Introduction

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Issue (XVIII) / October 2018 ISSN-L 2344-102X

INTERNET MARKETING PRACTICES

AND CUSTOMER LOYALTY: EMPIRICAL

EVIDENCE FROM OGUN STATE,

NIGERIA

Lecturer Azeez Adekunle ALIU

, Researcher Oladeji F. AGBETOKUN

[1]

The Federal Polytechnic, Ilaro, Ogun State, Nigeria

[2]

Federal Institute of Industrial Research, Oshodi Lagos, Nigeria

Abstract

The study investigated the effects of internet marketing on customer loyalty at Jumia Nigeria

Limited. The objective of this study was to determine the significant effect of internet marketing

practices adopted by Jumia on customer loyalty. The study used descriptive survey research

design. Primary data were collected through the use of structured questionnaire. As a result of the

large population, the study used convenience sampling technique to select 120 respondents,

possibly those who have done any transaction with jumia.com in Lagos Nigeria. The study shows

that the various measures of internet marketing such as Social Media Marketing, Email Marketing,

Search Engine marketing have a significant effect on customer loyalty. Therefore, it was concluded

that internet marketing is an essential tool for customer loyalty. Based on the research findings,

organizations should on daily basis send update about products availability and functions to

numerous online users as such leads to online store recognition which in turn enhances customer

loyalty.

Keyword: internet marketing, social media marketing, email marketing, search engine marketing

and customer loyalty.

JEL Clasification: M31

Corresponding author: Azeez Adekunle ALIU , E-mail: [email protected]

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I. Introduction

Today, Internet marketing is one of the fastest developing, growing and most

potent branch of marketing. Internet-based communication tools have also led to major

changes in the functioning of various economic sectors such as marketing (Atshaya &

Rungta, 2016). This buttresses the creation of new roles in the marketing units of many

organizations today like Digital Marketing, New Media, Innovation Managers and so on.

Laudon & Traver (2013), refer to internet marketing or online marketing as the

marketing activities using various channels on the internet, this includes, search engine

optimization, pay per click, social media marketing, e-mail marketing, web banners,

digital online advertising, online marketing platform, mobile marketing (apps), content

marketing to some extent, etc. Internet has increased the richness of marketing

communications by combining text, video, and audio content into rich messages. Thus,

the web is arguably richer as a medium than some traditional media such as the television

because of the complexity of messages available, the enormous content accessible on a

wide range of subjects and the ability of users to interactively control the experience.

Internet marketing is one of the most convenient and effective ways of marketing

these days and with the development in technology, its techniques and scope are also

developing. In the work of Chukwu and Uzoma, (2014) provided scientific evidences to

show that Nigerian consumer patronize online retailers very significantly. One wonders

what is responsible for the noted changes. Furthermore, Husain and Adamu, (2014)

pointed out that the use of social media especially the Facebook and twitter has been

playing an important role but whether these have encouraged actual online purchases was

not specifically stated.

Despite the numerous advantages of the internet in effective marketing in an

organization and industry, many Nigerians are yet to adopt this technology in their daily

buying and selling activities. Madu (2009) identified some of the factors that caused this

to include:

 Illiteracy and poverty that negatively influence Nigerian consumers’ attitude

towards internet marketing and online sales.

 Inability of Nigerians having access to the internet for the purpose of exchange

and transactions.

 Absence or irregular power supply needed to power down transactions

(marketing) through internet for individuals and corporate organizations.

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 Problems associated with interception by fraudsters in the use of internet for

marketing activities among individual, organization and institutions.

It is these problems that this paper sets out to solve in part. The main objective of

this study is to determine the significant effects of internet marketing on customer loyalty.

Derived from the above main objective are the following specific objectives:

1. To determine the significant effect of social media marketing on customer loyalty.

2. To find out the significant effect of email marketing on customer loyalty.

3. To evaluate the positive effect of search engine marketing on customer loyalty.

In order to give focus to the study, the following research hypotheses were tested

to guide the study:

: Social Media Marketing has no significant impact on customer loyalty.

: E-mail Marketing has no significant impact on customer loyalty.

: Search engine marketing has no significant impact on customer loyalty.

This paper is divided into five sections. The first is the introduction; the second

examines the literatures such as conceptual and theoretical frameworks of the paper; the

third section elucidates the research methods used; the fourth section presents the results

and discussion while the fifth section is the conclusion and recommendations.

II. Literature Review

II.1 Concept of Internet Marketing

The internet is becoming the most visited market place per unit of time among the

literate class of the Nigerian buying community. Literacy rate on its own determine the

proportion of the buying community who use the internet and make purchase therefrom.

The recent dramatic growth in the use of the internet has occurred because of the

development of the World Wide Web (Chaffey, Ellis-Chadwick, Mayer & Johnston,

2006). This is because the internet guarantees convenience more than the orthodox market

place for varieties comparability and price juxtaposition. Smith & Caffey (2002) define

internet marketing as the process of marketing online via e-tools such as web sites, banner

ads, opt-in email, interactive kiosks, interactive TV, mobiles or m-commerce. They

further posited that internet marketing involves getting close to customers, understanding

them better and maintaining a dialogue with them. It is broader than e-commerce since it

is not limited to transactions between an organization and its stakeholders, but includes all

processes related to the marketing concept.

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Internet marketing is often referred to as online marketing, digital marketing, web

marketing, or e-marketing. This is essentially any marketing activity that is conducted

online through the use of internet technologies. According to Chaffey et al., (2006),

internet marketing can simply be defined as achieving marketing objectives through

applying digital technologies. It is the application of internet and related digital

technologies in conjunction with traditional communications to achieve marketing

objectives. It comprises not only advertising that is shown on websites, but also other

kinds of online activities like email and social networking.

As the name suggests, it is the act of identifying anticipating and satisfying the

customer’s requirements effectively and efficiently at a profit through Internet. It is a type

of marketing and publicizing which utilizes the Internet to convey promotional marketing

messages to buyers. Internet marketing incorporates an extensive variety of marketing

components than conventional business marketing because of the large variety of channels

and marketing means accessible on the Internet (Atshaya & Rungta, 2016). According to

Krishnamurthy, (2006) as cited by Shien & Yazdanifard, (2014) Internet marketing is

referred to as the conduct of marketing activities using the internet or web and

information technologies. Salehi et al., (2012) also define Internet marketing as a form of

targeted marketing that helps various websites to increase the frequency of visits and

attracts visitors to purchase products, good and services through internet. The internet is

becoming a need to users as they can hardly do without using it per unit of time either to

read news, check traffic conditions, locate a place, solve a problem, compare prices of

products or make a purchase.

II.2 Concept of Social Media

Igyuve & Agbele (2017) described social media as specialised websites (such as

Facebook, Twitter, Mobofree, Eskimi, MySpace, Badoo etc) and applications (such as

Whatsapp, Instagram, Blackberry Messenger BBM, Skype etc) used for communicating

and establishing forms of relationship between/amongst people of similar interest.

According to Pinto & Yagnik, (2017) social media marketing consists of tools, platforms

and applications that enable customers connect and communicate with each other.

Yazdanparast, Joseph & Muniz, (2016) define Social media marketing as the process that

empowers promotion of websites, products, and services via online social channels. It

involve with marketing related activities such as blogging, sharing photos and posts

online. Today social media becomes fast advancing and most solid medium to connect

and stay informed about products and services (Rishi & Sharma, 2017). Social Media

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marketing is a part of internet marketing. It is a platform that can be used by anyone who

has an internet connection. Social media marketing can be easily characterized as a term

used to portray the act of increasing website traffic or brand awareness, using social media

networking sites. Social Media marketing mainly focuses on designing a content that is

very unique and helps in attracting the attention of the users. It should also persuade the

viewers to share it with others. This type of marketing is driven by eWoM – electronic

word of mouth, which means it results in earned media instead of paid media (Atshaya &

Rungta, 2016).

Lamminen (2018) identified the most popular social network sites worldwide as

of January 2018, ranked by number of active users (in millions) are as it can be seen from

Table 1:

Table 1- Number of active social media users worldwide as at January 2018

Name of social media

Number of active users in millions

Facebook

2,167

YouTube

1,500

1,300

Facebook Messenger

1,300

WeChat

980

843

Instagram

800

Tumblr

794

QZone

568

Sina Weibo

376

Twitter

330

Baidu Tieba

300

Skype

300

Source: Lamminen (2018)

Atshaya & Rungta, (2016) argue that Social media marketing can help the

organization to achieve various objectives. Some of the objectives could be increasing

website activity or traffic, increasing the awareness about their brand among the people,

creating a brand image and positive brand affiliation. They also stated that it would help

in enhancing the communication and connection with the potential customers. There are a

lot of Social media networking platforms, but each social media marketing sites would

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require different tools, techniques, or strategies of marketing. The following are some of

the Social media networking platforms or sites that are used for marketing: Facebook,

Instagram, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube and so on. Social media

marketing is so prominent today because it is cost-effective, highly retentive as customers

have access to them for a longer period than traditional marketing channels.

II.3 Concept of Email Marketing

In emerging as the fastest growing communications technology in history

(Chittenden & Rettie, 2003), e-mail has become an integral part of daily life (Grimes et al.

2007). E-mail shares a particularly close relationship with the internet, with most internet

sessions involving the use of e-mail (Tezinde et al., 2002; DuFrene, Engelland, Lehman &

Pearson, 2005; Reimers et al., 2016). The relationship between e-mail marketing and

online shopping is equally close. Not only does it serve to drive website traffic, it also

influences impulse buying on online websites (Dawson & Kim, 2010). And in the virtual

world of the internet where seller-buyer interactions are limited, e-mail serves as a vital

communication tool in customer relationship management. Moreover, such two-way

interaction can occur in real time (Chittenden & Rettie, 2003), thereby providing quick

convenient solutions for both buyer and seller (DuFrene et al., 2005). This has persuaded

many organisations to make e-mail marketing the cornerstone of their communications

strategy.

According to Atshaya & Rungta, (2016) email marketing is one of the most

prevalent ways for organizations to reach and gain more customers. It is a part of Internet

marketing. Email marketing is an approach that helps in reaching the customers directly

with the help of electronic mail. It basically helps in advertising the goods and services to

the customers directly. It is an approach that helps us to reach a lot of potential customers

effectively at a low cost. It helps in directly conveying the business' message with the help

of illustrations, content and links to the people who are not aware about the business or

considered using the products or services, but they are educated and interested in the

business’ area of expertise. Moreover the effectiveness of Email marketing can be tracked

easily. Various organizations additionally provide the customers or viewers with an

"unsubscribe" choice if they want to stop receiving the mails. Moreover, the organizations

can get direct feedback from the potential customers. This would help the organization in

recognizing what the customers liked or disliked about the promotion and in turn create

more effective future promotions or strategies.

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E-mail can be used for various marketing purposes, for example to share

information about products and services, to promote them, to build brands, to guide

customers to web sites, to alert customers, and to tell the status of orders. Marketers today

use various e-mail techniques, such as newsletters, reward programs and community

building (Brondmo, 2000; Roberts, 2001). Newsletters, as Brondmo, (2000) suggests, “are

perhaps the most common vehicles for establishing on-going dialogue with customers,

probably because they provide a terrific mechanism for communicating a highly

personalized blend of information, entertainment, and promotions.”

II.4 Concept of Search Engine Marketing

Search Engine marketing is an aspect of internet marketing. It is a process which

helps in promoting a website by increasing its visibility with the help of certain tools such

as paid advertisements, Search engine optimization, and other search engine services that

will help in increasing the search traffic to the website. Search Engine marketing is a

broader term compared to Search Engine Optimization. SEO is generally considered as a

part of SEM. SEO helps to achieve better organic search results, whereas SEM helps us to

target the users with the help of paid advertising links in the search engine results page

along with the organic search results so that the targeted users will visit the website.

Atshaya & Rungta (2016) submit that search marketers make use of a lot of paid search

platforms. Out of that the most predominant paid search platform is Google AdWords,

followed by Bing Ads and Yahoo. Beyond that, there are various other Pay Per click

platforms and in addition to that the PPC advertising opportunities on some of the popular

social media networks. Search engine marketing's most noteworthy quality is that it offers

sponsors the chance to put their advertisements before customers who are ready to buy a

particular product in that precise moment (Atshaya & Rungta, 2016).

Search engines came into existence to support the access to the huge amount of

information on the Internet by crawling, indexing, retrieving, and representing relevant

information for users based upon computer algorithms (Henzinger, 2007). In retaining

customer, search engines have become one of the important sources in consumers’ use of

the Internet to have access to products online (TIA, 2008). Generally, Search Engine

Marketing (SEM) is defined as a form of marketing on the Internet that business and

organizations seek to gain visibility on SERPs through paid or non-paid means (Moran &

Hunt, 2005). There are many forms of SEM, from paid inclusion to organic optimization.

The three major forms are: 1) organic search based techniques, i.e. Search engine

optimization, which involves employing methods that help improve the ranking of a

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website when a user types in relevant keywords in a search engine. These include creating

an efficient website structure, providing appropriate web content, and managing inbound

and outbound links to other sites; 2) paid inclusion, which means paying search engine

companies for inclusion of the site in their organic listings; 3) search engine advertising,

or paid placement, which implies buying display positions at the paid listing area of a

search engine or its content network. Google AdWords and Yahoo! Precision Match are

the two most popular programs currently, wherein paid placement listings are shown as

“Sponsored Links”.

II.5 Concept Customer Loyalty

The positive effect of loyal customers on business performance (Lee et al., 2003)

in competitive markets of our age (Anderson and Mittal, 2000; Perreault et al., 2013), in

the condition where the cost of acquiring new customers is higher than retaining current

customers (Keisidou et al., 2013; Kumar et al., 2011; Lee et al., 2003) are gradually

increasing the significance of customer loyalty. Customer loyalty is the commitment of a

customer to repurchase a firm's products and services, despite all actions of competitor

businesses and to commit to become a client of that business on a regular basis in the

future (Dick & Basu, 1994; Oliver, 1999). Singh & Khan, (2012) defined customer loyalty

as the willingness of any given customer to purchase the company’s goods or services

over competitive ones available in the marketplace. Customer loyalty is the customer

attitude and behavior to prefer one brand over all competitor ones, whether? due to

satisfaction with the product or services (Magatef & Tomalieh, 2015).

According Shien & Yazdanifard, (2014) loyal customers who are satisfied with

the services or goods provided by the firms or organizations may recommend to their

network circle. This can help to expand the market by increasing number of customer and

customer loyalty provided with customer satisfaction. They further argue that internet

marketing uses different effort to meet the customer expectation and e-satisfaction on

websites and different factors contribute to influence e-satisfaction and eloyalty. Due to

lack of indirect communication, e-loyalty can be easily influenced because customers can

always switch to another website to purchase services or goods. Magatef &Tomalieh

(2015), identified fifteen benefits of a customer loyalty to business organization, these are:

Retain existing customers, acquire new customers, move customers up-segment, win-back

defected & churned customers, increase Customer Lifetime Value, build relationships,

create brand advocates, adjust pricing levels, responding to competitive challenges, select

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stock lines effectively, plan merchandising more intelligently, reduce promotional and

advertising costs and selecting new trading sites.

II.6 Operationalization of Variables

Y = f (X);

X = X

; Y = α+β

+ β

+β

Where:

Y = Customer Loyalty (CL)

α = Autonomous factors

X = Internet Marketing (IM)

= Social Media Marketing (SMM)

= E-mail Marketing (EM)

= Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

βi = Beta coefficients of the independent variables Xi

e= Error term, which represent other uncaptured variables influencing Customer

Loyalty outside the three captured by this work.

Figure 1- Conceptual Model of Internet Marketing and customer Loyalty

Independent Variable Dependent Variable

Internet Marketing

Source:developed by the Researchers (2018)

II.7 Social Media Marketing and Customer Loyalty

Facebook and twitter are the two social media platforms used mainly for

interaction and communication. Facebook has quite a huge number of users who are

potentially a market for any organization’s products or services. For this reason, marketers

are turning to Facebook more and more each day while trying to establish other better

Social Media Marketing

Email Marketing

Search Engine Marketing

Customer Loyalty

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approaches to communicate with their target market (Duck, 1991). Some of the ways that

they are using to reach clients includes; providing offers for potential consumers on Face

book (Cowles, 1997). Social media communities like Facebook, Twitter and Whatsapp

host considerable number of users, majority of who are youth. This explains why

organizations offering youth friendly products keep targeting them by using the platform

not only in reaching out to them but also ensuring they are kept in the net of repetitive

buyers of their products. Amongst the youth today, social media is becoming a religion as

many of them turn to their cell phones first in the morning even before praying to God to

interact with the social media. However, some adults perceive the social media as a no-go

area perhaps for some unpalatable scenes that fly on them. Such segment of the market

should be targeted through other channels if they must be loyal if they must keep abreast

of an organization’s continuous products enhancement features and remain loyal.

II.8 E-Mail Marketing and Customer Loyalty

Email marketing is meant to build loyalty, trust or brand awareness (Conway &

Swift, 2000). Same time, commitment trust theory provides that trust and confidence are

the key pillars of building a strong foundation with customers. This increases chances for

consistent sales which eventually lead to customer retention. This therefore shows that

any organization that hopes to succeed in customer retention should build confidence and

trust in the products and services offered to win the hearts of customers and retain them.

Doherty & Hart (2002) posit that organizations send email messages with the objective of

enhancing the relationship with their customers to encourage loyalty and repeat business.

E-mail marketing is primarily a way to enhance a long lasting relationship between the

customers and the organization. To start this process, customers are required to sign up for

an E-mail publication so that they can be repeatedly reminded about their product or

service in order to attract repeat business.

Email marketing provides information in the form of emails to prospective

customers who subscribe to their emails. Existing customers also learn about the new

products and services. This keeps them up-dated about the products and services offered

and this influences their purchase decision. Customers prefer to buy products that they

have information about since they are well informed about the products. This influences

constant buying and customer loyalty. While commitment trust theory maintains that trust

and confidence are the key pillars for a successful relationship, this practice provides

information that is important in helping customers to make purchase decisions (Buttle,

1996).

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II.9 Search Engine Marketing and Customer Loyalty

Metaphorically, search engine marketing can be thought of as the “Hubble

Telescope of the Internet” in that they enable customers to gain access to billions of web

pages that comprise the online shopping (Xiang et al., 2009). Search engines take user

queries, retrieve related documents found in the searchable indexes created by the indexer,

produce snippets with web address, a short description, similar pages, and cache, and

display them in a ranked order on the SERP. The major part of search engine interface is

used to display those results based on the internal ranking, which is termed Organic

Listing. In addition, major search engines, such as Google, display paid advertisements on

the top and right side of major result pages, ranked by businesses’ bidding price on clicks

and the quality of pages, which is termed Paid Listing. The paid listings could also appear

blended with organic listings for certain search engines, such as Baidu.com (the most

popular search engine in mainland China) and Yahoo.com. However, the two companies

separated the two types of results recently under pressure from the general public and the

users (Back, 2009). Ability to read and write affect customers access to online marketing

with search engine marketing being the most affected.

Therefore, based on the foregoing online marketing is gaining more popularity in

Nigeria as it proves to be more far-reaching. Orthodx marketing which relies mainly on

traditional methodology and media like TV, Radio Set, Billboards, and Newspapers are

being challenged by many factors such as epileptic power supply in Nigeria, longer hours

outside home, high cost of alternative power, high cost of TV and Radio adverts have

reduced the use of traditional media gadgets in accessing marketing offers by companies.

A considerable number of Nigerians go about with their smart phones from where they

access the internet and online marketing offerings by companies. Therefore, it is smarter

for companies and their marketing teams to keep targeting customers where they stay for

most of their times which are online platforms.

III. Theoretical Framework

The theoretical foundation of this study is based on the Uses and Gratification

Theory (UGT), developed by Katz and Blumler (1974). This theory is primarily used on

conventional media as an endeavour to analyse consumers’ behaviour. However, with the

advent of the Internet and new platforms of interactions including emails, instant

messaging, blogging, skyping, Whatsapping and various other forms of communication,

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the same theory has also been significantly applied on social media studies (e.g., Ngai,

Taoa, & Moon, 2015).

In the context of this study, the application of the UGT is based on the assumption

that the consumer is an active and self-conscious contributor in media choice; the

consumer is also driven by personal goals rather than the influence of the media. This

theory thus assumes the position that the consumers’ will seek out the media that fulfils

their needs and so their gratification. Consequently, it is the consumer’s gratification that

would lead to the recurring media use. Thus, the media choice of the consumer is

considered to be objective-oriented and value focused (Dahl, 2014).

The application of the Uses and Gratification Theory (UGT) has been considered

by various social media studies primarily, for exploring the uses and motives behind

social media platform usage (Dunne & Lawlor, 2010; Lee & Ma, 2012; Bolton et al.,

2013; Khan, 2016; Wang et al., 2016), for identifying the factors that drive social network

platform consumers’ engagement (Oliveira et al., 2016), for developing models and

hypotheses which investigate the stimulation of positive engagement behaviour.

IV. Methodology

This study used survey research design. Survey is used because is important in

obtaining information from the population about their opinion, attitude and behaviour

towards a subject. Since the major source of primary data for the study were the views of

the members of the public its adoption was imperative. According to Ohaja (2003)

“survey is a study of the characteristics of a sample through questioning that enable the

researcher to make generalization concerning his population of interest.”Consequently,

since the study focused on human behaviour and cognition, thus making the survey

research design more appropriate.

The population for this study comprised the entire customers (both current and

potential customers) of jumia.com who were residents in the 20 local government of Ogun

State. In order to arrive at a sample, convenience sampling technique (non-probability

sampling) was used for this study. This type of sampling method was used because it

gathers information from members of the population who are conveniently available to

provide information and 180 respondents spanning across the three senatorial districts

from whom the primary data were elicited. Data was collected through personal

administration of 180 copies of questionnaire to the respondents. However, 120 copies

were recovered hence data analyse through the use of logistic regression model under the

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Social Statistics Package for Social Sciences (SPSS 20) and the analyses were based on

the 120 copies of questionnaire that were recovered.

V. Results and Discussion

The focus of this research centered around two major constructs:

 the internet marketing practices of Jumia.com, Nigeria; and

 customer loyalty as a result of their internet marketing practices.

The results are therefore presented and discussed along the two main themes.

Hypotheses:

: Social Media Marketing has no significant impact on customer loyalty.

: E-mail Marketing has no significant impact on customer loyalty.

: Search engine marketing has no significant impact on customer loyalty.

Table 1- Omnibus Tests of Model Coefficients

Chi-square

Sig.

Step 1

Step

6.692

.022

Block

6.692

.022

Model

6.692

.022

The omnibus table in Table 1 tests the model coefficients used in the analysis

(with the explanatory variable). The result is significant with p-values less than 0.05. This

suggests that the new model is explaining more variance in the outcome and is an

improvement. Here the chi-square value is significant (chi-square = 6.692, df=3, p=0.000)

so our new model is significantly better.

The model summary table (Table 2) shows the nagelkerke R square value of

0.672, which is equivalent to normal R-square value. The result suggests that the model

explains roughly 67.2% variation in the outcome

Table 2- Model Summary

Step

-2 Log

likelihood

Cox & Snell R

Square

Nagelkerke R Square

159.363

.654

.672

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Moreover, the hosmer and lemeshow test in table 3 shows the p-value of 0.636

which is greater than 0.05. The result suggests a good fit to the model.

Table 3- Hosmer and Lemeshow Test

Step

Chi-square

Sig.

6.101

.636

From the classification table (Table 4) below, the table shows that our

model is now correctly classifying the outcome for 61.7% of the cases.

Table 4- Classification Table

Observed

Predicted

Do You Prefer Your Brand?

Percentag

e Correct

Yes

Step

Do You Prefer Your

Brand?

YES

54.4

68.3

Overall Percentage

61.7

Table 5, provides the regression coefficient (B), the wald statistic (to test the

statistical significance) and the odds ratio (Exp (B)) for each variables category. Looking

at the three variables under consideration, the search engine, social media and e-mail

marketing, the Exp (B) column (the odd ratio) tells us that customers that used search

engine are 0.694 times likely to prefer their brands, in addition, those that used social

media are 0.899 times likely to prefer their brands and those with e-mail marketing are

0.902 times likely to prefer their brands. All these three independent variables are

significant.

Table 5- Variables in the Equations

S.E.

Wald

Sig.

Exp(B)

Step

Searchengine

-.365

.182

4.033

.045

.694

Socialmedia

-.107

.136

.619

.032

.899

Emailmarketing

-.103

.077

1.755

.018

.902

Constant

6.599

3.079

4.592

.032

734.370

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VI. Conclusion and Recommendations

VI.1 Conclusion

The essence of this research is to establish the effect of internet marketing on

customer loyalty. It focuses on the internet activities such as the social media marketing,

email marketing and search engine marketing and how these variables affect customer

loyalty. It is a known fact that internet is an essential tool for any organization that seeks

to attract new customers and also to maintain the existing ones, as it enhances flexibility

and easy business transaction between the organization and its customers. From the result

of this study, it was concluded that there is a significant relationship between internet

marketing and customer loyalty. Therefore, the respondents reveal that they like to be

approached through social media site because it is easy for them to share their opinion

about how they feel about company’s products, they also revealed that they love the

jumia.com page on their social media site and finally that receiving update from

jumia.com makes them more loyal to the company. Results on email marketing revealed

that the respondents agreed that email about new products are always useful, which makes

them interact with the staff to place orders or lodge complaints through email. Finally on

search engine marketing, result confirms that the use of search engine marketing makes it

easy to get information about the company’s products and ease of access to product

information through search engine such as Google enhances their patronage of jumia

products. Therefore the study concluded that the internet marketing is an essential tool in

bonding customers and making them more loyal.

VI.2 Recommendations

Based on the findings of this research work, the study recommends the following:

 Organizations should keep targeting their customers through the various online

marketing channels such as social media platforms to complement the traditional

marketing channels which are more expensive.

 From the result of the research, it was revealed that customers enjoy receiving

update about the product through their email addresses; the organization should

build a database of customers’ email addresses in order to send personalized

message about the company and its products to the customers. It is a cheaper

method of reaching a large number of customers across the globe with an

opportunity to have feedbacks from them.

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 Companies marketing their products online should rely on visual and verbal

marketing initiatives to attract and to engage online surfers.

 It has been revealed that social media have a very high retentive rate for adverts

uploaded on Facebook, twitter, instangrams compared to the volatility of TV and

Radio. After five years or more, online customers are still commenting and asking

questions on uploaded ads meanwhile, a paid TV adverts missed by large

numbers of target customers may no longer be accessed again unless it is paid for

again and again. Therefore, organizations should not undermine such online

marketing activities.

 Organizations exploring online marketing channels should not perceive such

channels as substitutes to the traditional marketing channels but rather as

complementing each other as the situation in Nigeria demands.

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