Impact of Social Media Marketing VS Direct Marketing Channel on Brand Awareness

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to analyze the impact of social marketing and direct marketing on consumer’s engagement for brand awareness. The aim is to identify which source has a greater impact on the consumers for creating brand awareness. This research would help marketers in Pakistan to analyze if social media is successful in replacing old/traditional source of marketing i.e. direct marketing The study was quantitative in nature, during the study social media marketing and direct marketing channels were independent variable while brand awareness was the dependent variable. The populations of the study were the residents of Islamabad who uses social media and have visited any restaurants in the past. From approximately 1million population of Islamabad, sample size was identified to be approximately 385 and online questionnaire survey based on 5 likert scale was sent to around 500 people against which 156 people responded and data was analyzed based on the responses through regression and correlation using SPSS software. The results demonstrate that most of the consumers focus on social media than direct marketing i.e. billboards, direct email, telemarketing etc. This study summarizes how consumers are mostly attracted and engaged with the modern technology as they are more attracted towards social marketing, which has made advertising of all means easy for organizations as well as entrepreneurs. They can easily target their audience and even gather reviews/feedback about a certain product. Whereas, the study analyzes, that direct marketing does have an impact on consumers but on a certain level.