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IMPACT OF DIGITAL MARKETING ON CONSUMER BEHAVIOR: A CASE OF MBA

ASPIRANTS IN KATHMANDU VALLEY

Thesis · June 2019

DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.33536.10249

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IMPACT OF DIGITAL MARKETING ON CONSUMER BEHAVIOR:

A CASE OF MBA ASPIRANTS IN KATHMANDU VALLEY

by:

Aditya Pokhrel

Kathmandu Don Bosco College

Registration No.:026-2-3-06704-2015

A thesis submitted to the

Purbanchal University, Faculty of Management

in partial fulfillment for the Degree of

Master of Business Administration (MBA)

June, 2019
Kathmandu
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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

At first, I’d like thank Purbanchal University for granting me an opportunity to indulge into
this research. Though it was a part of my curriculum, it always provided me a great zeal
and I got to learn many new domains in research, statistical analysis and thesis writing. To
complete this research, I am not alone to carry all the brainstormings but there are many
hands to whom the honorable mentions can’t be undone.

My sincere gratitude to my thesis supervisor and guide Dr. Jamuna Karki, Research Head
at Kathmandu Don Bosco College (KDBC), PU, for her concrete guidance, timely
suggestions and a kind co-operation despite of her occupied schedule. I also would like to
thank Mrs. Rashmi Sharma Mainali, Program Co-coordinator at KDBC who motivated me
to indulge into doing something new which is grand and not done before.

In the same way I’d like to thank Prof. Dr. Krishna Raj Acharya, Department Head
(Economics) at RR Campus, Dr. Basu Dev Dhungel, Ghanashyam Dawadi and most
importantly Kul Prasad Lamichhane, lecturers at RR Campus, who helped me with
valuable suggestions and materials for the empirical, econometric and statistical analysis.

Finally, honorable mentions to my family members, to all the professors and lecturers at
KDBC, all the staffs at KDBC and my helping friends, seniors and juniors.

Aditya Pokhrel

Kathmandu Don Bosco College

 LIST OF FIGURES

Figure no. Figure title Page no.

Figure 1.1 Kotler’s Decision making model 23

Figure 2.1 Framework of the Study 37

Figure 4.1 Result of the respondent’s gender 49

Figure 4.2 Result of the respondent’s age group 50

Figure 4.3 Result of the respondent’s faculty enrollment 51

 LIST OF TABLES

Table No. Table Title Page no.

Table3.1 Reliability Statistics 44

Table 3.2 Reliability Statistics of each variable 45

Table 4.1 Descriptive Statistics of Consumer Behavior 52

Table 4.2 Descriptive Statistics of Convenience 53

Table 4.3 Descriptive Statistics of Cost 53

Table 4.4 Descriptive Statistics of Social Media 54

Table 4.5 Descriptive Statistics of Time 54

Table 4.6 Descriptive Statistics of Trust 55

Table 4.7 Descriptive Statistics of Website Feature 55

Table 4.8 Test of Collinearity with VIF 57

Table 4.9 Gamma coefficients among the variables 58

Table 4.10 Gamma coefficients between dependent and

Independent variables 59

Table 4.11 Model fitting information 65

 ABBREVIATIONS

d.f Degree of freedom

DW Durbin Watson

et al. et alia

GPRS Generalized Packet data Radio Service

GSM Global System for Mobile

KDBC Kathmandu Don Bosco College

KU Kathmandu University

No. Number

p value probability value

PoU Pokhara University

PU Purbanchal University

SAS Statistical Analysis System

SPSS Statistical Package for Social Science

TU Tribhuvan University

ver Version

VIF Variance Inflation Factor

VSAT Very Small Aperture Terminal

Wi-Fi Wireless Fidelity

WOM Word of Mouth

 ABSTRACT

This research is conducted with three objectives. The first one is to find association of

digital marketing to the consumer behavior of the MBA aspirants, second one is to assess

the main factor/s that affect the consumer behavior due to digital marketing and the third

one is to examine the impact of the factors of digital marketing on MBA aspirants. This

research is based on survey method, using primary data from the sample of 200 with

structured questionnaire. This research uses a descriptive survey research design. It uses

the non-probability sampling design and sample of colleges is first calculated with a

specified population parameter and then the deliberate sample technique is used to

calculate the MBA aspirants for each colleges and one institute. From the result of the

chi-square testing it is found that there is an association between MBA aspirants and the

use of digital media. The faculties of aspirants belong and uses of digital media are

related. Both the dependent and independent variables are put into an ordinal scale. The

ordinal by ordinal gamma test is used to find the relation among the explanatory variables

and between the dependent and independent variable and three of the variables (Time,

Cost and Convenience) out of six explanatory variables have a significant relation to the

dependent variable and rest (Social Media, Trust and Website Feature) are found

insignificant. The ordinal regression is to test the model and for the evaluation of the

significance of the parameters and the model is validated and the variables (three)

possessed significant results with the degree of agreeing the statements.

Keywords: consumer behavior, digital marketing, MBA aspirants, ordinal by

ordinal gamma, explanatory variables.
 1

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the study

The Internet is considered as a mass medium that provides the consumer with purchase

characteristics as no other medium. Certain characteristics are making it more convenient

for the consumer, compared to the traditional way of shopping, such as the ability to at

any time view and purchase products, visualize their needs with products, and discuss

products with other consumers. The invention of the Internet has created paradigm shift

of the traditional way people shop. A consumer is no longer bound to opening times or

specific locations; he can become active at virtually any time and place and purchase

products or services. The Internet is a relatively new medium for communication and

information exchange that has become present in our everyday life. The number of

Internet users is constantly increasing which also signifies that online purchasing is

increasing (Thomas, 2010).

According to Forbes (2018), the world is changing and the technology is taking the lead.

Today everything is going digital, entertainment, health, real estate, banking and even

currencies. This is, however, understandable. In North America alone, 89% of the

population is online. With everything turning to digital, companies are also jumping

online to market their business. And to survive the challenges of digital marketing,

brands need to keep up with the latest trends. Successfully reaching ones target audience

is no longer putting out TV and print ads. These days, social media is the new arena of
 2

the digital marketers as 3.3 billion people are active on social media in the world.

Notably according to January, 2018 data, 24% of the 5700 marketers who were surveyed

revealed that social media has been an important part of their marketing for past five

years. To keep up with the ever changing sense, digital marketing experts need to stay in

change with the evolving tech trends. Social media marketing companies like ours works

tirelessly to research consumers and what makes them engage with brands. They try to

find the best online solutions that will cater to their clients’, end users’ queries in the

easiest and the most cost efficient way possible – be it by developing new technologies or

adapting to the change.

History of digital marketing in Nepal and Current Trends

Media Research Reports (2011) stated that ‘Mercantile Communication' firstly

introduced net facility in Nepal with the service of e-mail in 2050 B.S. It has been 24

years that and in this time Nepal has developed quite a lot in the field of information and

technology. The Kathmandu Post (2018) mentioned that Nepal is adding 250 internet

users per hour in Nepal and 65% (approx.) percentage of the population has internet

connections in their home. From here it can be identified that internet users are in

increasing trend and this adds to the research to that the users of digital marketing are

also increasing in Nepal.

The Broad way Infosys Blog Nepal (2018), Digital Marketing is any form of marketing

that exists online. The trend of marketing has seen a drastic change in the past decade as

the maximum number of people or buyers are based online. Digital Marketing is the

promotion of products or brands using digital technologies in the Internet by electronic

 3

medium. Digital Marketing can also be stated as an upgraded and advanced version of

marketing as it works strategically to analyze whether the plans and campaigns work or

not in real time.

Further it states that the factual impacts of Digital marketing are:

a) 50+ % of the organization as of now had a well-integrated Digital Marketing Plan on

2018.

b) Around 80% of advertisers trust that the conventional promotion is never again enough

and Digital Marketing will make their organization income to be expanded by 30+%

c) More than 80% of organizations will expand their online advertising budget that can even

surpass the IT spending plan.

d) Google has insisted in an investigation with IPSOS Hong Kong, affirming that 2.8 times

better revenue generations can be attained for businesses using digital marketing

compared to those who don’t.

Again the blog categorizes some most common assets and tactics that fall under digital

marketing.

I. Assets

a) Websites

b) Blog Posts

c) E books

d) Info graphics

e) Interactive tools

f) Social Media Channels such as Facebook, twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram etc.

 4

II. Tactics

a) SEO- SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. The procedure of gaining traffic from

the “free”, “organic”, search results on search engines for high ranking.

b) SEM-SEM stands for Search Engine Marketing or Paid Search which refers to the paid

listing, with the longer term of search marketing used to encompass both SEO and SEM.

Below mentioned are the most common terms used to refer to SEM activities:

c) Paid Search ADS

d) Paid Search Advertising

e) PPC ( Pay- per- click)

f) PPC ( Pay- per call)

g) CPC (Cost per click)

h) CPM (Cost per thousand impression)

i) Content Marketing- Content marketing is the creation and the promotion of content assets

for the purpose of generating brand awareness, traffic growth, lead generation, or

customers. Content is always regarded as the king and basis for all the marketing to how

you want to portray your product to the whole world.

j) Inbound Marketing- Inbound marketing generally refers to the approach of attracting,

converting customers using online content.

k) Social Media Marketing- The practice of promoting your brand and your content on

social media channels to increase brand awareness, drive traffic, and generate leads for

your business. The social media budget will be doubled in the next few years. The

penetration of the internet is gaining more and more results.

 5

l) Pay- Per- Click (PPC) – A method of driving traffic to the website by paying a publisher

every time the ad is clicked. One of the most common types of PPC is Google Ad Words.

m) Native Advertising- Native Advertising refers to advertisements that are primarily

content-led and featured on a platform alongside other, non-paid content.

n) Marketing Automation- Marketing automation refers to the software that exists with the

goal of automating marketing actions.

o) Email Marketing- Companies use email marketing as a way of communicating with their

audiences. Email is generally used to aware and promotes content, discounts and events,

as well as to direct people towards the business’ website.

From this it becomes evident that almost all the companies are on their way to put digital

marketing techniques in their company for a contemporary marketing and thus to enhance

the revenue of the company and finally to boost up the company’s wealth. There are

several companies including banks as well who are rigorously on their way to adopt the

digital marketing technique. Be it designing attractive websites to drafting the application

in Playstore, Appstore and Microsoft store or be it advertising extensively on the social

sites. Because of all these the problem is defined to choose the impact of the digital

marketing on the consumer behavior being the MBA aspirants as a consumer and they are

students or the young generation who are found to be more active on the social sites due

the glamorous or funny content or be it content related to small shows web series and all.
 6

1.2 Problem statement

As mentioned above, the trends of digital marketing in the world and in Nepal are

increasing and so the consumers are too. Consumers are getting conscious day by day.

The prompt result is entertained as everyone is under a busy schedule in his/her life. Now

a days people don’t much visit to the target market but intend to get the

product/idea/service at their doorstep and Thomas (2013) also has obtained in the

findings of his research that due to this concept people, who used be once loyal customers

are being disloyal to a particular brand of product/idea/service and this is because they

are heavily influenced by several products/ideas/services which are placed in front of

them in an attractive manner in digital domain.

The similar case is going in Nepal as the data speaks as mentioned above. An MBA

aspirant is also a student and a consumer as well who seeks to aspire for further studies

and what better than MBA if s/he thrives to choose and what if s/he has always to

encounter with the omnipresent Digital marketing. What sorts of impact will s/he will lay

that also on the specific research related factors which is obtained from the framework

after the review of the several literatures and does an MBA aspirant use digital media to

access MBA College or not, is the main problem statement of this research. Hence, a

need was felt to carry out a research that could analyze the significance of online

marketing and its impact on customer behavior of MBA aspirants in Kathmandu. Also,

there were questions in the mind that needed to be addressed such as:

a) What is the relationship between MBA aspirants applying online/not applying

online the MBA College and digital marketing?

 7

b) What are the digital marketing factor/s that affects the MBA aspirants while

searching and browsing MBA colleges over digital media?

c) What is the impact of the factors of consumer behavior of MBA aspirants and

digital marketing?

1.3 Objectives of the study

Following are the objectives of the study

a) To examine the association between MBA aspirants behavior in evaluating the

MBA College and digital marketing.

b) To assess the digital marketing factor/s that affects the online aspirants while

searching and browsing MBA colleges over digital media.

c) To determine the impact of digital marketing factors on consumer behavior of

MBA aspirants.

1.4 Research hypothesis

The study has been conducted on the basis of the reviews and so the framework has been

built and following hypotheses have been developed.

H1: There is a significant relationship between digital marketing and MBA aspirants

applying/not applying online.

H2: There is a significant relationship between digital marketing and faculty of the MBA

aspirants.

H3: There is a significant relationship between the Convenience/Availability and

Consumer Behavior.
 8

H4: There is a significant relationship between the Cost and Consumer Behavior.

H5: There is a significant relationship between the Social Media and Consumer Behavior.

H6: There is a significant relationship between the Time Saving and Consumer Behavior.

H7: There is a significant relationship between the Trust and Consumer Behavior.

H8: There is a significant relationship between the Website design/Features and

Consumer Behavior.

1.5 Scope and limitations of the study

The study aims at covering the MBA aspirants of the Kathmandu valley which covers the

three districts viz. Kathmandu, Bhaktapur and Lalitpur and also only the MBA aspirants

who belong to the Universities of Tribhuvan, Purbanchal, Kathmandu and Pokhara and

the students of Education.com.

Though the research is carried out with lots of cautions, there remain certain limitations.

Further the limitations of the study can be categorized as follows:

a) Small time frame of the study hindered a deep and comprehensive study than

what is done.

b) Smaller sample size as the research is only focused to the 355 colleges (Field

Survey, 2019) of Kathmandu valley as the universe. It does not represent the

general view of all the MBA aspirants who are scattered all over Nepal and hence

does not represent the generalizability of the population.

c) The factors taken for study is very less as only 6 factors are taken after drafting

the framework from the inspection of the numerous literatures.

 9

d) Sometimes reluctance of the respondent can be a major limitation. The

respondent, i.e. an MBA aspirant would not have avidly filled up the

questionnaire and this may lead not to represent the true outcome and can cause to

the inconsistent responses.

1.6 Definition of the terms

The definition of the variables under study i.e. the independent variables relating to

digital marketing to find out its impact on the dependent variable consumer behavior.

Dependent Variable

Consumer Behavior

The study of the behavior of consumers from brainstorming to making purchase decisions

about product/idea/service whether or not to go for the particular product/idea/service.

Independent Variables

Convenience/Availability

This variable refers to the ease of access to the digital marketing tools that is available in

front of a consumer in order to get information about any product/idea/service.

Cost

Cost refers to the total overhead value that a consumer bears while s/he is searching any

information regarding any product/idea/service on the digital media.

Social Media

This variable refers to the using of various social media tools such as Facebook,

Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, etc. for getting information about any

product/idea/service.
 10

Time Saving

This variable refers that how the digital marketing has helped the consumers in order to

save time to using the non-digital media.

Trust

This variable refers to the degree of confidence that a consumer shows when s/he is using

the digital marketing tools in order to get any information about any product/idea/service.

Website design/Features

This variable refers to how the website is made graphically accessible to make it easy to

operate and navigate while a consumer is searching about any product/idea/service.

Thus these are the explanations of the terms which are crucial for the analysis part.

1.7 Structure of the report

For the study, it is divided into the six chapters viz. Introduction, Review of the

Literature, Research methodology, Observation and analysis, Results and discussions and

Findings, Conclusions and Implications.

Chapter One is the introductory chapter which gives an outline about what the topic of

the study is. It includes the Background of the Study, Problem Statement, Research

Questions, Objective of the Study, Research hypothesis, Scope and limitations of the

Study and Definition of the terms.

Chapter Two consists of the Literature Review which includes the theoretical review and

review about related studies. Related studies includes various research articles, journals

and unpublished thesis. It also consists the main Framework of the Study and Research

Gap analysis.
 11

Chapter Three consists of the Research Methodology that deals with the methodology of

research adopted for the study which consists of research approach, tools of study,

subjects and description of the sample for this report.

Chapter Four consists of the Observation and Analysis that deals with instruments,

procedures, validity and reliability and report with a statistical analysis.

Chapter Five consists of the Results and discussions covers the data analysis of the

presented data and define type of analysis to process data gathered during the research.

Chapter Six consists of the Findings, Conclusions and Implications where the study is

concluded with coherence with its objectives. It recommends to the concerned authorities

with the concrete results for future strategy building procedures. It also offers the

prospect the further implications of the research and implications of researches taking

some of the additional variables/factors.

 12

CHAPTER TWO

REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

Literature Review refers to the works that have been consulted in order to understand and

investigate the research problem. “Review” is the process of systematic, meticulous and

critical summary of the published literature in the field of the research (Panta, 2010).

The literature review has been divided into two sections which are:

a) Conceptual review

b) Review of the related research articles.

2.1 Conceptual Review

This review encompass the various concepts and theories that are about to put forward

and an argument which is more relevant for the issue to be discussed.

Marketing

Marketing is the way of putting any product be it physical or non-physical to the

consumers’ insight to increase his/her inclination to consume the particular product time

and again. Marketing is a social and managerial process by which the individuals and

groups obtain what they need and what through creating, offering and exchanging the

products of value with others (Kotler & Keller, 2006).

The American Marketing Association (2013) defines marketing as, “The process of

planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion and distribution of ideas,

goods and services”.

 13

A consumer is any person who seeks for a disposal of any product and is attracted

towards the purchase decision of certain products on the basis of its utility. It’s known to

all that production is the first stage in the economy which is a process using the inputs of

land, labor, capital and entrepreneurship to develop a logical output. This output should

be placed into the market and hence communicated to the consumers so that it gets placed

into the deep mind of the consumers. This is done to increase total revenue and hence to

gain higher profit and thus to contribute to the nation’s economy. This is how marketing

carry a significant value in the corporate world.

Marketing involves various methods of communicating the products in front of the

consumers. The most broad and popular techniques that have used today are:

a) Non digital marketing.

b) Digital Marketing.

Non digital marketing techniques involves marketing of a product/idea/service through

non electronic media such as newspapers, banner ads, pamphlets, etc. This is the classic

form of marketing and it involves physical presence of the communication.

Digital marketing

Digital Marketing is a contemporary method of the marketing. It is the way of using the

electronic flow of data with a global connection to communicate the

products/idea/service. Digital marketing can be defined as the use of the digital channels

to market a brand. To build on these definitions, in digital marketing demand creation is

driven by internet, which is an interactive medium that allows for the exchange of the

currency and value (Stokes, 2011).

 14

Digital marketing is the use of the channels in order to reach the desired target market via

some of the following channels social media, websites, multimedia advertising, online

search engine advertisement, E-marketing, interactive marketing (polls, game ads, mobile

marketing). Digital marketing has been considered a new form of marketing and provided

new opportunities for companies to do businesses. Marketing activities conducted via

digital channels enable advertisers to directly communicate with potential customers in a

rapid velocity and regardless the geographical location. Digital marketing has been

recently referred as one of the best means to cut through the mess and interact directly

with the consumer. Hence, with the trend toward direct, one‐to‐one marketing, additional

attention is being paid to the use of the digital channels as a means of effectively

advertising to consumers. While considering digital channels, the recent development is

mobile marketing. Indian mobile market is one of the fastest growing markets due to the

increase in the number of middle-income consumers, and is forecasted to attain millions

of users in the upcoming decade. Thus, research on digital channel advertising would

impact greatly on the way business is done. The development and widespread use of

internet technologies have transformed the way society communicates both in their daily

and professional life. One of the for the most part important indicator of this

transformation is emergence of new communication tools. New communication tools

emerging with the development of technologies are called “digital marketing”. When it is

talked about the digital channels, what comes to intellect are Facebook, Twitter,

Instagram and similar social networks that are used online and virtual platforms like web

sites, micro blogs and search engines. With the advent of new communication to
 15

customers with digital channels, already available communication tools are now fetching

to be called as “traditional communication tools” (Mahalakshmi & Ranjit, 2016).

Digital Marketing in the context of Nepal

According to The Himalayan Times (2019), Nepal is a country where almost 145.9 lakhs

of the people are digitally connected i.e. in the 29 million population of Nepal, around

50.32 per cent have access to internet services. According to a recent MIS report (June

2018), published by the Nepal Telecom Authority (NTA), 10.23 per cent of population

have access to fixed broadband (wired), 1.10 per cent have access to fixed broadband

(wireless) and the remaining 89 per cent subscribers use mobile internet. This shows that

people are more inclined to using the internet services and they are going more digitally

with the advent of the social sites as well.

To the history of the internet, the credit of introducing internet in Nepal goes to the senior

journalist Mr. Bharat Dutta Koirala. He introduced e-mail under the name of 'electronic

mailbox' during immediate post Jana Aandolan period. The users of the mailbox were

'World View Nepal' and 'Nepal Forum of Environmental Journalist (NEFEJ)'. Next to

that the then Royal Nepal Academy of Science & Technology (RONAST)' started using

e-mail using the PC-trunk dial to India. 'Mercantile Communication' became the first

professional organization to introduce net facility in Nepal with the service of e-mail in

2051 BS. Next to the Mercantile, 'Worldlink' started providing internet services in

Kathmandu valley. The business competition between these two companies helped

fostering and increasing the access of Nepalese people and organizations to internet.

Today's giant ISP 'Nepal Telecom (Nepal Telecommunications Corporation)' started to

 16

provide internet on 2058 BS, causing thousands of Nepalese to subscribe and connect

internet in their homes, rooms and offices easily. Today Nepal Telecom has become the

largest ISP followed by several companies such as United Telecom Limited, Mercantile

Communication, Worldlink, Vianet, Spice Nepal, Broadlink, Everest, Speedcast,

Websurfer etc. The rural districts of Manang, Mustang and Jumla are using VSAT

internet. Wireless WI-Fi service has been started in Kathmandu valley by Broadlink.

Mobile WAP and GPRS service provided by Nepal Telecom and Ncell in their GSM

system has brought the internet to the hands and palms of hundreds of thousands

Nepalese people (Media Research Reports, 2011).

Hence, it is seen that the craze of digital marketing is increasing day by day and people

are tending to be prompt by using internet services. Not only to get social but also to

flourish business, digital marketing can be used to attract more of the customers to gain a

maximum competitive advantage in business.

Tools of digital marketing

The tools of digital marketing refers the means from which people access to use the

digital marketing procedures. Some of the tools of digital marketing are:

a) Social Networking Sites (SNS) such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter,

YouTube, etc.

A social networking site is an online platform that allows users to create a public profile

and interact with other users on the website. Social networking sites usually have a new

user input a list of people with whom they share a connection and then allow the people

on the list to confirm or deny the connection. After connections are established, the new
 17

user can search the networks of connections to make more connections. A social

networking site is also known as a social networking website or social website

(Tachopedia, 2019). Here in social sites various links, notices, video, ads are placed

where consumers get knowledge about the product/service/idea details.

b) Various Websites and SEMs (Search Engine Marketing).

Merriam Webster Dictionary defines website as a group of World Wide Web pages

usually containing hyperlinks to each other and made available online by an

individual, company, educational institution, government, or organization.

c) Pop up ads.

A pop-up ad is a pop-up window used for advertising. When the program is initiated by

some user action, such as a mouse click or a mouse over , a window containing an offer

for some product or service appears in the foreground of the visual interface. Like all

pop-ups, a pop-up ad is smaller than the background interface - windows that fill the user

interface are called replacement interfaces - and usually resembles a small browser

window with only the close, minimize, and maximize options at the top (Techtarget,

2019). The ads pop ups so that consumer can either click or not click on to the ad.

d) Banner digital ads.

Investopedia (2019) defines banner advertising as the use of a rectangular graphic display

that stretches across the top, bottom or sides of a website. The former type of banner

advertisement is called a leaderboard, while the latter is called a skyscraper and is

positioned on a web page's sidebars. Banner ads are image-based rather than text-based

and are a popular form of online advertising. The purpose of banner advertising is to
 18

promote a brand and/or to get visitors from the host website to go to the advertiser's

website.

Thus these are some of the digital marketing tools that help people access to digital

marketing via internet.

Merits and demerits of digital marketing

The NI Business Info (2019) defines the merits of digital marketing as followings:

Merits of digital Marketing

a) Global reach - A website allows one to find new markets and trade globally for

only a small investment.

b) Lower cost - A properly planned and effectively targeted digital marketing

campaign can reach the right customers at a much lower cost than traditional

marketing methods.

c) Trackable, measurable results - Measuring ones online marketing with web

analytics and other online metric tools makes it easier to establish how effective

your campaign has been. One can obtain detailed information about how

customers use your website or respond to your advertising. Web analytics can be

set up to show you exactly how much money you make from each digital tactics.

d) Personalization - If customer’s database is linked to their website, then whenever

someone visits the site, one can greet them with targeted offers. The more they

buy from you, the more one can refine your customer profile and market

effectively to them.
 19

e) Openness - By getting involved with social media and managing it carefully, you

can build customer loyalty and create a reputation for being easy to engage with.

f) Social currency - Digital marketing lets you create engaging campaigns using

different types of rich media content. On the internet these campaigns can gain

social currency - being passed from user to user and becoming viral.

g) Improved conversion rates - If one has a website, then their customers are only

ever a few clicks away from completing a purchase. Unlike other media which

require people to get up and make a phone call, or go to a shop, digital marketing

can be seamless and immediate.

Demerits of digital marketing

The article, Yuoriviscky (2019), tells following about the disadvantages of digital

marketing.

a) Internet marketing campaigns can be copied.

b) Internet marketing can get drowned by too much online Ad clutter.

c) Internet marketing will not be taken seriously if not done professionally.

d) Internet marketing may not be appropriate for your product.

e) Internet marketing Involves Too Much Competition.

f) Internet marketing Reputation Can Be Damaged by Negative Feedback.

g) Internet marketing is highly dependent on technology which can be prone to

errors.

h) Lack of trust.
 20

i) Internet marketing is not yet embraced by all the people.

It’s clear from here that the digital marketing can be a useful means to use to attract

potential customers despite it has several disadvantages.

Users of smartphones and internet in Nepal

According to the Nepali Telecom (2018) most of the developed countries have

smartphone penetration in the range 70 to 90 percentage. But the average smartphone

penetration of the world is around 50 percent now. It is due to the developing countries

and LDCs. Although these countries have lower values of smartphone percentage, the

numbers have rapidly grown in the last few years. The measure for the smartphone users

in Nepal was also way below if you see the data before some years. It was 15 percent in

the year 2013 according to Kantipur post. Now with availability of much affordable

smartphones and soaring applications, the smartphone percentage in Nepal has grown

rapidly. According to the latest Ncell report, the smartphone penetration in their network

is 52 percent. As it is more likely, we can consider the same kind of penetration in state

owned company Nepal Telecom. So, the smartphone penetration in the country has

crossed 50 percent mark. That means every other person is using smartphone in Nepal or

in other way more than half of Nepalese use smartphone today. It also lies in the same

range as World’s average smartphone penetration.

Latest trend of smartphone penetration in Nepal shows it grows by 10 percent in total

each year. In the year 2016, the value crossed 40 percent whereas this value reaches 50

percent in 2017. With the trend, we can expect it to go much higher in 2018. The main

reasons for this penetration to group; First people who come from abroad either working

or studying bring smartphones with them. Secondly, it is due to the availability of

 21

cheaper Chinese brand mobile phones in Nepal like Xiaomi, Huawei, Vivo, Oppo, ZTE

and many more. It is also due to people’s preference for different telco services and better

usage of social media applications in it (Nepali Telecom, 2018).

It’s known to all that Kathmandu is the capital city of the country and the valley is one of

the populated valley in Nepal having population approx. of 20 lakhs (World Population

Review, 2018).

According to the Statcounter (2018), it is known that 94.97 % of the total internet users of

Kathmandu valley use Facebook as the main domain of the social sites. This shows that

the inclination towards using digital marketing is in increasing trend and the population

are more attracted towards using the tools of digital marketing rapidly that also in

Kathmandu valley

From here one thing can be clearly understood that the users of the smartphones and the

users of internet in Nepal and Kathmandu valley itself are in increasing trend. This helps

to increase the usability of multimedia applications within the cell phones. This triggers

out the consumers to use the digital marketing tools where companies place various

advertisements penetration in order to grab more of the consumers. Then it’s the

consumer that is to impact positively or negatively when s/he is suing the digital

marketing tools.

Since the study is concerned with the consumers impact, so here it is the MBA aspirants

who are the consumers and in order to find the students the Field Survey was conducted.
 22

The field survey (2019) during this research is found that the Universities registrar offices

states the total enrollment approx. of Bachelors level students in KU, PU, TU, PoU is

around 30,000 in Kathmandu valley. These are the students and they are the major users

of the internet as well. Thus understanding the consumer behavior of an MBA aspirant

who is also a consumer as s/he invested some amount to get quality education and its

impact to the digital marketing is shaping.

Consumer behavior and digital marketing

Consumer Behavior is the behavior that consumers display in searching for, purchasing,

using, evaluating and disposing of products and services that they expect will satisfy their

needs (Schiffman, Kanuk & Kumar, 2010). Consumers are unique to their choices and

are indifferent to the choices they make. Consumers tend to go for a particular product

due to various reasons be it group influence, family influence or influence from the

digital media.

Consumer behavior is the study of how individuals, groups and organizations select, buy,

use and dispose of goods, services, ideas, or experiences to satisfy their needs and wants

(Kotler & Keller, 2006).

The Kotler model represents the framework how consumer follow a pattern whenever

they are going to purchase a product/idea/service. What is the brainstorming that they are

going to make is what model is all about. Further the consumer behavior model of Kotler

is represented in the following figure.

 23

Figure 2.1: Kotler’s Consumer Decision making model

The consumer behavior model which states that the consumer behavior is started when

the market stimuli reaches to the consumers mind through communication, price and

other stimuli such as economic technological political, cultural, etc. This triggers out the

consumer’s psychology based upon the consumer characteristics and the buying decision

is done followed by purchase decision at the end. Thus, this is how a consumer tends to

go for the product/service/idea.

In this research too the decision making by the consumers i.e. an MBA aspirant is very

vital because as without problem recognition an MBA aspirant can’t make decisions

considering these process. Thus, this is a vital process for a consumer to make decision

more systematically in making the purchase decision.

While consumers tend to use digital marketing they tend to be influenced by various

factors and show some kinds of the behavior. The nature of each and every consumers

who are using digital media depends on what factors they are relied while they are using
 24

the internet. Pointing some amongst many these are the would be behavior that a

consumer can show while s/he uses the digital media

The consumers most often use digital media to fetch some product/service/idea. When

they do this they tend to show these kinds of behavior in a general sense.

a) Consumers may intend to choose the product/idea online.

b) Consumers may intend to reject/discard the product/idea online.

c) Consumers may visit the company be it wholesaler or retailer or a place of

physical evidence.

In this research the digital marketing is to be used by an MBA aspirant thus s/he may

show these kinds of behavior pertaining to the kind of tools of digital media s/he is using.

They are:

a) Choose a college online.

b) Reject/Remain indifferent towards a college online.

c) Visit the college personally.

Smith (2009) tells that online engagement with the consumers played a significant role in

building the advocates of a brand, whereby they purchase the brand or refer the brand to

other countries, either through online or offline communication mediums.

Hence this advocates how a consumer behave in making decisions while s/he is using the

digital media.

Factors that affect digital marketing

LinkedIn (2016) defines factors that affect digital marketing as follows:

 25

a) Target market: The first and foremost thing in my viewpoint is deciding the

target market for digital marketing. You cannot randomly serve your

advertisements and online content to the millions of internet users available online

because that would only lead to more costs for a firm. Also, the content must be

aligned to the suitability and interests of your target market.

b) Channels: Based on the channel decision, a business will be able to target its

potential customers. The online marketing domain covers a wide spectrum of

platforms, and many more are emerging with time. A business needs to do

conduct a cost –benefit analysis and rank the various mediums on the basis of

their cost effectiveness.

c) Technology: One of the most important factors affecting digital marketing is

technology which needs to be reviewed and updated on a continuous basis. Your

in-house internet marketing team must have the technological knowhow. Beyond

technical difficulties, companies often have to invest in equipment and services to

implement their digital marketing campaigns. For example, a company that wants

to do video marketing needs a digital camera, lights and audio recording

equipment and the expertise to use it, or must pay a studio to handle the video

editing and recording.

d) Big Data: Big Data lets to answer the what, how, when and why of digital

marketing. Big Data will continue to be an all-powerful and overarching topic

among business planners and marketing strategists. As businesses realize that

customer behavior and usage data is pivotal for leveraging their overall
 26

performance and profit, more businesses will adopt Big data policies and data

acquisition and integration technologies.

e) Content: The digital marketing efforts must include language and images that

reflect your target market and resonate with them. Studies have shown that

effective content marketing contributes in a great deal to the improvement of

consumer conversion and retention.

f) Social Media: Social media presence of a business matters a lot. Businesses these

days maintain active and healthy social media accounts of their businesses as well

ask their employees to do so to engage their customers. Many companies launch

online campaigns through social media platforms to attract new customers and

retain the existing ones.

g) Talent: Everything will out of place if the talent and skills of your digital

marketing team are not up to the mark. The human element of digital marketing is

actually its backbone. The knowledge and experience you and your team have in

digital marketing influences whether or not you incorporate it into your overall

marketing strategy. Having a talented workforce is an asset!

h) Budget: Digital marketing is cheaper than traditional marketing, but it is

definitely not free. Hence, there arises a need to prepare a well-defined budget for

digital marketing. A marketer must decide and appropriate mix of organic as well

as paid promotions. If budgeting is an issue; as it might be for smaller firms, it is

advisable for them to outsource their digital marketing to a business who

specializes in this.
 27

When all the aforementioned factors are well accounted for and strategies are designed in

congruence with them, digital marketing leads a business on the road to success.

Consumers impact

Consumer impact is the analyzing of what a consumer is going to if he is digitally driven

by the marketers. The strategic marketing plans that is put forward by the marketers,

catches an insight of a consumer and s/he is either influenced or s/he is remained

indifferent towards a product/idea. The rise of the internet provided a new channel for

consumers and brands to connect and also provided consumers with more choice,

influence and power (Stokes, 2011).

Marketers influence the consumer decisions by delivering an online marketing experience

that has a combination of functionality and information on products and services. Web

experiences such as searching, selecting, evaluating information and online transactions

assist marketers to determine the potential of their online strategies (Meera & Gayathri,

2015).

In this research the impact is to be analyzed of an MBA aspirant who is either guided

through the digital tools under the digital strategy of the marketers and how s/he is

impacted by an offer of particular product/idea. For instance: S/he may have a positive

strong impact to visit the college after seeing the ads that is aired or digital media or s/he

may have the feeling of negative impact not to go for the particular college or s/he may

remain indifferent.
 28

MBA aspirant and MBA college

An MBA aspirant is any student who is studying in the last year/ last semester of her/his

bachelors’ level degree which maybe anyone of these as, BBA, BBS, BIT, BIM, BSc,

BE, MBBS, etc. and is looking forward to peruse a career in MBA as a master’s degree.

An MBA college is an institution that provides a two year long master’s degree course in

Business Administration.

An MBA aspirant is willing to peruse MBA and maybe looking forward to get details and

contact the MBA College about the curricular structure, fee structure, semester exam

patterns, infrastructures of the college, future placements and many more. For this s/he

may find a digital marketing an effective way comparing to other marketing techniques

as s/he gets to compare and analyze many colleges many times at a single touch.

As MBA is the one of the happening courses globally due to its exposure and value an

aspirant might tend to use the tools that is contemporary, cozy to operate and the tool

where the feedback can be obtained within a second. For this basically the research is

concentrated upon examining the actual behavior of an aspirant in using the digital

marketing tools.

There are several universities that are endorsing Bachelor degree courses in Kathmandu

valley. Amongst them the research intends to opt any four of the Nepalese Universities

and one MBA entrance preparation institute that encompass much of the students. These

Universities and Institute are:

a) Tribhuvan University.

b) Kathmandu University
 29

c) Purbanchal University.

d) Pokhara University.

e) Education.com

Thus these are the conceptual foundation for the research to arrive towards the theme that

impact of the digital marketing on MBA aspirant must be analyzed as trends in digital

marketing is growing and so are the aspirants.

2.2 Review of the related studies

How the research have been done in the past and what does the related studies reveal,

plays the vital role during the literature review. These are the some of the articles which

were studied before venturing into the actual research.

Buchanan, Kelly, Yeatman & Kariippanon (2018) conducted a research in Wollongong,

Australia on the effects of digital marketing of unhealthy commodities on young people

with the objectives as identifying impact of the digital marketing of unhealthy

commodities on young people and assessing the relationship between digital marketing

young’s people attitude towards unhealthy commodities. The factors taken for study were

Likes and Share on Facebook, Experimental group exposure, Alcohol marketing social

media use, Alcohol Consumption, Frequency of high episodic drinking. The research

used PRISMA (Preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analysis)

technique/tool and the data was observed to the adolescents from age group 15-19. The

sample size was 24 which encompassed from the economically developed countries such

as USA, UK, New Zealand and Australia. The research found that the marketing contents

transmitted through young people’s social online interactions (earned media) blurs the
 30

boundary between user and marketer-generated contents and appears to have a greater

impact than the more explicit online advertisements (owned and paid media). It’s also

found that there is a need for proactive consideration of effective regulation on unhealthy

commodities marketed within the online environment and trust issues are there.

Chitharanjan (2016) conducted a research in Dublin, Ireland on analyzing the impact of

social media marketing and online marketing on consumer behavior with the objectives

as critical understanding of varied concepts of social media marketing and the online

advertisement, critically investigating the different customer behavior pattern and

recognizing the challenges that are faced by Apple Inc related to the improper social

media and online advertisement marketing strategies. A descriptive research design is

adopted in his study. The factors that he considered for the analysis of the behavior is

Awareness, Affective behavior of social media, Satisfaction, Effectiveness, Reader of

the blog, Accessibility. The primary data were collected by questionnaire. Bar diagram

and pie chart and ANOVA test are the tools to express the findings. The major findings

that is found that the satisfaction level of consumer are seen to be high with respect to

social media advertising undertaken by consumer, but still it could be seen that there are

particular group of individuals who disagrees to this aspect. It’s also found that consumer

has been undergoing online advertisement using social media marketing and this states

that business must carry out appropriate advertisement using such media channels. Again

it’s identified that in the present era if business needs to influence the behavior of

consumer towards their product and services then they have to carry out their

advertisement using social media channels.

 31

Constantinidies (2004) had conducted a research quite a long time back in Netherlands,

Europe on influencing the online consumer behavior: the web experience, with the

objectives as finding the influence of online consumer behavior in relation to various

factors affecting it. The research design was exploratory and he used several factors to

determine the online consumer behavior which are Functionality factors, Psychology

related factors and Content related factors. The 48 academic papers were used as

secondary data for analysis. What it’s found was that the uncontrollable factors (external

and personal ones) affecting consumer behavior are similar for both types of consumers.

It is also found that the tools however used by traditional and online marketers in order to

influence the buying behavior of their customers are not quite the same. Further, it’s

found that in the case of traditional consumers the 4Ps of the marketing mix are

considered as the main controllable tools influencing the buying behavior, however,

research indicated that in the case of the Web consumer a set of elements experienced

during the virtual interaction are indeed the controllable factors affecting the online

buyer.

Darban& Li (2012) conducted a research in Sweden, Europe on the impact on online

social networks on consumers purchasing decision with the objectives as finding out the

steps of consumers’ purchasing decision process and the effect of online social network’s

influence and also identifying the reasons behind online social networks’ influence on

consumers’ purchasing decision process. The research design was qualitative research

design was used and the factors for the qualitative research used were promotion and

offers, company/store information, activities and survives, convenience of Facebook,

 32

recommendations (WOMs). Interviews and FGDs were carried to analyze the qualitative

data more clearly. The data was analyzed in the form of bar diagram and analytical

presentations by the researchers. From the research it’s found that the purchasing

decision regarding the food retailer’s online social networks influence the consumer

behavior the most. It is also found that the main reasons that consumers are interested in

supermarkets’ online social networks is they are able to interact with other consumers

and supermarkets, consumer get involved in online Word-Of-Mouth communications

when they interaction with other consumers because they can’t find these features in any

other websites.

Lodhi & Sohaib (2017) conducted a research in Karachi Pakistan on impact of e-

marketing on consumer behavior with objectives of finding purpose of e-marketing and

its relation to consumer behavior and how web visitors are related to the e marketing. An

exploratory research design was used. The factors that were considered were mobile

marketing, TV ads, Social sites marketing, Global Marketing which revealed the cost

related factors. The Google form questionnaire was used as the tools of primary data

collection. It is found that almost 80-90% people are attracted with the online

advertisement which is done mostly on social websites, as social webs users are not

specific to gender and age group so everyone see their type of advertisement on their

Facebook pages. It is also found that the customers are buying products mostly after

watching online advertisement rather than by reading a newspapers, magazines or

watching T.V and customers are not brand loyal anymore so with the help of online
 33

marketing company give updates of their products or services to maintain loyalty with

their customers.

Mahalakshmi & Ranjith (2016) conducted a research in Tirichupalli India on impact of

digital marketing on customers purchasing decision with objectives of studying the

awareness of digital marketing in Trichy consumers, analyzing the influence of digital

marketing in purchase decision and knowing about the kind of products bought by

utilizing digital channels. The exploratory and descriptive research design was used and

specified analysis on the consumer behavior on digital marketing as the factors of

convenient goods, Specialty goods, Unsought goods and Shopping goods. Both primary

and secondary data collection was carried out and convenient sampling technique was

used. The Chi Square test of independence was used to find out the association. From the

research the findings revealed that customers are aware of digital marketing and they

prefer to buy electronic and shopping goods through digital channels in their purchase

behavior. What chi-square test found that was no much role of monthly income of the

people associate with the kind of products they wish to buy preferring digital channel.

Meslat (2018) conducted a research in France on Impact of Social Media on Consumers

purchase decision with the objectives of finding the small companies use the social

media to influence customers behavior and most particularly their purchase decision and

finding the company “Chocolaterie Thibaut” using more efficiently social media as a

marketing tool. An exploratory research design techniques. The main factors that

influenced the customer online purchase decision were display banners, social media
 34

content and the social media connection among the people. The tool that he used was

questionnaire survey and interview method to the company customers. The data was

graphically analyzed with the help of bar diagram. From his research what can be found

is that 92% of respondent considers craft products in food industry very important, 88%

of respondent is very satisfied by the chocolate factory’s products and services and would

highly recommend the company to relatives and 60% of respondent was not aware the

company was active on social media platform, most particularly on Facebook.

Rana (2017) had conducted the research in Kathmandu, Nepal on Face-book Marketing

and its Influence on Consumer Buying Behavior with objectives as identifying the

relation of the factors to the use of the Facebook and finding the relation of the Facebook

WOMs to the consumer behavior. The exploratory research design is adopted. The

factors for evaluating the consumer behavior due to Facebook advertising put forth by the

researcher were Brand image, Advertising and promotion, Facebook messages, Facebook

groups, Celebrity endorsements, Product releases and reviews. The technique of Simple

Random Sampling of 200 sample size was used and evaluated it. Both primary

(questionnaire) and secondary data is used. Chi Square test and bar diagram techniques

were used to analyze the data. It is found that majority spend 10hours or more on

Facebook per week whereas less people spend 10 hours or moreon mass media per week

that is although majority but less in comparison with Facebook. Further it is stated

magazine and social media are the other most effective and influential marketing channel

after TV while making the purchase decision. The respondents more likely consider

advertisement/promotion, Facebook messages (word of mouth), Facebook group, release

 35

and reviews while making the purchase decision of a product or service whereas celebrity

endorsement is not well considered while making a purchase.

Reddy (2016) had conducted a research in South Africa on the impact of digital

marketing on consumer decision making process in Nike’s customers retail operations in

South Africa with an objective of analyzing the impact of a digital marketing on global

organization Nike customers retail operations in South Africa. A hybrid method of

research design exploratory and descriptive research design with exploratory being the

primary method. Exploratory research design consisted of primary and secondary data

while descriptive research consisted of the descriptive data. The factors used are as

consumer’s perception, consumer’s characteristics, consumers’ expectations, consumer’s

insight and retailer’s insight to evaluate the impact of the digital marketing.

Questionnaire and telephone survey method was used. It was found that the consumers

have embraced the digital marketing techniques and the marketers must start to opt the

digital marketing techniques. It is also found that digital marketing has an impact of the

consumer decision making process with the most influential impact on pre purchase,

purchase and post purchase behavior.

Shivasankaran (2017) and Thomas (2013) conducted a research in Tamil Nadu, India and

on Pune India on digital marketing and its impact on buying behavior of the youth with

objectives of finding the factors influencing the changing buying behavior of the youth

and examining the changing buying behavior of the youth and their impact on Digital

marketing and finding kind of segments within the identified consumers purchasing

online. Both used exploratory research design and he took the factors as Convenience,
 36

Time Saving, Website features also Trust was added up by Thomas to evaluate the

impact of the digital marketing on analyzing the buying behavior of the youth and to find

the segments of the customers as well. The simple random sampling technique is used

with questionnaire survey was used to collect primary data. For secondary data he used

the help of the internet. What it is found from the researches is that most of the

youngsters of the present generation have access to the digital media but they lack the

awareness about its optimum utilization. It is further stated that the majority of the

respondents feels that any time purchase is possible through online. It is found that

respondents felt that customers take very less time to purchase.

Stephen (2015) conducted a research in United Kingdom on the role of digital and social

media marketing on consumer behavior with the objectives as finding out how consumers

experience influence, and are influenced by the digital environments in which they are

situated as part of their daily lives. The five distinct themes/factors are used as a part of

research design to study the consumer behavior which are consumer digital culture,

advertising, impacts of digital environments, mobile, and online WOM and reviews. The

survey was done of the basis of the reputed research articles on online marketing so thus

the secondary data was used. It is found that the people are clearly exposing to the social

sites on consumption and the role was found vital through review of several articles.

Framework for the Study

From the above literatures, the findings of all the 12 articles advocate the same thing that

the consumers were positively impacted by the digital marketing and they have started

using the digital marketing tools for shopping and for getting the knowledge about the
 37

product/idea/service and they also have started being quite disloyal to one particular

product/idea/service as they have number of options online. However, the factors used,

research methodology and objectives may slightly differ from each other. To develop a

strong framework the factors relevant for the study or the variables for the study are

identified with the help of the conceptual and empirical studies.

Independent Variables Dependent Variable

Convenience

Cost

Social Media

Consumer Behavior
Time

Trust

Website Feature

Figure 2.2: Framework for the study

2.3 Research Gap

From the close inspection of the above research articles, it has contributed to enhance the

fundamental picture of understanding and knowledge which is very purposive and crucial

for further research and an insight can be built about what is to be done for the thing that
 38

is left to be covered yet by the above articles considering its relevancy in the context of

Nepal and the targeted population i.e. the MBA aspirants.

Here, the research articles are analyzed in a flow manner from objectives to end findings.

In between the research methodology, factors/variables taken for analysis, data analysis

method, sampling methods, tools used are analyzed. The pattern of analysis is followed

similar while reviewing all the twelve articles in a coherent manner. Henceforth, the

research gap that is found from the inspection it is found that, In case of Nepal very few

researches have been done regarding analyzing the impact of the digital marketing to

consumer behavior that also taking a specific group of the consumers such as students,

employees, old age group, housewives, elite groups, etc. This research tries to fulfill that

gap by taking MBA aspirant (students) as a sample and analyzing in relation to the

running issue of the present era i.e. finding the impact of the digital marketing.

Thus with these gap analysis, the research is carried forward to identify the unique results

by using a sampling with less sampling error so that the findings could be more precise

and accurate and hence can be beneficial to the concerned parties.

 39

CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Research methodology serves as the framework for the study, guiding the collection and

analysis of data, the research instruments to be utilized, and the sampling plan to be

followed. It is also a clearly planned procedure for carrying out the research (Panta,

2010).

3.1 Choice of the methodology

The research attempts to find the factors affecting the consumer behavior due to digital

marketing on MBA aspirants. In order to gain knowledge and to develop a framework of

the study various literatures were studied. For this research the most appropriate approach

would be the questionnaire method which would be filled up by MBA aspirants.

The research started with an exploratory study but was further developed into descriptive

research design as first the knowledge on consumer behavior was gained and the

knowledge about the digital consumer behavior was known. With that particular

knowledge the factors that would affect the digital consumers were identified. This

information is then used to find the relationship and relations among the variables.

3.2 Research Approach

Amongst the two approaches of the research i.e. Inductive and Deductive methods, the

Inductive research attempts to setup a theory by using collected data, while the Deductive

research approach attempts to find the theory first and then test it to the observed data

(Panta,2010).
 40

Here the Inductive research approach is chosen as the research moves from specific to

general. Firstly the theoretical findings on Consumer is studies and after that the

questionnaire will be presented to present the collected data.

3.3 Research Strategy

According to Christensen et al (2001) during collecting data to approach the purpose of a

research there are two ways in which the data can be collected. In order to acquire a

general knowledge about the topic, secondary data is primarily used and is one of the

ways by which data can be collected. These ways to collect data is the primary data

collection. Usually when a study is conducted, secondary data is not sufficient enough

and needs to be completed with primary data which is collected by the researcher.

Secondary data

Panta (2010) tells that the Secondary data are obtained from the secondary sources which

the previous researchers have already collected it such as websites, journal, research

articles and unpublished thesis. Here to obtain the secondary data these sources have been

used.

In this research the secondary data are mostly obtained from the internet websites and

official sites and blogs because the topic is also concerned about digital marketing and it

was more convenient to obtain the secondary data from the websites and internet blogs.

Primary data

Primary data is the fresh data and it is collected by the researcher itself. The primary data

is completely new about the issue that is presented in front of the respondents and these

data can serve as a secondary data after once it has been obtained and officially presented
 41

in the articles. According to the Panta (2010) Primary data is collected to meet specific

objectives of the study and it must be able to answer the research questions. For this, here

the primary data is collected from Questionnaire Survey only.

3.4 Research Subjects

The survey technique was used as it was the most appropriate to obtain the participants.

The questionnaires was distributed amongst the 10 numerically obtained samples colleges

in Kathmandu valley and one institute. The 6 independent variables were there and

according to that the questionnaire was drafted and distributed among the respondents.

3.5 Research Instruments

The structured questionnaire was used to identify the various factors of digital marketing

and tis impact to the consumer behavior i.e. the MBA aspirants. The types of the

questions used were:

a) Categorical questions: 3 Yes/No questions. This questions are ranked on an

ordinal basis and the categories are presented to preferences of maximum 5 and

minimum of 1 and studied on this particular basis.

b) Likert Scale Questions: 12 Questions relating to the 6 factors of the digital

marketing and its impacts on the consumer behavior in 4 3 2 1 1 1 manner i.e.

4 questions to the factor Convenience/Availability (Weight = 4/12).

3 questions to the factor Website Design/Features (Weight = 3/12).

2 questions to the factor Time Saving (Weight = 2/12).

1 1 1 questions to the factors Cost, Social Media and Trust respectively (Weights

= 1/12 respectively).
 42

This 12 questions are presented into the responses on the scale of 1 to 5 that

implies 1 being as the strongly disagreeing preference and 5 being the preference

on strongly agreeing to the questions. So, evidently, that creates an ordinal

responses.

Here, it can be seen that the Convenience/Availability and Website

design/Features are given high and Time Saving has been given medium weights

because in research papers by Shivasankaran (2017) and Thomas (2013) it is

already mentioned that the key factor to affect the online behavior are these

factors and the result was also interpreted in this basis. Thus the framework of the

study encompass these factors as the main domain and rest three as the minor.

The closed ended questions was taken because the closed formatted questions are

advantageous in terms of saving time and money. Closed formatted questions also was

made to track opinion over time by administering the questionnaires to be different, but

similar participant groups at regular intervals.

When these structured questionnaire are prepared they are prepared with an aim at

balancing both the responses in the side of Dependent variable and Independent variables

to an Ordinal Scale. So, it is clearly stated an Ordinal analysis must be carried as the

instruments are set on an ordinal basis.

3.6 Research Procedures

For conducting the research it was decided to use the probability sampling as the

Universe was known i.e. the colleges who serve Bachelor’s degree in Kathmandu valley
 43

that also of the affiliations with TU, PU, P oU, KU and Education.com. The information

about the enrollment was known by the article mentioned by (Upadhyaya, 2018). As the

research was concentrated only on MBA aspirants the target was only to those students

who are studying in the last semester/year of their bachelor’s degree and who are

preparing for MBA GMAT entrance preparations.

The sample size was taken as 10 colleges and 1 entrance preparations center among the

colleges and one entrance preparation center which is the Education.com which is

obtained from the mathematical calculations. Among 10 colleges according to the

proportion basis 6 colleges from TU, 2 colleges from PU, 1 college from PoU, 1 college

KU and one Education.com entrance preparation center were taken. The colleges among

many was chosen out from the table of the random numbers. After that the deliberate

sampling technique was used to take 18 students from each college and 20 students from

Education.com and the sample size was 200 approx.

3.7 Statistical Analysis

In order to draw conclusions on the research findings the statistical analysis technique

was used. The required information was thus processed by tabulating it and editing and a

mathematical and statistical analysis was carried using the SPSS 22.

The following tools have been used to analyze the data.

a) The Chronbach alpha test for reliability test.

b) Descriptive statistics

c) Gamma Coefficient Analysis (Ordinal Correlation).

d) Ordinal Regression Analysis

 44

e) Hypothesis Testing

a) The Chronbach alpha test for reliability test

According to Patterson (1994) Chronbach alpha is an important measure to test the

consistency of the responses which is drawn from the questionnaire. The questionnaire

must be able to predict the future result on the area of the concern and for this the internal

consistency of the questionnaire is the must. And this is done by grouping the Questions

according to the independent and dependent variables rather than in the totality. It is

usually used to check whether the items are homogenous or not and whether the result is

represented correctly and whether it can be replicated or not. The value of alpha greater

than 0.8 is very good construct in the attitude scaling in the research. The alpha value

greater than 0.7 shows that the questionnaire has the relative internal consistency.

The likert scale were set for identifying variables. The Chronbach’s alpha test for

reliability statistics were observed using SPSS 22. The result is presented below.

Table 3.1 Reliability statistics

Reliability Statistics

Chronbach’s alpha No. of items No. of respondents

0.749 15 200

Table 3.1 stated that the Chronbach alpha coefficients for the variables is 0.749. This

indicates that there is satisfactory level of the internal consistency in terms of the
 45

reliability. The factor reflects the reliability value is above the stated benchmark i.e. more

than 0.7 which is regarded as quite good.

Table 3.2 Reliability statistics of each variable

Items Chronbach’s alpha if item deleted

I find detail information about MBA 0.724

Colleges and their notices using digital media
I get immediate feedback by the websites of 0.743
MBA colleges anytime.

It’s easy for me to choose and compare MBA 0.729

colleges using digital media rather than using
non-digital media.

I can find information 24/7 on digital tools 0.729

about MBA colleges rather than on non-
digital media
The website design of MBA colleges helps 0.743
me to view syllabus, fee structure and other
information more effectively.

While using digital tools I prefer to choose 0.736

the college from website that provides me
ease of navigation and order.

I choose MBA college from the website that 0.728

provides me with the quality information
Searching MBA colleges online takes less 0.734
time than searching by non-digital sources

It takes more time in evaluating and 0.734

comparing MBA colleges form non-digital
sources
I find using digital marketing cheaper to get 0.728
information about MBA College than getting
information by personally visiting the college
 46

It is via Facebook, Instagram, Twitter 0.738

promotional ads about MBA college that
evokes me to browse the website of the
college
I trust on the data and information provided 0.756
about MBA college in the digital media with
blind eyes
Do you use digital marketing to view details 0.729
about MBA college?
If YES then do you tend to choose the MBA 0.730
college viewed from the digital source?
Do you personally visit the college after you 0.751
view information about MBA college from
the digital source?
Chronbach alpha value 0.749

The table 4.2 represents the Chronbach’s alpha for each item of the variables and the

observed value reflects good value in relation to the 0.7 and it’s also greater than 0.7.

b) Descriptive Statistics

The frequency distribution is used to analyze the survey data. The percentage, proportion,

average and Standard Deviation have been used in order to present the detail overview of

the respondents profile in terms age, gender and faculty of their study. Gujrati (2011)

defines standard deviations as the dispersive way of distribution of the particular

responses which are ordered in a manner. Thus by Standard deviation the scatteredness

can be seen.
 47

c) Ordinal Gamma coefficient analysis

According to Levin & Fox (2010) the Goodman and Kruskal's gamma is a measure of

rank correlation, i.e., the similarity of the orderings of the data when ranked by each of

the quantities. It measures the strength of association of the cross tabulated data when

both variables are measured at the ordinal level. Also, Gamma test refers the finding out

the relation among the ordinal scale variables. When it comes to nominal or interval scale

correlation analysis can be used but here both the dependent and the explanatory

variables are in ordinal scale the gamma test has been used.

d) Regression analysis

In many applications in the social and medical sciences the response categories are

ordered or ranked. For example, in the Likert-type questionnaires the responses may be

"strongly agree", "agree", "disagree", or "strongly disagree". Similarly, in labor market

studies we may have workers who work full time (40+ hours per week), or who work part

time (fewer than 20 hours per week) or who are not in the workforce. Another example is

bond ratings provided by companies, such as Moody's or S&P. Corporate bonds are rated

as B, B+, A, A+, A++, and so on, each higher rating denoting higher creditworthiness of

the entity issuing the bonds. Although there is clear ranking among the various

categories, we cannot treat them as interval scale or ratio scale variables. Thus we cannot

say that the difference between full-time work and part-time work or between part-time

work and no work is the same. Also, the ratio between any two categories here may not

be practically meaningful (Gujrati, 2011).

 48

The process of the ordinal regression analysis has been used to measure the impact of

independent variable to the dependent variable and thus to explain the degree of

variability of dependent variable due to the explanatory variables. Since, the research

attempts to use the dependent and independent variables in terms of ordinal scale that is,

ranking the preferences is not possible to conduct the regression by linear regression

methods. SPSS 22 software has been used to evaluate the ordinal regression with the

goodness of fit pertaining to the particular model.

e) Hypothesis testing

Hypothesis testing is done to find the relation between the dependent and independent

variables and the alternative hypothesis is accepted.

i) Hypothesis testing along the Gamma coefficients p value

The hypothesis testing of all the explanatory variables. This is done while

analyzing the gamma coefficients and comparing the p (probability) value

there with the significance value at 5% or 1% level of significance and if the p

value is lower than that of the value of significance, then the alternative

hypothesis is accepted, else Null hypothesis is accepted.

ii) Chi Square test of independence

This test is done to find the association between the consumers using/not

using digital marketing and applying/not applying college online and also to

find the association of the faculty of students in using the digital marketing

concept in choosing and rejecting an MBA college.

 49

CHAPTER FOUR

OBSERVATION AND ANALYSIS

The findings of the empirical study through analysis is carried out in this chapter. For the

purpose of data analysis the Statistical Package for Social Sciences software, version 22

for windows was used properly with the correct procedures and to ensure that the

questionnaire of the main survey was appropriately constructed and to analyze the

essentials explanatory variables to find out whether they are relevant to the consumer

behavior of the MBA aspirants or not. The results of the field survey findings are

discussed afterward.

4.1 Demographic profile of the respondents

Figure 4.1 Results of the respondent’s gender

(Source: Field survey, 2019)

 50

The result of the gender of the respondents represents the gender of the respondents. The

female occupy the 102 (52%) out of total 200 respondents and male occupy the 98 (48%)

out of 200 sample size. This signifies that the MBA aspirants are somehow equal in

number where the survey was done. The gender participation is seen equal in aspiring

MBA degree.

Figure 4.2 Results of the respondent’s age group

(Source: Field Survey, 2019)

The result of the respondent states the age group of the respondents. Since the

respondents were confined to the students who were towards the bachelors end, they

encompass 163 (81.5%) out of 200 sample size in the age group of 20-25 and 37 (18.5%)

out of the 200 were at the age group of 26-30.

 51

Figure 4.3 Results of the respondent’s faculty enrollment

(Source: Field Survey, 2019)

The results on faculty enrollment shows the faculty enrollment of the students. During the

survey it was found that 130 (65%) of the respondents were from the faculty relating to

management and 70 (35%) of them were from the Non-management faculty. The MBA

aspirants are seen to be more at the management side as comparing to the non-

management side.

4.2 Descriptive statistics

Descriptive Statistics states the outcome that encompasses the analysis of the collected

data. In the questionnaire the Categorical questions were used to identify the consumer

behavior that set the dimensions whether the aspirants are willing to indulge into the

digital marketing concept and their behavior in terms of viewing the information about

MBA colleges digitally and visiting it personally after going through its digital web sites

via online.
 52

Similarly, the explanatory variables that were taken to define the dimensions of the

consumer behavior after studying various literatures and they were Convenience, Time

Saving, Cost, Social Media, Website features and Trust. These independent variables

were put into the dimensions of five point Likert scale and thus analyzed on an ordinal

basis. Here, the mean score drawn form the result is analyzed and similarly the

scatteredness through Standard Deviation which signifies the deviations of the result

from the mean is also computed simultaneously.

Following are the descriptive statistics of the explanatory and dependent variables

Table 4.1: Descriptive statistics for consumer behavior

Description N Mean Standard Deviation

Consumer 200 3.5067 1.56203

Behavior

Table 4.1 shows that the value of the standard deviation is 1.56203. As the mean value

provides the value of the central tendency of the values of the variable. As the means

value is more than the Likert scale value “neutral”, that is, 3.5067 the consumers or the

MBA aspirants are more willing to agree the fact that they tend to use digital marketing

to view details about MBA College and respond accordingly. The standard deviation is

1.56203 which signifies the responses relating to consumer behavior is deviated from the

mean value.
 53

Table 4.2: Descriptive statistics for convenience

Description N Mean Standard Deviation

Convenience 200 3.6250 0.65834

Table 4.2 shows that the value of the standard deviation is 0.65834. The mean value

provides the value of the central tendency of the values of the variable. As the mean

value is more than the Likert scale value “neutral”, that is, 3.6250 the consumers or the

MBA aspirants are using the digital marketing in accordance with the convenience of

using it. The standard deviation is 0.65834 which signifies the responses relating to

consumer behavior is deviated from the mean value, which is a less deviation.

Table 4.3: Descriptive statistics for cost

Description N Mean Standard Deviation

Cost 200 3.970 1.03657

Table 4.3 shows that the value of the standard deviation is 1.03657. The mean value

provides the value of the central tendency of the values of the variable. As the mean

value is almost equal to the Likert scale value “Agree”, that is, 3.970 the consumers or

the MBA aspirants are using the digital marketing in accordance with the cost efficiency,

that is, the lower cost of using it. The standard deviation is 1.03657 which signifies the

responses relating to consumer behavior is deviated from the mean value, which shows a

normal dispersion.
 54

Table 4.4: Descriptive Statistics for Social Media

Description N Mean Standard Deviation

Social Media 200 3.650 1.05977

Table 4.4 shows that the value of the standard deviation is 1.05977. The mean value

provides the value of the central tendency of the values of the variable. As the mean

value is towards to the Likert scale value “Agree”, that is, 3.650 the consumers or the

MBA aspirants are using the digital marketing in accordance with the various social

media such as Facebook, YouTube, Google, etc. The standard deviation is 1.05977 which

signifies the responses relating to consumer behavior is deviated from the mean value,

which shows a normal dispersion.

Table 4.5: Descriptive statistics for time

Description N Mean Standard Deviation

Time 200 4.0250 0.80630

Table 4.5 shows that the value of the standard deviation is 0.80630. The mean value

provides the value of the central tendency of the values of the variable. As the mean

value is more than to the Likert scale value “Agree”, that is, 4.0250 and which is tending

towards the Likert scale value “Strongly Agree” the consumers or the MBA aspirants are

using the digital marketing in accordance with the purpose of saving time in viewing the

information about the MBA college. The standard deviation is 0.80630 which signifies
 55

the responses relating to consumer behavior is deviated from the mean value, which

shows a less dispersion and the results are consistent.

Table 4.6: Descriptive statistics for trust

Description N Mean Standard Deviation

Trust 200 2.7750 1.00969

Table 4.6 shows that the value of the standard deviation is 1.00969. The mean value

provides the value of the central tendency of the values of the variable. As the mean

value is less than the Likert scale value “Neutral”, that is, 2.7750 the consumers or the

MBA aspirants are using the digital marketing not in accordance with the trust of the data

and information that they receive , that is, the lower trust while using it. The standard

deviation is 1.00969 which signifies the responses relating to consumer behavior is

deviated from the mean value, which is not a huge deviation and the respondents are

consistent to their view about the trust issues.

Table 4.7: Descriptive Statistics for Website Feature

Description N Mean Standard Deviation

Website Feature 200 3.6517 0.70833

Table 4.7 shows that the value of the standard deviation is 0.70833. The mean value

provides the value of the central tendency of the values of the variable. As the mean

value is more than the Likert scale value “neutral”, that is, 3.6517 the consumers or the
 56

MBA aspirants are using the digital marketing in accordance with the website features

and the easiness to operate any web site of the MBA colleges. The standard deviation is

0.70833 which signifies the responses relating to consumer behavior is deviated from the

mean value, which is a less deviation and the respondents are quite consistent to their

views.

4.3 Correlation (Ordinal by Ordinal Gamma) analysis

Correlations help to analyze the degree of strength of association with the independent

and dependent variables. Here since the dependent variable and independent variables are

both measured in ordinal scale then the concept of Ordinal by Ordinal Gamma test ought

to be carried out.

Test of Multi-collinearity

The multi-collinearity test implies the test of the relations among the explanatory

variables whether to find out that the relations among the variables is existed or not. If the

gamma coefficient is found to be more than 0.95 (high degree of relation) between any

two independent variables then any one explanatory variables should be excluded from

the two.

The multi-collinearity test is carried out in the SPSS 22 software with help of field survey

data with the help of collinearity diagnostics that is the VIF (Variance Inflation Factor).

The following table shows the test of collinearity among the explanatory variables with

the help of VIF.

 57

Table 4.8: Test of Collinearity with VIF

Explanatory Variables Collinearity Statistics

Tolerance VIF
Cost .688 1.453
Social Media .790 1.265
Trust .918 1.089
Website Feature .733 1.364
Time .590 1.696
Convenience .649 1.541

Here, in the above table the dependent variable is the Consumer Behavior. The value of

VIF < 3, thus, here there is no any sign of multi-collinearity among the variables.

Test of Autocorrelation

To test auto correlation the Durbin Watson test was carried and the value of it was

obtained so as 1.5 which is equal to 1.5 which is its standard value to test the

autocorrelation. Autocorrelation refers to the relation of the explanatory variables is very

low among them and there is likely that it is related to the other factors other than the

explanatory variables. It is obtained the minimum value to meet the standard. Hence it is

concluded that there is neither autocorrelation nor the multi collinearity.

Ordinal by Ordinal Gamma test among the explanatory variables

The ordinal by ordinal gamma test between the explanatory variables is run to identify

the non-multi-collinearity and to find the relations between them as the coefficient less
 58

than 0.95 signifies that there is no any collinearity among them. The analysis is presented

in the table below.

Table 4.9: Gamma coefficients among the variables

Cost Social Trust Website Time Convenience

Media Feature
Cost 1 0.242** 0.101 0.296** 0.517** 0.419**

Social Media 0.242** 1 0.243** 0.239** 0.282** 0.244**

Trust 0.101 0.243** 1 0.174* -0.38 0.109

Website 0.296** 0.239** 0.174* 1 0.197** 0.387**

Feature
Time 0.517** 0.282** -0.38 0.197** 1 0.429**

Convenience 0.419** 0.244** 0.109 0.387** 0.429** 1

*.Gamma Coefficient is significant at 0.01 level of significance (2 tailed).

**.Gamma Coefficient is significant at 0.05 level of significance (2 tailed).

The table 4.9 depicts that the gamma coefficient among the variables is all less than the

0.95 and thereby there is no any chance of multi collinearity. So no any explanatory

variables are removed.

The coefficient between Cost and Time is seen high as 0.517 and is also statistically

significant result and other signifies a medium strength but are positive except the

relation between Trust and Time which is 0.38 negative and subsequently signifies that

the relation between trusting the information and that also with the less time is negatively

co-related.
 59

Gamma coefficient between independent and dependent variables

Basically this section is aimed at finding out the relationship between the independent

and the dependent variables and thus to interpret their relation thereof. The correlation

analysis is run under SPSS ver. 22 to find the Ordinal by Ordinal Gamma Coefficients

and the results are found accordingly.

Table 4.10: Gamma coefficients between the dependent and independent variables

Variable/s Convenience Cost Social Time Trust Website

Media Feature

Consumer 0.193** 0.219* 0.081 0.224* -0.06 0.081

Behavior

*.Gamma coefficient is significant at 0.05 level of significance (2 tailed).

**.Gamma Coefficient is significant at 0.01 level of significance (2 tailed).

Upon the inspection of the above Gamma coefficients table the coefficients are not found

to be strongly correlated with the consumer behavior. However, all the gamma

coefficients are positive and hence weak relations. The weakest coefficient value is that

of the Consumer Behavior and Trust which is -0.06 and it is insignificant as well. It is

seen that when it comes to the behavior of the MBA aspirants they are not seen much

trusting on the data provided digitally. Or this can be interpreted in the form that aspirants

do not simply use digital marketing to gain an advantage over trust issues. The strongest

among all these explanatory variables’ coefficients is the value between Consumer

behavior and Time and it is 0.224 and statistically significant at 0.05 alpha as well. This
 60

implies that there is a sort of the relationship between Time Saving concept of digital

marketing to obtain information about MBA College and the Consumer behavior. The

aspirants are guided by Time saving concept while using the digital source and hence are

attracted to use the tools of digital marketing.

Similarly, the Cost and Consumer behavior is also positively related and is strong in

relation to the Time which is having a gamma value of 0.219 with 0.05 statistical

significance. This implies that the aspirants tend to use digital marketing to minimize the

cost of getting the information and hence it is positively related. This is another domain

to determine the domain to use digital marketing for MBA aspirants.

The relationship between Consumer behavior and Social Media is statistically

insignificant with a gamma a coefficient of 0.081. However, this is a weak relation but

signifies the relationship that is, aspirants are oriented to use Social Media while

choosing the MBA Colleges by adopting the procedures of digital marketing.

The relation between the Website feature and consumer behavior is also seen as the

statistically insignificant with a value of 0.081. However, it is a positive relation.

Aspirants tend to use digital marketing with the website feature as the main domain but

here it is not the dominating factor to use tools of digital marketing.

The coefficient between the Consumer Behavior and Convenience is also statistically

significant with a gamma coefficient value of 0.193 which signifies the weak positive

correlation between these two variables. This implies that aspirants use the digital
 61

marketing for the convenience of the use and availability of the information that is

provided to them digitally.

Thus, these are the values of relations of gamma coefficient with the dependent and

independent variables.

4.4 Hypothesis testing

Hypothesis testing with the help of Gamma coefficient’s p value

The gamma coefficient also helped to determine the test of the hypothesis by comparing

the standard value of significance with the obtained asymptotic significance p

(probability) value and they were analyzed in the following manner.

Results of the hypothesis test

a. H3: There is a significant relationship between the Convenience and its impact on

the consumer behavior.

From the result of the Ordinal Gamma test, a significant relation has been found

between Convenience and Consumer Behavior due to the impact of the digital

marketing at 1 % level of significance, that is the p value was found below 0.01 (p <

0.01), p value = 0.006 < 0.01 The result is sufficient to advocate that the Convenience

has a significant relationship with the Consumer behavior which has resulted by the

impact of the Digital marketing.

b. H4: There is a significant relationship between the Cost and its impact on the

consumer behavior.
 62

From the result of the Ordinal Gamma test, a significant relation has been found

between Cost and Consumer Behavior due to the impact of the digital marketing at 5

% level of significance, that is the p value was found below 0.05 (p < 0.05), p value =

0.008 < 0.05 The result is sufficient to advocate that the Cost has a significant

relationship with the Consumer behavior which has resulted by the impact of the

Digital marketing.

c. H5: There is no significant relationship between the Social Media and its impact

on the consumer behavior.

From the result of the Ordinal Gamma test, an insignificant relation has been found

between Social Media and Consumer Behavior due to the impact of the digital

marketing that is the p value was found more than 0.05, the level of significance (p >

0.05), p value = 0.328 > 0.05. The result is sufficient to advocate that the Social

Media doesn’t have a significant relationship with the Consumer behavior which has

resulted by the impact of the Digital marketing.

d. H6: There is a significant relationship between the Time and its impact on the

consumer behavior.

From the result of the Ordinal Gamma test, a significant relation has been found

between Time and Consumer Behavior due to the impact of the digital marketing at 5

% level of significance, that is the p value was found below 0.05 (p < 0.01), p value =

0.002 < 0.01 The result is sufficient to advocate that the Time has a significant

relationship with the Consumer behavior which has resulted by the impact of the

Digital marketing.
 63

e. H7: There is no significant relationship between the Trust and its impact on the

consumer behavior.

From the result of the Ordinal Gamma test, an insignificant relation has been found

between Trust and Consumer Behavior due to the impact of the digital marketing that

is the p value was found more than 0.05, the level of significance (p > 0.05), p value

= 0.947 > 0.05. The result is sufficient to advocate that the Trust doesn’t have a

significant relationship with the Consumer behavior which has resulted by the impact

of the Digital marketing.

f. H8: There is no significant relationship between the Website Feature and its

impact on the consumer behavior.

From the result of the Ordinal Gamma test, an insignificant relation has been found

between Website Feature and Consumer Behavior due to the impact of the digital

marketing that is the p value was found more than 0.05, the level of significance (p >

0.05), p value = 0.254 > 0.05. The result is sufficient to advocate that the Website

Feature doesn’t have a significant relationship with the Consumer behavior which has

resulted by the impact of the Digital marketing.

Thus, these are the hypotheses tested against consumer behavior that has resulted due to

impact of the digital marketing and three of the explanatory variables showed a

statistically significant results whereas three variables showed the statistically

insignificant results.
 64

Chi-Square (χ2) test of independence

For the test of the independence between any two associations chi square test was carried

out to examine whether they possess an independent relation with each other or not. The

test were carried out in the two domains viz. the associations between the aspirants

choosing/rejecting the MBA College and the using of digital and non-digital media and

the associations between the faculty of the MBA aspirants and the using of digital and

non-digital media.

For this the test was carried and the following outcomes were obtained.

a. H1: There is a significant relationship between digital marketing and MBA

aspirants applying/not applying online.

When the test was carried out between these two domains the associations was found

statistically significant at 0.05 level of significance that is, (0.00 < 0.05). The

estimated value of χ2cal was to be found as 13.643 and the tabulated value was found

to be χ2tab as 3.841 which is less than the obtained value and on this basis the

Alternative Hypothesis was accepted. Hence, it is found that there is a significant

relations between the students choosing MBA colleges and using of digital media.

b. H2: There is a significant relationship between digital marketing and faculty of the

MBA aspirants.

When the test was carried out between these two domains the associations was found

statistically significant at 0.05 level of significance that is, (0.00 < 0.05). The estimated

value of χ2cal was to be found as 13.04 and the tabulated value was found to be χ2tab as

3.841 which is less than the obtained value and on this basis the Alternative Hypothesis
 65

was accepted. Hence, it is found that there is a significant relation between the faculty of

the MBA aspirants to choose/not choose MBA College and using of digital media.

4.5 Ordinal regression analysis and fitness of the model

Here the dependent variable and independent variables are both presented into the ordinal

scale, so the linear regression is not possible. For this an ordinal regression analysis must

be carried out and here by the use of the SPSS ver. 22 this analysis is carried out. Under

the regression analysis the Consumer behavior is the dependent variable and the

Convenience, Cost, Social Media, Trust, Time and Website feature are the independent

variables.

For an ordinal regression analysis it has been already discussed in the research

methodology that the responses of the both dependent and independent variables

represents a preferences maximum up to 5 and minimum up to the degree of 1. So the

responses are evaluated on the basis of the preferences of the respondents on several

questions that was presented to the respondents during the data collection procedures.

When the data was run into the model following results were obtained in the ordinal

regression analysis.

a) Analysis of Fitness of the obtained model

Table 4.11: Model fitting information

Model -2 Log Chi- Df Significance

Likelihood Square
Intercept Only 514.033
Final 437.821 76.212 43 .001
 66

Table 4.11 represents the description about the fitting of a model into the ordinal

regression criteria and it is seen that the model is fitted properly as this is represented by

the p value which is given above that is, 0.001 which is less than 0.05 as the significance

of the model as 5 per cent. With this reference the model is said to be fit and the chi

square is 76.212 with 43 degree of freedom. The obtained data thus fits the model.

b) Analysis of the pseudo R square (ordinal coefficient of determination)

The Coefficient of determination in the ordinal regression is determined by the Pseudo R

square and this domain is explained by the three main possible ways viz. Cox and Snell,

Nagelkerke, and Mc Fadden. The Nagelkerke determination of Pseudo R square is taken

to be the reference of the determination and it is given by:

Pseudo R square = 0.342, and this implies that the 34.2 %of the variation in the

dependent variable is explained by the explanatory variables which are Convenience,

Cost, Social Media, Trust, Time and Website Feature. For the cross section data that is,

the MBA aspirants as the respondents tend to explain the variables only 34.2% and rest of

the relationship is explained by the other factors.

c) Analysis of the parameters obtained

Since the ordinal regression analysis is carried out and thus in the parameter estimation is

not like that of the linear regression method. The coefficients can be seen in the table of

parameter estimates which is mentioned in the Appendices, their standard errors, the

Wald test and associated p-values, and the 95% confidence interval of the coefficients.
 67

The estimates which are lower than 0.05 are statistically significant and rest are not. It

can be said that for a 1 rank increase in (i.e., going from 1 to 5), it is expected to increase

in the amount of estimate of that particular response given all of the other variables in the

model are held constant.

For time, it can be said that for a one unit increase the rank preference, we would expect

an 18.086 increase in the responses for disagree, given that all of the other variables in

the model are held constant. The thresholds are shown at the top of the parameter

estimates output, and they indicate where the latent variable is cut to make the three

groups that when it is observed in the data. It is noted that this latent variable is

continuous. In general, these are not used in the interpretation of the results. Some

statistical packages call the thresholds “cut points” (thresholds and cut points are the

same thing); other packages, such as SAS report intercepts, which are the negative of the

thresholds. In this example, the intercepts would be 23.366, 22.165 and 21.130.

Moreover, the model is fitted though it explained less variation in dependent variable and

also it does not possess multi collinearity neither autocorrelation which is mentioned in

the analysis earlier.

 68

CHAPTER FIVE

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

5.1 Results and discussion

This particular research has attempted to find out to what degree the several explanatory

factors related to digital marketing impact on the Consumer behavior of MBA aspirants.

This paper revealed that there are some of the variables who have a nice impact over the

behavior but a few variables impact quite a little. Further will discussed even explicitly in

detail.

When it comes to influencing the consumer behavior the explanatory variables such as

Cost, Convenience and Time have a nice impact over it, whereas the Trust, Social Media

and Website feature have a minimal impact or negative impact to the Consumer behavior.

The result that is, the Convenience to impact more is consistent with the findings by

Sivasankaran (2017) and Thomas (2013) who stated that the time is the main factor of the

consumption pattern of the consumer behavior and the similar results are obtained in this

particular research. It is seen that MBA aspirants are towards to save time and to accept

the information sooner.

In the same way, the results of Mahalakshmi & Ranjith (2016) has revealed that the

convenient goods has a direct impact on the consumer behavior related to digital

marketing and similar coherent results are found over here too. MBA aspirants are

positively related to the Convenient of use of the Digital marketing to obtain the

information and about the product/service/idea details.

 69

The findings further states that the Social Media has a minimal but a positive impact

towards digital consumer behavior, however, Meslat (2018), Chitharanjan (2016) and

Rana (2017) have found a strong positive impact by the social media to evoke the

consumer purchasing behavior. It is the social media that the consumers are oriented

towards the disposal of the particular product and services. However, the findings doesn’t

fully correlate with these people findings and the impact on MBA aspirants by the social

media is quite less and there are the other factors that influence more influence than it.

The findings of Darban & Li ( 2012) states that the online consumer behavior doesn’t

properly correlate with the website features as the features of the products are not

properly explained there, rather they are indulged in WOM’s to know about the feature of

the products. Similar is the case here, the Website feature doesn’t impact much to the

consumer behavior. Whatever is the website design or feature, MBA aspirants tend to

choose particular service with the means of other factors which are different from website

feature. It’s not that Website feature doesn’t correlate with the consumer behavior, but it

has a weak association and there are other factors which has a direct impact to it.

The analysis of the ordinal gamma by gamma analysis reveals the relation between the

explanatory and dependent variables or among the explanatory variables. The p value

obtained from it is compared with the value of significance and thus hypothesis is tested

as well. With that the hypothesis are studied and compared with the other similar

literatures below.

It further states that the relation was strong with the Time, Convenience and Cost related

factors and weak with the Social Media and Website feature and Negative in relation with
 70

the Trust. It is revealed that aspirants do not tend to trust the data that are provided via

online and they just use it just for the sake of saving the time.

Initially the findings relates to the test of the association between the MBA aspirants

applying/not applying online. Constanttinides (2004) has stated that there is the relation

with the relation with the virtual reaction with the online behavior is seen positive and

similarly here is that the association of the MBA aspirants applying online/or not has a

strong foundation. It can be said that there is the relation between the MBA aspirants

applying/not applying online. The similar case is with the faculty of MBA aspirants

applying online or not. It is seen that there is an association between the faculties of the

study of MBA aspirants has a direct impact of applying/not applying online.

Thus for this reason the Hypothesis (H1 and H2) is accepted.

With the similar reasons that Mahalakshmi & Ranjith (2016) have advocated that the

convenience has a positive impact on the behavior of the consumers and the similar case

is here with the Convenience factors and it has a statistically significant result over here.

Thus for this reason the Hypothesis (H3) is accepted.

The findings of the factor Cost has a direct impact and a positive relation to the

Consumer behavior and also has a statistically significant results. This coincides the

findings by Lodhi & Shoaib (2017) also states that the consumer are more oriented

towards the use of the Digital media rather than non-digital media with the cost issues.

So the factor is the cost that evokes the consumers to use digital marketing tools. Thus

this research also reveals the same result.

Thus for this reason, the Hypothesis (H4) is accepted.

 71

The fact that the consumers tend to use digital marketing with the means of social media

is clearly and strongly supported by the findings of Rana (2017), Meslat (2018) and

Reddy, (2016) and they advocate that the social sites evokes people to go digital and to

indulge into digital purchases as well. However, in case of the MBA aspirants the result

of Social Media is not seen that strong and it is also weakly related with the consumer

behavior. In this case the social media doesn’t stand a main domain to use the digital sites

and other factors play a significant role also the Social Media is statistically insignificant.

Thus for this reason, the Hypothesis (H5) is rejected.

Further, based on the findings it can be revealed that, the consumer behavior has a strong

impact over the time factors and in the descriptives it ranks more than 4 out of 5 means

very good results and the results are consistent with the results with (Thomas, 2017) as it

reflects a positive association with the time related factors as well.

Thus for this reason, the Hypothesis (H6) is accepted.

The findings of Buchanan, Kelly, Yeatman & Kariippanon (2018) reveal that the digital

and media has a specific trust issues and due to this reason the consumers are negatively

impacted by the use of it and similar is the case with the findings of this research as well.

Here, the trust is seen to be negatively related with the use of digital marketing tools as

the MBA aspirants do not tend to trust the data provided or the particular media. With

this the trust has a negative relation with the consumer behavior due to digital marketing

and it is statistically insignificant as well.

Thus for this reason, the Hypothesis (H7) is rejected.

 72

Further the findings states that the Website Feature has positive impact with the use of

the digital media but is very weakly related with it. This findings coincided the findings

by Darban & Li (2012) who stated that the website feature has a minimal impact on

consumer behavior then and here the website feature is found to have been seen very

weakly related with the consumer behavior if gamma coefficient is seen too. Thus though

positive, website feature has a minimal impact and it is not statistically significant as

well.

Thus for this reason the Hypothesis (H8) is rejected.

 73

CHAPTER SIX

FINDINGS, CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS

6.1 Major findings

The research carried out has the following findings in general.

a) The results from the collected data states that most of the respondents belong to the

age group between 20 to 25 (81.5%) and in the age between 25 to 30 (18.5%) are

there and the respondents were centered to be only as MBA aspirants and this also

reveals that the most of the aspirants belong to the management stream (65%) and

rest (35%) from the Others faculties such as BSc, BE, BA, etc.

b) The results also show that 52% of the respondents are the males and remaining 42%

are the females. Basically, MBA aspirants are majorly from both the gender. As to

choose any MBA college digitally they are independent irrespective of their gender

orientation.

c) The descriptive analyses show that the mean and standard deviation of the values of

the value variables. The means of the variables were as, Convenience = 3.62, Cost =

3.97, Social Media = 3.65, Time = 4.02, Trust = 2.77, Website Feature = 3.66 and

Consumer Behavior = 3.51. The Mean value is 3 and the threshold between

agreeing and not agreeing resembles it. The time feature has a mean value of 4.02

means that the respondents are more oriented towards the time factor in order to use

digital marketing to view details of an MBA college. The respondents feel that
 74

using digital media saves time and they are more influenced by this factor.

Similarly, after time the Cost factor has the highest mean and then the Convenience.

This implies that the respondents are oriented towards to use digital marketing due

to its cost affordability and also due to its convenience of use time and again.

However, Social Media and Website Feature has a weak correlation but they seem

positive. These two factors also indulge an MBA aspirant to use digital media to

view details about an MBA college but it’s not the main one. In the same way the

time has lowest mean of 2.77 that is it resembles between disagree and neutral,

which is, the MBA aspirants do not trust the data provided digitally though they use

digital media for time saving, cost efficiency and convenient purposes.

d) The results of Ordinal by Ordinal gamma reveals the ordinal correlation among the

explanatory variables or between the dependent variable and other independent

variables. When the ordinal gamma was tested among the variables it was found

that the factors Time and Cost has the gamma value as 0.517 and it is statistically

significant as well. This value is the highest relation among the factors and this

reveals that the MBA aspirants use digital media with keeping in mind about the

time and cost related factors and that is the reason they are in high relation value.

Similarly, the factors Time and Trust are in negative relation of the gamma value,

meaning thereby, At less time the MBA aspirant do not trust the information

provided by the digital media.

 75

In the same way, the gamma coefficient relation with the dependent variable

consumer behavior and other explanatory factors are the highest with Time factor

and then Cost and then Convenience and three of those are statistically significant

as well. To the other side, there is statistically insignificant results in the Social

Media and Website Feature and negative relation with Trust. The gamma

coefficients are Time = 0.224, Cost = 0.219, Convenience = 0.193, Social Media

and Website Feature = 0.081 and Trust = -0.06.

e) Likewise, the results of the ordinal regression analysis reveals that whether the

model is fit or not and the variation in the dependent variable due to the

independent variables is explained. When the ordinal regression is carried out the

model is tested and found whether it is fit or not. The p value is 0.001 that

resembles less than the minimum significant on 0.01 value. So the model can be

stated as the significant model. For the parameters estimation part the time, cost and

convenience has estimates value which has maximum statistically significance

values. Whereas trust is found to be insignificant with the consumer behavior. The

extent of the relationship is explained by the variables by time, cost and

convenience as the main domain. The variation in the dependent variable due to the

independent variable is also found to be 33.4% which is low but the model can be

generalized in the terms of the students who aspire to choose MBA as a career in

the future.
 76

6.2 Conclusions

The research entitled “Impact of the Digital marketing on the Consumer Behavior: A case

of MBA aspirants in Kathmandu valley” is a cross sectional research and this research

was completed through primary quantitative research. The secondary sources were used

for the literature analysis and that was obtained from Books, Journals, Articles, Web

sources, etc. The primary data was based on the structured questionnaire. The

respondents of the questionnaire were 200 as calculated in Appendix 2 and the deliberate

sampling technique was used to choose the sample. The research was conducted with a

fair mathematical approach of the sample analysis in order to remove the bias as more as

possible. All the objectives were accomplished through the primary research. The pivotal

aim of this research was accomplished which was to identify the relationship between

different factors was used as the variables and consumer behavior of the MBA aspirants

on choosing MBA colleges via digitally and the relationship between the variables was

identified by gamma coefficient analysis.

From the result of the ordinal gamma’s relation analysis the explanatory factors are

analyzed and three of the factors are seen to have a significant relation with the consumer

behavior whereas other three of them are not seen to have insignificant relation with

consumer behavior. The three variables have the positive impact on the Consumer

behavior.

This paper examines the factors influencing in the consumer behavior on the MBA

aspirants by digital marketing, the results of the analysis of the ordinal regression shows

that the model developed by this research and the model was significant. The parameters

Time, Cost and Convenience are found to be statistically significant with the agreeing
 77

value most significant and the Social Media, Trust and Website Feature are found to be

weak value and trust is found insignificant on the terms of the ranking of the significant

value with the p value analysis.

This signifies that the Time factor is the dominant in making decisions about the digital

marketing by MBA aspirants. The coefficient of determination also signifies a 34.2%

variation which means that the 34.2% of the variation in the dependent variable that is,

consumer behavior is explained by the independent variables or the explanatory factors

and the rest of the variation is explained by other factors. So, it is seen that this model is

valid, however, there are other variables which affects the consumer behavior other than

these six variables. The research was conducted on the basis of the literatures of the past

of the alien countries as the research about this was not carried in Nepal much so the 33.4

% variation is the result of this only.

The factors Time has a highest degree in impacting the MBA aspirants to use the digital

media. As it is seen than in order to save time the MBA aspirant use the digital media and

it has a positive relation of gamma coefficient as well. In the same way the Cost and

Convenience comes to the second which motivates the aspirants to use the digital sites.

On the other hand the Social media and Website Features do not excitingly influence to

use digital media and when it comes to Trust issues the aspirants are far away from it as it

has a negative gamma coefficient.

The findings also suggest that all the formulated hypothesis regarding the independent

variables that is, (Convenience, Cost, Social Media, Time, Trust and Website Feature)are

not supported and amongst these the Convenience, Cost and Time is supported and have

a significant value whereas the Social Media, Trust and Website Feature is not supported
 78

and they also possess an insignificant values. It can be revealed that the MBA aspirants

are extremely conscious towards saving time while using the digital media and they are

much worried about the trust issues that come within it.

6.3 Implications

This research aimed at finding the necessary factor/s that affected in the consumer

behavior and its impacts. It has found as discussed in the above conclusions. However,

can the model generated here can be generalized into the Nepalese context or is this

model the final framework where the research has resided is the big question that are to

be discussed in the implications.

Now a days the trend of digital marketing is on high needs. The world is going digital and

the concept of traditional marketing is what fading away from the limelight. The basic

reasons behind these is the digitization of the modern world and the advancement of the

Information and Technology. So, the voice of today is not spoken by the traditional

marketing concept but the digital marketing stand as the easiest, accessible and cozy way

to do a business and to accomplish any task. On this note, the study of the impact of it

into the consumer behavior is a must. With that domain this research attempts to find out

the factors, its relevancy and highest degree of relation to the consumer behavior.

This study can help a college and the student psychologist to better understand their

students and it also helps the online marketers to better identify the needs as per the

impacts studied over here. The time factor is found more important here and the trust is in

negative relation, which means the marketers ought to focus. This research also helps to
 79

evaluate the student’s insight of an MBA aspirant and to better understand what an

aspirant wants when s/he is using the tools of digital marketing.

Limited researches have been carried out in terms of digital marketing and to that in the

field of the students or MBA aspirant no any research are carried to basic understanding

in Nepal. Thus the findings of this research can be significant not only to the marketers

but also to the students themselves to analyze how they are using the digital marketing

techniques. The fact is that the trend of digital marketing is becoming more and more

popular day by day be it from online shopping to cashless service this research can stand

a significant outlook to everyone’s lives.

There are several things which embellish the digital marketing techniques and whatever

the factors found here represents the modality of the MBA aspirants and can’t be merely

generalized into the whole Nepalese consumers, however, it can be generalized on the

context of the students as their behavior has been studied in the context of this research. It

is thus found that the marketers ought to value the promptness of their information

providing through digital media as the MBA aspirants value Time as the major factor for

using digital media. The marketers also should focus on providing trustworthy

information on digital media so that the aspirants can trust the digital media. Similarly,

they can improve the digital media’s website features a well and increase the Social

media endorsement.

Moreover, the marketers especially the colleges should focus on providing the best

service on Social Sites, and by providing the relevant trustworthy information and

enhancing the better website features. The continuation to provide the Time efficient

information at low cost and coziness to operate should be continued.

 80

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 APPENDICES
Appendix I

QUESTIONNAIRE

Dear sir/mam
I, Aditya Pokhrel, student of Masters of Business Administration (MBA) at Kathmandu
Don Bosco College, Lazimpat Kathmandu inform you that I am on my way to write a
dissertation on topic “Impact of Digital marketing on consumer behavior: A case of MBA
aspirants in Kathmandu valley”. For that I got to collect the primary data from the
enthusiastic bachelor level students who aspire to choose a career as MBA in future. For
this I plea to fill this questionnaire attached herewith. The information obtained from here
is purely used for research and academic purposes only and till the end it will be kept
confidential.

1. Respondent’s profile
Name (optional): ______________ _______________

Please tick [✔] mark in the appropriate information. 

Gender: Male Female Others
Age: 20 – 25 26 – 30
Faculty: Management Others (Please Specify):-_________________

2. Categorical Questions

Please tick [✔] mark in the appropriate information. 

Q) Do you use digital marketing to view details about MBA College?
YES NO
i) If “YES” then do you tend to choose the MBA College viewed from digital
source?
YES NO
ii) If “NO” then do you tend to reject the MBA College viewed from a non-digital
source?
 YES NO
iii) Do you personally visit the college after you view information about an MBA
college from a digital source?
YES NO

3. State how much do you agree or disagree with the following statements related to
the factors affecting the consumer behavior by digital marketing? Please do tick [✔]
the appropriate options about the following statements.
(Here, 5-Strongly Agree, 4-Agree, 3-Uncertain, 2-Disagree, 1-Strongly Disagree)
A. Convenience/Availability
Statements 1 2 3 4 5

I find detail information about MBA Colleges

and their notices using digital media
I get immediate feedback by the websites of
MBA colleges anytime.
It’s easy for me to choose and compare MBA
colleges using digital media rather than using
non-digital media.

I can find information 24/7 on digital tools

about MBA colleges rather than on non-digital
media

B. Website design/Features
Statements 1 2 3 4 5
The website design of MBA colleges helps
me to view syllabus, fee structure and other
information more effectively.

While using digital tools I prefer to choose

the college from website that provides me
ease of navigation and order.

I choose MBA college from the website that

provides me with the quality information
C. Time Saving
Statements 1 2 3 4 5

Searching MBA colleges online takes less

time than searching by non-digital sources

It takes more time in evaluating and

comparing MBA colleges form non-digital
sources

D. Cost
Statements 1 2 3 4 5
I find using digital marketing cheaper to get
information about MBA College than getting
information by personally visiting the college

E. Social Media
Statements 1 2 3 4 5
It is via Facebook, Instagram, Twitter
promotional ads about MBA college that
evokes me to browse the website of the
college

F. Trust
Statements 1 2 3 4 5

I trust on the data and information provided

about MBA college in the digital media with
blind eyes

Thank you for doing the needful!

 APPENDIX-II

Calculation of Sample Size

With reference to article by Upadhyaya (2018) the raw information obtained about the
cardinality of the colleges are as follows:

According to Yadav (2009) the formula to calculate sample size is:

Sample size (no) = [Z2 × (Standard Deviation)2] / Error2

Universities Count (X) [X – (X/N)]2 ∑[X – (X/N)]2

Purbanchal (PU) 60 28.75 826.562
Kathmandu (KU) 10 78.75 6201.562
Tribhuvan (TU) 250 161.25 26001.562
Pokhara (PoU) 35 53.75 2889.062
Total 355 = N 35918.75

Here if the Confidence Interval is taken as 95% then For significance value (100 – 95)%
the Z value under 2 tailed case would be: Ztab = 1.96.

Now, no = [1.96× [∑[X – (X/N)]2/N-1]^½]2] / 102 [Here, Error term is taken as 10]

Or, no = [1.96×[35918.75/344]^½]2] / 102

Thus, no = 10.017 = approx.. 11

Now, 11 colleges came into the sample. Taking deliberately 10 colleges (5 from TU, 4
from PU, 3 from PoU and 1 from KU) from the four Universities and one Institute as
Education.Com that would make, deliberate selection 18 students from each college and
20 students of Education.com.

This would make a sample size as, no = 200.

 APPENDIX III

Raw Data from SPSS

Reliability test

Scale: All variables

Reliability Statistics
Cronbach's Alpha N of Items

.749 15

Item-Total Statistics
Scale Mean if Scale Variance Corrected Item- Cronbach's
Item Deleted if Item Deleted Total Alpha if Item
Correlation Deleted
Do you use digital marketing
to view details about MBA 50.4400 59.564 .425 .729
college?
If YES then do you tend to
choose the MBA college
51.2800 56.705 .444 .730
viewed from the digital
source?
Do you personally visit the
college after you view
information about MBA 51.0200 60.924 .304 .751
college from the digital
source?
I find detail information
about MBA Colleges and
50.7050 65.616 .531 .724
their notices using digital
media
I get immediate feedback by
the websites of MBA 51.2350 69.417 .264 .743
colleges anytime.
It’s easy for me to choose
and compare MBA colleges
using digital media rather 50.6850 66.026 .450 .729
than using non-digital
media.
I can find information 24/7
on digital tools about MBA
50.5550 66.168 .449 .729
colleges rather than on non-
digital media
The website design of MBA
colleges helps me to view
syllabus, fee structure and 50.5300 68.642 .272 .743
other information more
effectively.
While using digital tools I
prefer to choose the college
from website that provides 50.9500 68.279 .338 .738
me ease of navigation and
order.
I choose MBA college from
the website that provides
50.8250 66.989 .348 .736
me with the quality
information
Searching MBA colleges
online takes less time than
50.1800 66.158 .474 .728
searching by non-digital
sources
It takes more time in
evaluating and comparing
50.6100 67.023 .381 .734
MBA colleges form non-
digital sources
I find using digital marketing
cheaper to get information
about MBA College than
50.4500 65.384 .455 .728
getting information by
personally visiting the
college
I trust on the data and
information provided about
51.6450 71.295 .104 .756
MBA college in the digital
media with blind eyes
It is via Facebook,
Instagram, Twitter
promotional ads about MBA
50.7700 67.314 .325 .738
college that evokes me to
browse the website of the
college

: Descriptive Analysis

Descriptive Statistics

N Minimum Maximum Mean Std. Deviation

Convenience 200 1.50 5.00 3.6250 .65834

Valid N (listwise) 200
 Descriptive Statistics
N Minimum Maximum Mean Std. Deviation
Cost 200 1.00 5.00 3.9700 1.03657
Valid N (listwise) 200

Descriptive Statistics
N Minimum Maximum Mean Std. Deviation
Social Media 200 1.00 5.00 3.6500 1.05977
Valid N (listwise) 200

Descriptive Statistics

N Minimum Maximum Mean Std. Deviation

Time 200 1.00 5.00 4.0250 .80630

Valid N (listwise) 200

Descriptive Statistics

N Minimum Maximum Mean Std. Deviation

Trust 200 1.00 5.00 2.7750 1.00969

Valid N (listwise) 200

Descriptive Statistics
N Minimum Maximum Mean Std. Deviation
Website Feature 200 1.67 5.00 3.6517 .70833
Valid N (listwise) 200

Descriptive Statistics

N Minimum Maximum Mean Std. Deviation

Consumer Behavior 200 1.00 5.00 3.5067 1.56203

Valid N (listwise) 200

: Ordinal by Ordinal Gamma analysis

Symmetric Measures (Convenience * Consumer Behavior)

Value Asymp. Std. Errora Approx. Tb Approx. Sig.

Ordinal by Ordinal Gamma .193 .071 2.729 .006

N of Valid Cases 200
a. Not assuming the null hypothesis.
b. Using the asymptotic standard error assuming the null hypothesis.

Symmetric Measures (Cost * Consumer Behavior)

Value Asymp. Std. Errora Approx. Tb Approx. Sig.

Ordinal by Ordinal Gamma .219 .081 2.656 .008

N of Valid Cases 200
a. Not assuming the null hypothesis.
b. Using the asymptotic standard error assuming the null hypothesis.

Symmetric Measures (Social Media * Consumer Behavior)

Value Asymp. Std. Errora Approx. Tb Approx. Sig.

Ordinal by Ordinal Gamma .081 .083 .978 .328

N of Valid Cases 200
a. Not assuming the null hypothesis.
b. Using the asymptotic standard error assuming the null hypothesis.

Symmetric Measures (Time * Consumer Behavior)

Value Asymp. Std. Errora Approx. Tb Approx. Sig.

Ordinal by Ordinal Gamma .224 .072 3.070 .002

N of Valid Cases 200
a. Not assuming the null hypothesis.
b. Using the asymptotic standard error assuming the null hypothesis.

Symmetric Measures (Trust * Consumer Behavior)

Value Asymp. Std. Errora Approx. Tb Approx. Sig.

Ordinal by Ordinal Gamma -.006 .085 -.066 .947

N of Valid Cases 200
a. Not assuming the null hypothesis.
b. Using the asymptotic standard error assuming the null hypothesis.
 Symmetric Measures (Website feature * Consumer Behavior)

Value Asymp. Std. Errora Approx. Tb Approx. Sig.

Ordinal by Ordinal Gamma .081 .071 1.141 .254

N of Valid Cases 200
a. Not assuming the null hypothesis.
b. Using the asymptotic standard error assuming the null hypothesis.

: Multi collinearity Test

Coefficientsa
Model Collinearity Statistics
Tolerance VIF

Cost .688 1.453

Social Media .790 1.265

Trust .918 1.089

1
Website Feature .733 1.364

Time .590 1.696

Convenience .649 1.541

a. Dependent Variable: Consumer Behavior

: Autocorrelation Diagnostics

Model Summaryb
Model R R Square Adjusted R Square Std. Error of the Durbin-Watson
Estimate
1 1.501
a. Predictors: (Constant), Convenience, Trust, Social Media, Cost, Website Feature, Time
b. Dependent Variable: Consumer Behavior
: Chi Square Tests

column * row Crosstabulation

row Total
Choose the Don't choose
College the College
Count 107 42 149
Use Digital Marketing
Expected Count 96.1 52.9 149.0
column
Count 22 29 51
Don't use Digital Marketing
Expected Count 32.9 18.1 51.0
Count 129 71 200
Total
Expected Count 129.0 71.0 200.0

Chi-Square Tests
Value df Asymp. Sig. (2- Exact Sig. (2- Exact Sig. (1-
sided) sided) sided)

Pearson Chi-Square 13.643a 1 .000

b
Continuity Correction 2.064 1 .000
Likelihood Ratio 14.200 1 .000
Fisher's Exact Test .000 .000
Linear-by-Linear
12.376 1 .000
Association
N of Valid Cases 200
a. 0 cells (0.0%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected count is 18.11.
b. Computed only for a 2x2 table

row * column Crosstabulation

column Total
Use Digital Don't use Digital
Marketing Marketing

Count 103 27 130

Management
Expected Count 96.9 33.2 130.0
row
Count 47 23 70
Others
Expected Count 52.2 17.9 70.0
Count 149 51 200
Total
Expected Count 149.0 51.0 200.0
 Chi-Square Tests

Value df Asymp. Sig. (2- Exact Sig. (2- Exact Sig. (1-
sided) sided) sided)
Pearson Chi-Square 13.040a 1 .000
Continuity Correctionb 6.389 1 .000
Likelihood Ratio 9.574 1 .000
Fisher's Exact Test .000 .000
Linear-by-Linear Association 9.399 1 .000
N of Valid Cases 200
a. 0 cells (0.0%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected count is 17.85.
b. Computed only for a 2x2 table

: Ordinal Regression Diagnostics

Model Fitting Information

Model -2 Log Likelihood Chi-Square df Sig.

Intercept Only 514.033

Final 437.821 76.212 43 .001

Link function: Logit.

Pseudo R-Square

Cox and Snell .317

Nagelkerke .342

McFadden .146

Link function: Logit.

 Parameter Estimates
Estimate Std. Error Wald df Sig. 95% Confidence
Interval
Lower Upper
Bound Bound
[Consumer_Behavior =
-23.366 1.798 168.846 1 .000 -26.891 -19.842
1.00]
[Consumer_Behavior =
Threshold -22.165 1.786 154.041 1 .000 -25.665 -18.665
2.33]
[Consumer_Behavior =
-21.130 1.779 141.046 1 .000 -24.617 -17.643
3.67]
[Cost=1.00] -.673 1.070 .395 1 .529 -2.771 1.425
[Cost=2.00] -.884 .762 1.343 1 .246 -2.378 .611
[Cost=3.00] -.404 .553 .533 1 .465 -1.487 .680
[Cost=4.00] .009 .383 .001 1 .982 -.742 .760
[Cost=5.00] 0a . . 0 . . .
[Social_Media=1.00] .156 1.166 .018 1 .894 -2.130 2.442
[Social_Media=2.00] -.039 .647 .004 1 .952 -1.306 1.228
[Social_Media=3.00] -.390 .512 .579 1 .447 -1.394 .614
[Social_Media=4.00] -.221 .439 .253 1 .615 -1.082 .640
[Social_Media=5.00] 0a . . 0 . . .
[Trust=1.00] -1.268 1.176 1.162 1 .281 -3.573 1.037
[Trust=2.00] .386 1.024 .142 1 .706 -1.620 2.392
Location
[Trust=3.00] .503 1.016 .245 1 .620 -1.488 2.495
[Trust=4.00] -.508 1.039 .239 1 .625 -2.544 1.528
[Trust=5.00] 0a . . 0 . . .
[Website_Feature=1.67] .937 .000 . 1 . .937 .937
[Website_Feature=2.00] -1.710 1.745 .961 1 .327 -5.130 1.710
[Website_Feature=2.33] 1.241 1.273 .950 1 .330 -1.254 3.736
[Website_Feature=2.67] -.693 1.224 .320 1 .571 -3.092 1.707
[Website_Feature=3.00] -.393 1.124 .122 1 .726 -2.597 1.810
[Website_Feature=3.33] .368 1.042 .125 1 .724 -1.675 2.411
[Website_Feature=3.67] .149 1.053 .020 1 .887 -1.915 2.214
[Website_Feature=4.00] .467 1.045 .200 1 .655 -1.582 2.516
[Website_Feature=4.33] -.107 1.044 .010 1 .919 -2.153 1.939
 [Website_Feature=4.67] -1.068 1.129 .896 1 .344 -3.280 1.144
[Website_Feature=5.00] 0a . . 0 . . .
-
[Time=1.00] 18.086 8906.517 .000 1 .998 17474.540
17438.367
-
[Time=1.50] 21.524 11030.092 .000 1 .998 21640.108
21597.059
[Time=2.00] -1.927 1.438 1.796 1 .180 -4.746 .891
[Time=2.50] 1.200 1.506 .636 1 .425 -1.751 4.151
[Time=3.00] -1.654 .786 4.428 1 .035 -3.195 -.113
[Time=3.50] -1.408 .611 5.315 1 .021 -2.605 -.211
[Time=4.00] -.998 .543 3.372 1 .066 -2.062 .067
[Time=4.50] -1.174 .551 4.550 1 .033 -2.253 -.095
[Time=5.00] 0a . . 0 . . .
-
[Convenience=1.50] -40.457 7799.453 .000 1 .996 15246.190
15327.104
[Convenience=2.00] -21.384 1.557 188.675 1 .000 -24.435 -18.333
-
[Convenience=2.25] -41.309 11030.092 .000 1 .997 21577.274
21659.892
[Convenience=2.50] -19.781 1.405 198.184 1 .000 -22.535 -17.027
[Convenience=2.75] -19.096 1.377 192.182 1 .000 -21.796 -16.396
[Convenience=3.00] -20.556 1.111 342.504 1 .000 -22.733 -18.379
[Convenience=3.25] -20.094 1.182 289.180 1 .000 -22.410 -17.778
[Convenience=3.50] -20.366 1.016 401.980 1 .000 -22.357 -18.375
[Convenience=3.75] -21.369 1.039 423.209 1 .000 -23.405 -19.333
[Convenience=4.00] -20.150 1.081 347.586 1 .000 -22.268 -18.032
[Convenience=4.25] -20.310 1.101 340.569 1 .000 -22.467 -18.153
[Convenience=4.50] -18.726 1.056 314.384 1 .000 -20.796 -16.656
[Convenience=4.75] -18.842 .000 . 1 . -18.842 -18.842
[Convenience=5.00] 0a . . 0 . . .
Link function: Logit.
a. This parameter is set to zero because it is redundant.

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