya, to determine the influence of social media marketing on performance of clothing fashion brands retailers at Garden City Mall in Nairobi County and to establish the influence of website marketing on performance of clothing fashion brands retailers at Garden City Mall in Nairobi County, Kenya. The study used a descriptive research design which identifies characteristics and trends within a research study. The descriptive research design was a suitable choice for the study as it enabled the researcher to observe and measure the variables to establish their influence on performance without need to control or manipulate any of the variables. The population of the study was 86 employees within the marketing department of the 10 clothing fashion brand retailer stores in Garden City Mall. The study was a census therefore all the 86 employees were issued questionnaires with only 45 employees completing and submitting the questionnaire hence a 50% plus response rate. Primary data was collected using an online semi-structured questionnaire. The questionnaire was pilot tested on respondents from 5 random clothing fashion brand retailer stores in TRM Mall also known as Thika Road Mall to validate the data collection instrument. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the quantitative data to establish the influence of digital marketing on performance of the clothing fashion brands retailers. Inferential statistics were used to establish the relationship between the independent and dependent variables. The information was presented in form of tables, figures, bar graphs and pie charts. The data was analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) program version 28. The findings of the study established a strong positive significant relationship between content marketing strategy and the performance of clothing fashion brand retailer stores. This was evident by the correlation factor of 0.825. The strong relationship was statistically significant since the significant value was 0.001 which was less than the 0.05 significance level. Hence, an increase in the content marketing strategies influenced an increase on performance. The findings of the study also indicated that social media marketing strategies had a positive significantly correlation to performance of clothing fashion brand retailers. This was indicated by the correlation of 0.710 hence a significance value. This means that an increase in the use of social media platforms to market would increase performance. The study findings also revealed that website marketing strategies positively influence the performance of clothing fashion stores. The analysis showed a positive significant relationship between website marketing strategies and performance of clothing fashion stores as r=0.539 and p=0.001. Thus an increase in the adaptation of website marketing strategies increases performance. The finding also established a coefficient of correlation R of 0.846 which indicated strong positive correlation between the variables and coefficient of adjusted determination. The study concluded that the use of visual content marketing strategies was most effective for attracting customers, hence improving sales performance. Many clothing fashion brand retailers agreed that they used visual and video content marketing strategies to market their product online which significantly increased the performance of their clothing fashion brand. The study also concluded that clothing fashion brand retailers have active social media accounts with major networks such as Facebook and Instagram to promote their products and increase sales performance. The retailers with social media marketing strategies stated significant increase in the sales of their clothing fashion brand. The study also concluded that most clothing fashion brand retailers had developed an active, fully functional and user-friendly website to market their products and effectively improve performance. It is recommended that clothing fashion brand retailers should utilize visual, interactive and video content marketing strategies in order to attract and increase the number of prospect customers. The study also recommended that clothing fashion brand retailers should have an active social media account on all the major social media networks like Instagram and Facebook in order to increase the sales. The clothing fashion brand retailer stores are also recommended to have a fully functional, user friendly and interactive website marketing strategies to promote their products online in order to increase sales performance. The research recommended further studies to be done on other clothing fashion brand stores in the major shopping malls in Nairobi city. Also, a suggested study on Kenyan-owned clothing fashion brand retailer stores to be studied. Hence, to provide an understanding of the digital marketing strategies and performance of the local brands in the country.