Digitalization of Business Development Marketing Tools in the B2C Market

Abstract

With the development of a new stage of the industrial revolution, the importance of digitalization of business development tools is growing. The purpose of this article is to study the applied aspects of digital marketing tools usage for business development in the B2C market. To achieve the purpose and objectives of the study general and special methods are used: comparative analysis of the results of economic and statistical surveys; method of expert assessments by questionnaires using a 5-point Likert scale. The concordance coefficient was used to determine the consistency of the experts' opinions taking into account the related ranks in method of expert assessments. According to the results of the research, it is established that the Ukrainian business of the B2C sector was actively mastering digital marketing tools. The analysis of penetration level of digital technologies in the development of trade business showed the emergence of basic conditions for updating marketing tools to influence the B2C market. There is a rapid coverage rate of multi-purpose use of the Internet among consumers and businesses; gradual growth of digital skills among practitioners; positive dynamics of development of interactive services in the trade sphere. However, the level of use of the retail businesses websites remains low in many spheres of customer service. An important trend of the current development stage of the consumer market is the usage of business Internet platforms designed for mass dissemination of information. Effective marketing channels of interaction with consumers include social media (social networks, blogs or microblogs, websites with multimedia content, knowledge sharing tools), websites, e-shops, and sales via mobile devices. According to the results of expert evaluation, foreground digital technologies, which are able to bring business to a qualitatively new level of interaction with consumers and the provision of trade services have been identified. These are artificial intelligence and cognitive technologies, BigData, Internet of Things (IoT), and cloud computing. The structural and logical scheme of research of digital marketing tools is used for business development which includes two stages is offered. In the first stage, trendwatching, benchmarking and evaluation of internal opportunities for the use of digital marketing tools are performed. In the second stage, three components of digital readiness of business are defined: technological; competence; institutional. The obtained results form the basis of further research to determine the priorities of adaptive digital business behavior for the productive use of existing digital opportunities.