1 Development of Online Promotion to Increase the Marketing Attractiveness of Batik
Products
Eva Yuniarti Utami1, Audita Nuvriasari2*
1Undergraduate Student, Management Program, Faculty of Economics, Universitas Mercu Buana Yogyakarta
2Management Program, Faculty of Economics, Universitas Mercu Buana Yogyakarta
E-mail: [email protected]
Received: 1th September 2023/Accepted: 25th September 2023/Published online: 27th September 2023
ABSTRACT
Purpose - This community service program aims to increase sales of WOU Batik through optimizing online marketing. Besides that, it is aimed at increasing the skills and knowledge of resellers in compiling and utilizing marketing calendars as a promotion support tool.
Methods - The method used in this community service activity is through the transfer of knowledge and technology which is manifested in reseller training activities and preparation of marketing guidelines in the form of a marketing calendar. At the end of the activity, program evaluation and monitoring programs are carried out.
Result and discussions - The result of this community service activity is an increase in partners' knowledge and skills in compiling and utilizing marketing calendars so that promotional materials become more attractive. It is hoped that this interesting marketing communication can improve marketing performance.
Conclusion - Resellers play an important role in distributing products from producers to consumers. For this reason, companies need to properly manage relationships with resellers, one of which is through training and mentoring activities to package promotions attractively and complete promotional tools so that it is hoped that they can provide profitable benefits for both parties.
Keywords: resellers, online marketing, promotions, marketing calendar
INTRODUCTION
The textile and apparel industry is a sector that contributes greatly to Indonesia's Gross Domestic Product. Based on data from the Central Statistics Agency, from the second quarter of 2021 to the second quarter of 2022, the textile and apparel industry experienced an increase of 13.74% or IDR 4.25 trillion. One of the sub-sectors of this industry is Batik. Batik is an original intangible cultural heritage of Indonesia, which was confirmed by UNESCO in the Representative List of The Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in Abu Dhabi on October 2, 2009 and since then it has also been designated as National Batik Day. The batik industry has a very important role for the national economy. Throughout 2022, the export value of batik and batik products reached USD 64.56 million, an increase of 30.1% compared to the achievements in 2021. Meanwhile, in the January-April 2023 period, the export value of batik and batik products was USD 26.7 million, and is targeted could reach USD 100 million during 2023.
2 Batik has now been transformed into various forms of fashion, crafts and home decoration which have been able to meet the needs of various levels of society both at home and abroad. Nusantara batik has superiority and high competitiveness because of its innovative motifs, designs and patterns based on local wisdom. Efforts to continue developing the batik industry have encouraged SMEs to continue to innovate both in terms of motifs or designs and the raw materials used. One of the batik SMEs that develops various batik variants in the form of ready-to-wear clothing is CV. Emaz Cemerlang is located in Jebres District, Surakarta City, Central Java Province.
CV. Emaz Cemerlang is a company whose main business is producing and marketing batik under the WOU Batik brand. Its business activities were initiated in 2016 and its marketing is online-based using Facebook. This batik sales business initially only used online catalogs and Rp. 200,000.00 for advertising costs on Facebook ads. To increase its promotion, CV Emaz Cemerlang markets its products via Instagram and the Shopee marketplace. The following are examples of WOU Batik products:
Figure 1. WOU Batik Products by CV Emaz Cemerlang
The strategy used by CV. Emaz Cemerlang's efforts to improve its business performance are: (1) all marketing activities are carried out online and (2) optimizing the role of resellers.
Online marketing is carried out through various platforms, namely marketplace (Shopee, Tokopedia and Lazada), e-commerce (www.woubatik.com), social e-commerce (TikTok Shop), and social media (Instagram). Meanwhile, currently registered resellers reach 8,000 people spread throughout Indonesia. Active resellers account for 10% of the total registered resellers or 807 resellers. Examples of promotional media used to market WOU Batik are as follows:
Figure 2. WOU Batik Online Promotion Media
3 Online selling is a form of e-commerce that allows stores or entrepreneurs to sell goods and services to consumers through the Internet. Online sales provide many opportunities for participants involved, including expanding consumer reach or carrying out product resales involving resellers. Online resale is an option that allows a consumer to permanently sell an item using the Internet for direct resale to another consumer (Nolasco et al., 2022). Companies in marketing their products need the role of distributors and the choice of the type of distributor will greatly influence business growth, especially in the e-commerce context where various online platforms can use various sales models such as resellers and sales agents. In general, the normal distribution channel can be determined by explore what consumers expect in terms of service outcomes from a distribution channel, how much they are willing to pay for a given level of service, how the service is provided to them, and what the costs of the alternative distribution channels are (Ben et al., 2022).
The role of resellers in building a business has several advantages, such as: (1) increasing the number of marketing personnel, (2) expanding marketing and increasing the network, (3) reducing operational costs and (4) increasing sales. There are several factors that influence resellers to resell products, which are rational and emotional factors. Reasonable factors include product, brand image, price, distribution, promotion, service quality, information and warranty.
Emotional factors include job evaluation, encouragement, and interpersonal relationships (Gouwtama & Tambunan, 2021).
CV. Emaz Cemerlang in distributing their products choose to use resellers and carries out regular training for its resellers to develop online marketing skills, especially in marketplace. Even though the online marketing activities carried out by the resellers are running well, there are still obstacles faced by CV. Emaz which is the lack of optimal online promotional activities carried out by resellers. To overcome this problem, it is necessary to provide more intensive assistance to resellers and to facilitate it through creating a marketing activity guide. The guidelines developed for this community service activity are a promotional calendar and the guidance book. The promotional calendar contains details of promotional activities that must be carried out by resellers every day of the year.
The aim of this community service activity is to optimize sales of WOU Batik products through strengthening online marketing. Apart from that, to increase the knowledge and skills of resellers in creating a promotional calendar as a guide for communicating with consumers.
METHOD
The method used in carrying out community service activities includes a number of stages as follows:
Stage 1: Survey
This activity is carried out by visiting and observing partner locations, namely CV. Emaz Cemerlang is located in Surakarta, Central Java. In the survey activity, the community service team held discussions to gather information related to the business activities carried out and the obstacles faced, especially in the marketing sector. Based on the results of the discussion, a work program was agreed upon that needed to be carried out by the community service team and the contribution of partners in these activities.
4 Stage 2: Program Implementation
Based on the survey results, the community service team then carries out work program implementation activities. This activity is the provision of education to employees in the marketing department regarding the development of online marketing content to make it more attractive. Apart from that, to strengthen online marketing activities carried out by resellers, the community service team created a promotional calendar and guidebook for its use.
Stage 3: Evaluation
The final stage of this community service activity is evaluating the implementation of the activity program. Evaluations are carried out together with partners aimed at determining the level of success of the program. If the program implemented does not meet the expectations of both parties, a review needs to be carried out and it is possible to improve the program for further implementation.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
CV. Emaz Cemerlang is one of the SMEs that has survived the pandemic even though it has experienced a decline in sales of up to 80%. The company can still survive because the sales system used so far is through online marketing. Currently the company continues to strive to redevelop its business by strengthening reseller activities in conducting online sales. One of the efforts made is to collaborate with the community service team to carry out a number of programs which are described as follows:
Development of Online Marketing Content
In order to manage its reseller members, CV. Emaz Cemerlang creates a communication medium for resellers by utilizing the Telegram application. Telegram has several advantages that other messaging applications don't have, including (1) unlimited storage space, (2) good media quality, (3) can edit messages that have been sent, (4) the group created can accommodate many members, (5) can send large file (Erajaya, 2021). Telegram is an application that helps CVs. Emaz Cemerlang to share promotional content with all active resellers effectively and efficiently. On the other hand, Telegram makes it easier for resellers to get promotional content for the latest products from CV. Emaz Cemerlang.
To make promotional content more interesting, this community service activity provides education to select and create content in the form of interesting photos and videos. This is intended to further increase consumer buying interest in WOU Batik products. Attractive online marketing content will encourage consumers to make purchases, conversely if the promotional content is not attractive it will cause consumers to be reluctant to purchase products (Dastane, 2020). Besides that, the appearance of attractive online promotions or advertisements will have an impact on company performance and company value. The advantage of using online display advertising is that it can reach a wider target consumer than offline promotions (Bayer et al., 2020). The following is documentation of activities for developing online promotion content:
5 Figure 3. Selecting promotional content
Figure 4: creating video content for the Shopee marketplace
Development of promotional tools
The development of promotional tools is aimed at strengthening resellers in marketing their products, strengthening brand image and increasing customer engagement. The promotional tools developed are promotional calendars and guidebooks on how to use them.
The activity begins with making a calendar design and inventorying content that must be distributed every day for one year. The community service team collects a list of citations and questions which are then compiled in Microsoft Excel to get an overall picture. After all the data is input, the promotional calendar is printed. The next step is to create a guidebook to make it easier for resellers or marketing departments to operate the promotional calendar.
After the promotion tools are ready, the next activity is to socialize to the Head of the Marketing Division how to apply the promotional calendar, which then the marketing division will educate the resellers. Examples of promotional activities on promotional calendars are uploading quiz questions, quotes, customer testimonials, sharing tips/ideas, promotions and content commemorating religious holidays or commemorating national important days. To develop promotional calendar content, it is necessary to find information about what is needed
6 by resellers so that promotions are carried out continuously so as to increase customer engagement. Customer engagement is important in running a business in today's digital era, because it relates to customer experience. The customer experience obtained when purchasing a product will be expressed through reviews, where reviews are important for the company.
Reviews made by customers can be shared with the closest people such as family or friends and can even be wider than that, namely through the mass media. The following is documentation of promotional tools development activities:
Figure 5. Input data for Creating a Promotional Calendar
Figure 6. Promotional Calendar Features
Figure 7. Promotional Calendar Handbook
7 Figure 8. Education on the Use of Promotional Calendars
Figure 9. Group photo with community service participants
CONCLUSION
Utilizing online marketing has now become an important need for entrepreneurs, considering that it has many advantages compared to offline marketing, such as: wider reach, making it easier to interact between sellers and consumers or consumers and consumers. To optimize online marketing activities, the role of distributors such as resellers needs to be managed well, for example by improving the quality of promotional content and promotional tools.
Attractive promotional content can have an impact on increasing consumer buying interest and will ultimately improve business performance at the company.
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