The COVID-19 pandemic has made Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) feel the immediate impact. From the April 2020 MSME Community Survey, 83% of MSMEs have the potential to go out of business. Reporting from the Katadata Insight Center, 82,9% of MSMEs felt the bad impact and only 5,9% felt positive growth. In fact, MSMEs have a very large share of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Its share or contribution to GDP is 61,07% or Rp. 8.573 trilion.
Various ways are carried out by MSMEs actors to survive, one of the ways is looking for customers in the online network. Entering an online platform or marketplace is one of MSME’s efforts to keep their business spinning. This effort is in line with the pandemic conditions that have forced many people to limit their movement in public areas. Selling online is one of their focuses.
However, switching to the digital realm does not mean it is as easy as turning the palm of the hand in the process. Many MSME actors respond to this as a challenge for them. The result? Some have succeeded in breaking sales, but some are still in the same place.
Seeing this concern, StratX KG Media conducted several studies using an online survey method and found various interesting voices from MSME actors. This variety of data will be useful for brands, especially brands from the marketplace sector – to understand how to make MSME players focus on selling online. Brands need data dan strategic steps to win the hearts of their target audience.
Venture Capital Still be the Barrier?
Who still does not know that selling requires capital? Capital here can be interpreted as, for example – the science of making merchandise, the science of marketing merchandise, and so on.
However, capital can also mean money. Money to buy basic materials for merchandise, money to advertise, and many other selling needs that use money as capital. From the first online survey with 1.428 respondents, 83,6% said that capital was the main challenge they had to face first. The next challenge is various equipment to make merchandise and knowledge to process these merchandises.
It is quite interesting that money as venture capital is still a challenge or obstacle that MSME actors face. However, this challenge certainly has various solutions that brands can formulate with various strategies, so that it can be an interesting communication for them to consume.
Is There Another Barrier Instead of Venture Capital?
As previously explained – apart from capital, another obstacle faced by MSME actors is knowledge. From our second online survey with 127 respondents, 41% of them stated that they need knowledge to develop their business. Then, 39% of them also need knowledge for marketing strategies, and another 10% say they need a way to find connections.
Seeing this need or concern, brands have the opportunity to get closer to MSMEs by providing assistance in the form of educative communication to become a solution.
Insight Insight Insight
Based on the various explanations above, there are various interesting insights or inputs that can be used as notes for the brands before determining the next communication strategies, such as:
- MSMEs have great power to continue to make the spirit of localism never go out.
- Capital – venture capital in the form of money, still being the main obstacle for MSMEs players.
- In addition to capital, knowledge to develop their business is also something that some respondent need.
From the three inputs above, more or less brands already have an idea of how to rearrange their communication strategy as an effort to get closer to their target audience.
So, What Brands Can Do?
There are so many steps that brands can take, especially brands from the marketplace sector.
Spending money with the communication of capital assistance for MSMEs has probably been done by almost all marketplace brands. However, it is necessary to ask how far this has reached the target.
An interesting thing that brands can do apart from spending some money as assistance is to provide educative communication containing the knowledge needed by MSME actors to develop their business.
This means that brands can play the role of mentors who guide MSME actors as support to make their business big. In fact, the brand can be an example for them in developing their business. However, before becoming a mentor and being an example, brands also need to know how to communicate the education they need. This can be known by brands by doing in-depth research.
StratX as part of KG Media that can take advantage of large number of readers as research respondents, is ready to help brands from various sectors to get more interesting insights so that they can be the basis for developing various sharp strategies for the future.
