Do-it-yourself Marketing and Digital Marketing Adoption: Evidence from a Developing Country

Background: Digital marketing is a new form of business management and promotion, namely promoting services and products of (SMEs)small and medium enterprises. Despite the importance of digital marketing, SMEs in developing and post-transition countries still do not fully utilize the benefits of digital marketing. Objectives: This study aims to analyse the DIY (do-it-yourself) model and the impact that this model has on digital marketing adoption. Methods/Approach: The online survey research was conducted among 194 SME managers in Kosovo. The proposed research model was analysed by partial least square structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM). Results: Findings show that the degree of perception of ease of use impacts the process of digital marketing adoption. Moreover, the degree of control seems to be the most important factor impacting process of the digital marketing in SMEs. Conclusions: SMEs use DIY marketing and adopt digital marketing because this form of practicing marketing activities offers more control for companies in their marketing activities. In addition, perceived ease of use of technology facilitates the process of digital marketing adoption among SMEs. Finally, the study provides insights for managers and businesses using DIY marketing and adopting the process of the digital marketing in SMEs.


Introduction
Today, businesses face numerous technological changes that significantly impact the way marketing is applied. Businesses must adapt and build their strategies to be competitive in the market. One of the technological breakthroughs transforming marketing adoption into businesses is the internet. The internet and other digital technologies have changed the marketing environment and its adoption (Peter et al., 2021). Applying digital marketing involves different strategies on how the business aims to reach the customer through digital marketing channels. Digital marketing strategy is a marketing channel strategy, and it needs to be embedded and used with other channels of multichannel marketing.
This paper aims to explore the factors influencing businesses in Kosovo to adopt digital marketing, which will be realized by examining the motives and attitudes that push these businesses to participate in this activity.
This points to the gap between the potential for digital marketing utilization and how much businesses use it.
Therefore, this study aims to explore the factors that impact adoption of digital marketing in businesses in Kosovo. This research focuses mainly on the conceptual meaning of digital marketing by applying the DIY (do-it-yourself) model and the impact on the quality of digital marketing in Kosovo. In addition, this reserach provide concrete recommendations for the SME owner-managers about the increase of use of digital marketing by Kosovo businesses, which would increase their performance. The rest of the paper is organized as follows. First, the literature review is discussed and research propositions are developede; then sample data and methodology is introduced. Last, the paper discusses results and provides managerial implications for SME managers and future literature directions.

Literature review
Digital marketing describes activities linked with marketing activities of promoting products and services through some digital platforms. The term digital marketing describes the process of digital technologies used by companies in order to retain customers, engage customers, promote products and services and increase sales. This term can also be seen as an activity, institution, or communication between businesses and customers (Wolf et al., 2013). Therefore, digital marketing is defined as any activity taken by companies while posting content about their products and services using various digital devices (Cole et al., 2017).
The digital adoption process enabled by digital technologies delivers more value in this digitalization process. Thus, digital technology empowers companies to use digital marketing in order to create such value for the company and their porspects (Gnanasambandam et al., 2012.) Digital marketing would reshape strategies deployed by companies to enhance customer relationship marketing (CRM) and value co-creation. Hewett et al. (2016) revealed that digital technologies significantly influence customer value. Company websites enable brand communication where customers express their feelings about their preferred brands and at the same time provide feedback to both companies and customer groups (Hewett et al., 2016). Therefore, new internet technologies provide companies with extra opportunities to reach segments they could not reach. Digital marketing devices facilitate marketing communication with the prospects to promote their marketing offer and gain their attention (Tiago et al., 2014). In addition, this new form of communication has made companies change their communication strategies and adapt to the new momentum by reacting and coping with the new demanding marketing activities (Järvinen et al., 2012;Baltes, 2015).
Digital marketing devices can also influence positioning strategies for branding by search engine optimization (SEO) since SEO can be adapted and applied in many devices, enabling customers to use more search adoption from different devices. Brand awareness facilitated by digital marketing helps consumers differentiate brands in the market (Keller, 2001). Thus, helping companies position their brands in their minds (Aaker, 1991 Digital marketing promotes two-way communication, where consumers can post their comments and reviews. In a study, Chevalier et al. (2006) found that online reviews impact a book's sales ranking. In this line, Moe et al. (2011) revealed that online reviews affect sales.

Research propositions development
The DIY behavior model and the TAM model describe business owners' and managers' perceptions concerning the factors and the outcomes that might impact small and medium-sized enterprises using digital marketing in their marketing activities. Therefore, the study uses two existing models: DIY model of behavior (Wolf et al., 2013) and the TAM model (Davis, 1989), to develop research propositions for investigating perceptions of managers and business owners concerning the use of digital marketing communication in SMEs in Kosovo. DIY is a behavior in which individuals process various materials they transform or reconstruct (Wolf et al., 2013). The term 'do-ityourself' has broader applications, including performing various business tasks such as arts, crafts, fashion, software engineering, or even film production. Still, it is not defined only by these (Wolf et al., 2013).
According to the DIY model, managers may follow digital marketing activities because of some antecedents' factors (motivation factors), such as perceived economic benefit, availability of products and the lack of product quality, and the outcome results such as degree of control, degree of fun and control, and selfimprovement (Wolf et al., 2013). Both motivators and outcomes of the DIY model describe consumer processes and experiences (Wolf et al., 2011). Therefore, these two models are combined to analyze motivation factors and outcomes for performing DIY activities and technology adoption because of the limited financial resources of SMEs, especially business owners and managers in small companies resulting in digital marketing activities for their marketing offers.
The use of the internet for marketing purposes provides companies with advantages. In this context, companies are motivated to use online marketing communications since this form of communication provides companies using the internet a technology that facilitates the two-way communication of companies, and they are prospective. Therefore, digital marketing facilitates this form of communication and builds company image, improving customer loyalty and business performance (Ritz et al., 2019).
The development of digital marketing since the 1990s has undergone many changes, beginning with the way brands and businesses use it and as emerging digital platforms increasingly incorporate marketing plans into consumers' daily lives. Nowadays, access to marketing activities through the internet is almost free and open, and SMEs do not specialize enough in using digital tools, like, search engine optimization (SEO), email marketing, social media platforms, and content marketing. Many previous studies point out that SMEs do not profit from the potential that digital marketing provides to businesses and do not grasp the opportunity provided by such digital tools (Taiminen et al., 2015). Therefore, the DIY model enhances the understanding of why SMEs support markers efforts in any business to enhance relationships with their customers (Ritz et al., 2019).
"Do-it-yourself' (DIY) as terminology is usually traced back to the 1950s, referencing people who performed work such as maintenance, repair, or modification of any activities in their homes or other vehicles without any prior knowledge linked with that work or activity. They believed they could perform such activities themselves without paying other parties to carry the work for them, henceforth benefiting from not incurring costs, completing the inconvenient work time, personal satisfaction, and doing things the way one wants (Knobel et  . But, additionally, some authors point out that digital marketing provides initial experience for business owners while using social media for small businesses (Michaelidou et al., 2011). The degree of intention to use digital marketing or intention to discontinue using digital technology is influenced by expectations and new experience (Venkatesh et al., 2000), satisfaction, and intention to use technology (Sun, 2013). Thus, we posit the following research propositions: o RP3. The degree of intention to discontinue as a DIY factor significantly impacts digital marketing adoption. o RP4. The degree of perceived ease of use as a factor of the DIY model significantly impacts digital marketing adoption. The lackof quality of product motivates businesses to undertake their activities. The DIY model's perceived lack of quality as an outcome motivator makes business owners engage in projects because they think they can perform activities with more costbenefit and more productivity (Wolf et al., 2011). In addition, Wolf et al. (2011) suggest that performing digital marketing activities provides business managers more opportunities to respond to their customers more effectively. Thus, we propose the following research proposition: o RP5. The degree of perceived lack of quality as a factor of the DIY model significantly impacts digital marketing adoption.

Research instrument
The study investigates factors contributing to digital marketing adoption among businesses in Kosovo. The scales for measuring the degree of feeling and excitement, degree of control, degree of intention to discontinue, degree of ease of use, and degree of quality were taken from Ritz et al. (2019) and Wolf et al. (2013) whereas, digital marketing adoption construct was developed consulting the existing literature review. Table 1 presents the research instrument, which consists of the six constructs. The questionnaire was translated to Albanian for respondents to understand the questions better. The respondents replied by responding to a five-point Likert scale.    (Table 1) was sent to all-sized companies in Kosovo managers. The structured questionnaire was sent to 250 companies and collected 194 questionnaires. We used an online Google Form for collecting the data, which was distributed by email.
The respondents' anonymity and confidentiality were previously consented to before taking part in the survey process.
The research was carried out with a total of 194 SME managers from Kosovo, 143 of which were men (73.7%) and 51 were female (26.3%) (see Table 1). We see that managers with secondary education are 21 or 10.8%, with university education are 95 or (49%), with postgraduate education are 71 or 36.6%, and seven did not answer this question or 3.6%. Of the 18-30 age group, 31 managers (16%), 93 of the 31-45 age group (47.9%), 52 of the 46-55 age group (26.8%), and 18 over 55 or 9.3%.

Analysis
The coded data were analyzed using IBM SPSS statistical package and Smart PLS to evaluate the measurement model and structural equation modeling.
In reflective models, we consider the outer loadings and the AVE (average variance extracted) while assessing the convergent validity of the construct ( The Stone-Geisser's Q2 following a blindfolding procedur was used to evaluate the predictive relevance of the model. In assessing the goodness of the model fit, we firstly test the Standard Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR). The SRMR values less than 0.10 or 0.08 are considered a good fit (Henseler et al., 2014). The second fit index to be tested in PLS-SEM is NFI, which are required to be above 0.9 to denote a good fit (Zeqiri et al., 2020). Table 2 reveals that values of Cronbach's alpha range from 0.838 to 0.917, denoting good reliability of the constructs since the values are over the suggested threshold of 0.70 (Ursachi et al., 2015). The values of Composite reliability range from 0.900 to 0.938, exceeding the proposed threshold of 0.70. In addition, Fornell et al. (1981) suggested a threshold of AVE of 0.50, thus, the AVE values vary from 0.635 to 0.841, which are over the suggested threshold. Therefore, the figures in table 3 indicate that convergent validity was reached, and further analysis can be carried out.   Source: Author's work *Note that the following items: ID3, and DFE3, were removed from the model because of the VIF value issues Table 5 shows means, factor loadings, standard deviations, t-values, and VIF for all construct items. The values provided in table 5, all item loadings vary from 0.720 to 0.945, above the suggested threshold. The VIF values in table 5 show that the model is not biased.

Results
The findings supported RP2, RP3, and RP4 research propositions and rejected RP1 and RP5. The results in table 6 support RP2 that degree of control positively affects digital marketing adoption with path coefficient = 0.438, t-value = 5.708, and p < 0.000). The results also support in RP4, denoting that perceived ease of use impacts positively digital marketing adoption with path coefficient = 0.354, t-value = 4.192, and p < 0.000).
In addition, RP3 is also supported, i.e., intention to discontinue to use digital marketing is negatively significant with path coefficient= -0.143, t-value = 2.918, and p <0 .004).
Furthermore, the results in table 6 did not show any support for RP1 and RP5. Degree of feeling and excitement did not show any significant relationship with digital marketing adoption with path coefficient= -0.076, t-value = 0.940, and p < 0.347). Finally, RP5, degree of quality also did not show any significant relation with applying digital marketing, with path coefficient= -0.019, t-value = 0.332, and p < 0.740). Relationships are presented in Figure 2.  Table 6 Research propositions Testing Results   Table 6 shows the predictive relevance and the effect size or the power of the variables predicting the variance explained. As it can be seen, the degree of control as a reason for digital marketing adoption seems to be effective; next is the degree of perceived ease of use followed by other factors.

Research propositions
The model explained 47.2 percent of the variance in digital marketing adoption. The predictive value for digital marketing adoption is 38.4% (Q 2 ), showing a good relevance of prediction (Hair et al., 2017).
In our study, the NFI value is 0.801, near the proposed threshold, and SMRM is 0.062, denoting that the model fits well for the saturated and estimated models. Table 6 Co-efficient of determination (R 2 ), Predictive Relevance (Q 2 ), and Effect size (f 2 )

Coefficient of determination Predictive relevance
Effect size (f 2 )

Discussion
Larger businesses are more likely to use digital marketing than small and medium-sized enterprises. Still, the vast majority of literature of digital marketing investigates the behavior of large businesses. This provides a gap in digital marketing literature about why SMEs have a limited adoption of digital marketing than larger organizations. Therefore, we contribute to the literature on digital marketing by explaining why SMEs have limited adoption of digital marketing. We used the DIY behavior and TAM models to study SMEs' digital technology marketing adoption behavior in Kosovo.
Therefore, this research explores the motivating factors and outcomes of certain behavior of SMEs linked with the need to perform digital marketing by business owners and managers of these companies. Järvinen et al. (2012) pointed out that small organizations have limited abilities to use digital marketing compared to large organizations. Thus, this study tried to explore the behavior SMEs concerning technology adoption and digital marketing activities.
The research concept is based on the TAM (Davis, 1989) dimensions and the DIY behavior model (Wolf et al., 2013) in order to explore the adoption of technology and digital marketing of businesses and managers in SMEs in Kosovo.
This study used data from 194 SME managers from Kosovo. PLS-SEM analysis indicates that the businesses and managers are motivated to apply digital marketing activities because of some antecedents of the DIY behavior model. Findings show that the main factors impacting the digital marketing adoption are the perception of the degree of ease of use of digital marketing, which has perceived opportunities to promote online products or services, achieving promotion objectives on the internet. There are opportunities for interaction and faster access to business development and promotion. The second factor that statistically has an impact on digital marketing is the perception of the degree of control. It includes the opportunity for better promotion control, based on the developers of websites, and sees it as an opportunity to realize themselves without needing someone else's help. The main factor impacting digital marketing adoption is the perception of the degree of ease of use. This is followed by the degree of control of services and use, and finally, the tendency or intent to discontinue digital marketing adoption by third parties.
The findings from this research contribute to the literature and understanding of small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) business managers and owners in several ways. First, we provide evidence for the TAM model concerning SMEs' digital marketing adoption by exploring the DIY behavior model. The benefit that motivates SMEs in Kosovo is that business managers and owners decide to adopt digital marketing as perceived ease of use. Thus, business owners and managers are motivated firstly because of its easiness as a technology embedded in their marketing communication strategies. Another implication derived from this research is that digital marketing provides a sense of control to owners of businesses and managers. This outcome benefits the DIY model outcome, where business owners and managers gain a feeling of control and self-improvement while practicing digital marketing (Wolf et al., 2019). As a result of such a positive outcome from DIY, such as control and perceived ease of use, managers and business owners are motivated to continue practicing digital marketing themselves. Therefore, having a website and practicing digital technologies for promoting products and services gives business owners and managers more control over content marketing and enables them to participate in two-way communication with their prospects more effectively. In this way, SMEs can control the customization of their marketing offers and activities.

Conclusion
Research results indicate that the DIY model is an adequate model that provides a professional approach to digital marketing management. In Kosovo, this is a new form of digital marketing management and offers an excellent opportunity for business development, which is recommended for other businesses in the regions in Kosovo and abroad. It would also be beneficial if companies in Kosovo start applying their staff training within the DIY adoption to better their digital marketing performance.
In this research, the DIY model has been combined with the TAM. Combining these two models is that the TAM considers the benefits gained from adopting technology. In contrast, the DIY model integrates marketplace characteristics (perceived lack of quality, economic benefits, and lack of availability) that play a critical role in applying digital marketing strategies.
The empirical findings show that the 'degree of perception of ease of use' and 'the degree of control' are statistically significant and positively affect the adoption of digital marketing in SMEs. As was emphasized previously, the findings from this research provide some insights to businesses and managers concerning the process of adoption of digital technology. In addition, it provides some evidence from an emerging market concerning the digital technology adoption process and the motivators and outcomes behind the digital marketing activities undertaken by SMEs in Kosovo. So, the findings have implications for both DIY behavior and small and medium-sized business research.
The study is with some limitations, that provide direction for eventual future research on this ground. First, this is a cross-section study analyzing digital marketing at one point; future studies should focus on a larger sample and data gained over a more extended period. Second, there is a need for a qualitative inquiry to investigate how digital marketing has taken place under the context of the investigation. Third, future studies should focus on cross-national analysis to determine whether the TAM and DIY model antecedents and outcomes differ in nationwide SMEs. Future studies can also focus on identifying a better environment for digital marketing adoption in larger companies in developing countries.