| dc.description.abstract | Marketing strategies constitute one of the key functional strategies that Small and Medium
Enterprises (SMEs) adopt to enhance performance. Organizations including Small and Medium
Enterprises have realized the need to institute strategies that will help them gain an in depth
understanding of the market, particularly with regards to their competitors and customers. Thus,
the main objective of this study was to establish the influence of marketing strategies on the
performance of small and medium enterprises in Matuu town Machakos County, Kenya. To
achieve the study objectives the study used a descriptive research design and the population of
interest comprised all the Small and medium enterprise in Matuu town, Machakos County. A
sample of 86 SMEs was selected for the using simple random and stratified sampling methods.
Data was collected using a semi-structured questionnaire which administered to the owners and
employees of the sampled SMEs. To establish the instrument reliability the Cronbach Coefficient
alpha (α) was used. The data collected was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics
using the statistical package for social sciences (SPSS). To establish the relationship between the
dependent variable (performance) and the independent variable the classical linear regression
model was used. The study established that customer relationship marketing strategies and
technology based marketing strategies have a positive insignificant influence on the performance
of SMEs in Matuu town while innovative marketing strategies have a significant negative
relationship with the performance of SMEs in Matuu town. The study concluded that marketing
strategies influence the performance of Small and medium enterprises and recommended that
that small and medium enterprises should develop effective policies on marketing since
marketing is one of the major determinants of SMEs performance. | en_US |
