Developing a New Marketing Approach to Enhance Brand Awareness: Case Study of an E-commerce Enabler Company in Indonesia

: LSHOP, a SaaS startup company that was introduced as a direct-to-consumer (D2C) e-commerce enabler. With LSHOP's D2C strategy, MSMEs can benefit from technological solutions without the involvement of a third party. Building awareness is crucial for a new brand, particularly a startup company with an existence of less than five years, or even less than a year if it is computed since they conducted the rebranding, to concentrate on its position and remain in the sector. According to observations and conversations with LSHOP's marketing manager, there are still a lot of people who are unaware of the SaaS company, which is beneficial for MSMEs as one of their business channels, LSHOP. The frameworks of Porter's Five Analysis, Marketing Mix, SWOT, Competitor Analysis, and Customer Analysis are used in this study to examine business issues. Data and information were gathered from a variety of sources, including observation, employee interviews, questionnaire distribution employing sampling, and questionnaire distribution. According to the survey, LSHOP's underuse of marketing channels and customers' lack of familiarity with the SaaS sector were to blame for the lack of brand awareness. The author suggests a marketing approach based on the 5A Framework to address the issues, namely how to raise brand awareness. The tactics employed for stage 5A of spreading awareness of LSHOP vary depending on the level. At the Aware stage, businesses can work with influencers, put up billboards and banners in MSMEs' common areas, and introduce a distinctive catchphrase. The strategy that can be used in the Appeal stage is to produce engaging content regarding the brand's features or industry-related data. Additionally, to make it easier for customers to understand the information, viral or unique promotions are required. The business should implement a plan to build a community network utilizing Facebook and regularly produce content using short videos on TikTok during the Ask stage. Additionally, in the Act stage, launching internal events, working with the government, running promotional campaigns, and having live chats with customer care are all highly beneficial for LSHOP's new approach. Finally, LSHOP can strengthen relationships with consumers at the Advocate stage by developing referral and loyalty programs that offer rewards to customers.


INTRODUCTION
Technology, particularly the use of the internet, has now become a basic need for almost all individuals and become an essential thing in our daily activities such as shopping, entertainment, school, and others.In the last few decades, the number of internet users are growing rapidly.In the current situation where the world is impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic, and technology have shifted consumer behaviour toward digital, the Covid-19 pandemic gives a positive effect on consumer transaction patterns from direct to indirect (online) consumption in addressing basic and daily needs.In addition, due to government's policies for social restrictions and social distancing, the mobility of the Indonesian population begins to get declined in March 2020 compared to before pandemic in all category except residentials.As consequences, online consumption is increased along with the increase of smartphone user by 6 percent from previous year [1].
Despite the growing number of MSMEs in Indonesia, the potential problem still arises.Based on survey conducted by The Association of Business Development Services Indonesia (ABDSI), pandemic gives the consequences in a drop in sales, which almost all MSMEs are facing.According to 36.7 percent of respondents, they experienced no sales [2].SaaS is currently thought of as a software delivery paradigm that makes use of the internet to provide its services.Over the past few years, software-as-a-service companies have started to expand in Indonesia.In 2018, it is projected that Indonesia's SaaS market would be worth USD 100 million [3].Through this market opportunity, LSHOP, as a new player in SaaS model as an e-commerce enabler is trying to compete within the industry to gain more awareness in order to attract more user to use their services and become a well-known ones.In addition, based on the observations and interviews with the marketing manager of LSHOP, there are still many people who do not know about LSHOP, as a SaaS company where it is beneficial for MSMEs as one of their business channels.They have no knowledge about this brand and do not even know about the existence of the brand as e-commerce enabler platform.However, as one of the effort, LSHOP is a rebrand company which launched after one-year of its initial establishment.During the phase of introducing a new brand, the company needs to guarantee that their marketing plan is effective and discover the factors that truly matter the most to the user and will entice them to recognize this app.This is in addition to changing the app's name and logo.Therefore, these platforms have a wide variety of applications, but no micro, small, or medium-sized enterprise (MSMEs) has investigated the specifics of the public's interest in this application, and there is still no interest in the factors that motivate people to use the application.

LITERATURE REVIEW
SWOT Analysis is a framework for the organization to derive strategic implications, they can combine the findings of an internal analysis of the company's opportunities and threats (O and T) with those from an examination of the company's strengths and weaknesses (S and W) [4].The company's internal analysis will be used to retrieve a strengths and weaknesses analysis for the company.The author of this study made use Segmenting, Targeting, and Positioning (STP), in addition to Marketing Mix and Internal Interview Analysis to draw conclusions on strength and weakness of LSHOP's.The company's external analysis will be used to retrieve information regarding potential opportunities and threat.The author of this report made use of Porter's Five Forces, as well as Competitor Analysis and Customer Analysis The 5A's Model are the framework which are the stages in achieving consumer targets.The 5A's is the latest customer path to replace stage 4A which is generally used by almost all industrial sectors [5].The consumer path 5A has the same stages as the consumer path 4A, namely aware, appeal, ask, and act.In the consumer path, 5A adds advocate so that 5A has a deeper concept, namely by advocating for consumers in choosing a brand.Not just buying, but also providing recommendations to the community.Customers are passively exposed to a long list of brands from past experience, marketing communications, and/or the advocacy of others.This is the gateway to the entire customer path.A customer who has previous experience with a brand will likely be able to recall and recognize the brand.Advertising driven by companies and word of mouth by other customers is also a major source of brand awareness.The appeal stages are aware of several brands, customers then process all the messages they are exposed to creating short-term memory or amplifying long-term memory, and become attracted only to a short list of brands.Ask stage is prompted by their curiosity, customers usually follow up by actively researching the brands they are attracted to for more information from friends and family, from the media, and/or directly from the brands.At the ask stage, the customer path changes from individual to social.Decisions will be made based on what customers take away from the conversation with others.The brand appeal needs confirmation from others to allow the path to continue.Brands need to trigger the right amount of customer curiosity.When the curiosity level is too low, it means that the brand appeal, although existent, is rather low.But when the curiosity level is too high and customers are "forced" to ask too many questions, customers are confused about the initial message they encounter.If they are convinced by further information in the ask stage, customers will decide to act.The Advocate stage is the last stage of the customer path 5A.Overtime, customers may develop a sense of strong loyalty to the brand which is reflected in retention, repurchase, and ultimately advocacy to others.

METHODOLOGY
The author will combine qualitative and quantitative methods, and primary and secondary data will be gathered to aid in the analysis.While secondary data is information gathered by other researchers for various study reasons, primary data is information received by the researcher with the express purpose of resolving the research topic [6].Primary data will be collected utilizing qualitative techniques, such as in-depth interviews with LSHOP's marketing manager and campaign manager, in order to gain comprehensive information on the company's current situation.In order to comprehend the e-commerce enabler from the perspective of the client, the author also uses a quantitative approach by sending surveys.The responders who own MSMEs and use technology in their businesses will receive the questionnaire.Anyone who doesn't answer all of the questions will not be able to complete the survey because they are required.A questionnaire that was disseminated online utilizing the QuestionPro platform was used to collect the quantitative research data.By employing secondary data from textbooks, journal papers, and observation, the secondary data will be gathered.

RESULT AND DISCUSSION
A. SWOT An internal analysis examines a company's resources, capabilities, and core competencies in order to determine its strengths and weaknesses.External analysis examines external issues that can impact a company's capacity to gain and retain a competitive advantage.By reviewing the analysis of the business environment, the organization will gain a deeper understanding of how the environment affects its success [7].

Strength of LSHOP
• Since LSHOP is an integrated and comprehensive program, the customer is not need to install any additional add-ons in order to use it.• The LSHOP offers an extensive variety of products at costs that are both reasonable and even free.
• Customers can access LSHOP on their mobile devices in addition to the website they visit on their desktop computers.
• LSHOP differentiates itself from its competitors by offering a specialized service for the creation of own domains.

Weakness of LSHOP
• Compared to other competitors, LSHOP is a newcomer to the industry, having only begun operations in November 2020.
• There are a large number of MSMEs in Indonesia, however LSHOP now focuses on one large city and does not distribute information across Indonesia.• Not all of LSHOP's social media channels are used.Instead of having many social media platforms, it is preferable for them to concentrate on and improve only one rather than not giving another platform more attention.• Given that only 18% of respondents are aware of LSHOP, brand awareness is considered to be low.

Opportunities of LSHOP
• It is estimated that 30 million micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) will go digital by the year 2024, which indicates that 6 million MSMEs must go digital annually for the target to be achieved.This presents an opportunity for LSHOP to promote and increase their popularity in the market.• 73% of people in this world are connected to the internet thanks to the rapid advancement of technology and the spread of digitalization.This is a potential chance for LSHOP to expand their brand awareness through their online channel.• In Indonesia, enterprises that provide SaaS have been expanding at a rapid rate over the past few years.Cloud computing solutions often offer a quicker time to deployment and may be scaled up more rapidly than their traditional on-premises counterparts.
• People are being affected by PSBB, which has led to an increase in the amount of money spent on online purchases.
Therefore, industries are also gradually recuperating, which has a beneficial influence on the population's ability to spend money, and this in turn has a favorable effect on the economy.

Threat of LSHOP
• When compared to the SaaS business, the marketplace is still a well-known industry for the audience that LSHOP is trying to reach.• The competitor has their own competitive advantage and has quickly become the top of mind.
• LSHOP are fully operated through the internet since LSHOP is a service application and therefore the company should be aware of any changes to Indonesia's policy.

B. Proposed Strategy of The 5A's Aware
LSHOP may collaborate with a number of artists, celebrities, or Youtubers in order to increase the amount of exposure the LSHOP brand receives among the general public.The collaboration may take the shape of content that is connected to LSHOP or may include the involvement of multiple artists, celebrities, or Youtubers with the goal of increasing people's interest in viewing commercials and increasing people's interest in using LSHOP.In addition, it is better if LSHOP take a look first on what is the type of content that will be presented.In this case, the content that will be delivered is regarding the business and education.Since the customer also are still not aware of the SaaS industry, as well as the brand itself, it is suggest that the influencer is the one who always educate people while also understand about business.In an increasingly modern era like today, billboard designs are designed with the latest technological designs.Draft designs using a computer and print them on vinyl paper.As an advertising media or a communication tool to consumers, it helps to introduce it to buyers by enhancing the company's image.
Currently there are still MSMEs that is running their business offline as well, so this traditional advertising can LSHOP to attract this target market.The suggested place for placing the billboards and banners are in Coffee Shop, Food Stalls, Traditional Market, and Shopping Center.This place will be implemented effectively since the majority of MSMEs will selling in those place.For the proposed content of the billboards and banner it is better if LSHOP also illustrates that LSHOP is an e-commerce enabler not a marketplace.Therefore, the customer will be more aware the difference of the industry as well as will aware about the brand itself.Below is the possible illustration for the billboard and banner.Last, Create and launched a unique tagline for differentiate the brand with marketplace.The tagline is a combination of several words to communicate the brand message.The tagline is usually placed near the logo and made as attractive as possible.The goal is that when the audience reads or hears the tagline, they will immediately remember the brand.The LSHOP logo itself is already good but it would be better if LSHOP has a distinctive tagline that will be easy for customers to remember.

Appeal
Since LSHOP has it own uniqueness and differences with other industry, it is better that LSHOP personalized their content into what the target market needed to see. Figure below shows that the content in Instagram is not really educative enough to inform the product of LSHOP, especially the feature that are different from other platform.Meanwhile, they only inform the customer about the features through their official website.From the survey it can be seen that customer does not know about the features of own domain meanwhile it is the flagship feature of LSHOP.Therefore, it is better that LSHOP create a content informing the customer with the features especially not well-known features, through regular content in Instagram.
Other than that, just like other social media such as Twitter and Instagram, TikTok also uses hashtags mainly to raise the challenges in the application but other than hashtag, the sound that they put also a key for the content to be on the first page of TikTok.Thus, LSHOP can try to use and follow these hashtags so that they appear in search results for hashtags that are currently viral.Usually a typical hashtag challenge, in the form of a dance challenge that might be followed by employees of the brand in question.The more creative the content, the more successful the marketing strategy through TikTok will be and get a lot of responses from users.In addition, there are various kinds of effects that brands can try in making videos.If it can be seen from the figure below, the content of their TikTok is not using any sound or effect.Meanwhile TikTok really care about the video content, and not interested on a single editing video without any viral sound.Therefore, it is better that LSHOP using the current viral song in addition to the content itself that can create gives an entertainment as well as education about LSHOP itself.

Ask
According to customer path 5A, someone who is interested in something will almost certainly proceed to the next stage, which is to ask.However, this does not imply that uninterested potential buyers do not learn more about a brand; rather, this is intended to provide knowledge to potential consumers themselves.Because they are unsure about the brand that is in the appeal stage, the customer actively seeks information about the brand both online and offline, or through community feedback, during the ask stage.One of the benefits of Facebook Groups is to enable better interactions with customers.For a brand that is just developing, of course, it is necessary to increase brand awareness.In addition, customers can discuss privately, making product offerings easier.In fact, you can offer products with special special promos for members of the group.The more often they interact with group members, of course they will be more confident in the credibility of the brand.If we take a look, currently LSHOP only has it own page for LSHOP that connected to Instagram and does not have the group for community.For example, GoStore have its own community platform like figure below so all the customer can share and exchange ideas as well as questions.In addition, this method can also be a place for customers to provide feedback.Feedback from customers is very important.That's why brands should have a forum where customers can share their feedback.When the brand knows about how customers feel when using their products, of course it can be used as a reference to increase customer satisfaction.Next, terms that are often confusing and even many are still mistaken are what is ecommerce enable and marketplace.Many think that the two are the same, even though the e-commerce enabler and marketplace are very different.In this ask stage, besides focusing on the targeted customer that already recognize the brand, it is also good if LSHOP create content through short video in TikTok and infographics through Instagram for informed the customer the difference between LSHOP and marketplace.In the early stage of 5A, the proposed solutions is regarding collaborating with influencers and also informing them about the differences of the industry.In the Ask stage, to retain the customer with source of information, it is better that LSHOP still produce the educative content regarding its product.

Act
At the act stage, if the results of potential customers seeking positive information convince them that a brand is actually worthy of them, they will buy and utilize the brand.Currently LSHOP only only have an official business WhatsApp number and also an email for their customer service.However, for WhatsApp services, they have a template or auto-reply message, unless the customer choose to talk directly to the customer service.This thing can give a bad impact to the customer if the customer service will reply for too long meanwhile in the act stage where it is crucial when people need the engagement from the brand itself.It is better if LSHOP launch a live customer service also through the application.In this case is Live Chat feature will be beneficial.Live Chat with the customer care team at LSHOP will allows customers to contact with the company to ask questions about products, learn how to make purchases, lodge complaints, and more.Customers can avoid not being able to make purchases owing to a lack of information or a slow response from the LSHOP staff by using the live chat feature instead.Second, The level of satisfaction experienced by the customer at this action stage will play a role in future decisions.Therefore, this stage of the activity is crucial to the process of keeping the consumer.This stage also has an effect on the customer, determining whether or not they will become a repeat customer or will only use the services a single time.LSHOP launched a live events in early 2022.However, the events only focus on inviting the role model of business, which they already own a big business and cannot considered as an MSMEs.Instead, it is better for LSHOP to invite their loyal customer who already grown in terms of their business performance in LSHOP.In addition, inviting the upcoming or target market to the events and feel the real experience of LSHOP itself.Thus, the recent customer and the upcoming customer will understand better that LSHOP is beneficial for them.
Moreover, LSHOP can held more interactives session where the MSMEs gathering and sharing ideas about how e-commerce enabler will help them to grow their business.Third, the collaboration event between MSMEs and Government can be an idea to encourage the growth of the MSMEs businesses to become the economic driving force for the community in the society.By doing this as a promotional media and increase market access for MSME products to be widely known by the public.Meanwhile, LSHOP can enter the collaboration as a media for MSMEs to be their selling channel.Lastly, in this stage it is the best way for brands to keep their customers satisfied and guarantee they have a great and memorable experience with their products is to engage them.LSHOP can consider offering customers who have been consistently purchasing their products either a greater discount or a coupon for future purchases.LSHOP is able to develop a campaign for double dates, such as 9.9 or 10.10, for the customers who are coming up in the near future.Customers will be left with a positive brand image as a result of this, and they will keep in mind that LSHOP is a reputable brand

Advocate
At the advocate stage, consumers will be more loyal to LSHOP because they find the conveniences and benefits they feel when using LSHOP so that they will gladly promote LSHOP to their family, relatives, and closest people to facilitate their business.Based on the research results, users feel satisfied when using LSHOP.From this satisfaction, some users feel very eager to recommend LSHOP to family, relatives, and close friends.At this stage, word of mouth plays an active role in helping LSHOP carry out promotional activities.A customer loyalty program that is organised in categories offers distinct perks or price reductions to distinct categories of customers on the basis of the amount they have spent.Customers receive some sort of benefit for each transactions that they make, which encourages them to make other transactions.When the LSHOP user exceeds a predetermined amount of spending or transactions, that customer will become eligible for additional privileges and advantages.As a form of incentive, one might receive a discount, a coupon or voucher, or a free item.When customers make larger transactions, they become eligible for further prizes.This type of loyalty program, which is centered on providing consumers with rewards in exchange for their continued business, is successful because it creates an emotional connection with the audience, which creates the opportunity for increased loyalty and engagement over the long run.Other than that, marketing based on word-of-mouth recommendations is currently quite common, popular, and profitable for every brand.Building trust is a real challenge, and one that many marketers struggle with on a regular basis.A referral program is a method and organized approach to enticing customers to recommend a brand company in exchange for a referral incentive such as money, discounts, free goods, and other perks.A commission is only awarded as part of the referral program for referees who end up making a purchase.And finally, it will assist LSHOP in expanding their market share, the number of customers they serve, and their overall earnings as well

CONCLUSION
Due to the rising level of competitiveness in society, there must be e-commerce facilitators that give alluring deals at reasonable prices.As a result, there is some business competition among businesses who offer services that enable e-commerce.In order to compete in the business world, LSHOP needs to understand how well-known it is among its target market.Based on the study's findings, it can be said that both internal and external factors significantly affect LSHOP's ability to stay in business because ecommerce enablers are a growing area of business competitiveness.To offer LSHOP to the general public, improvements and promotional activities are required.Because consumers now choose to utilize social media to sell their businesses or marketplaces, LSHOP as an e-commerce enabler has concerns about the lack of public awareness of the SaaS sector.Therefore, it requires brand promotion actions to spread awareness of LSHOP among a larger audience and raise awareness of the fact that employing an ecommerce enabler makes it simpler for MSMEs actors to manage their businesses in the future.Additionally, LSHOP's internal structure is lacking in a promotional component.Social media usage is crucial to LSHOP's ability to launch these initiatives.In addition to service features and costs, LSHOP may also provide information on events and promotions that involve LSHOP.These public relations initiatives may also aid LSHOP in cultivating a favorable reputation in the society.As a result, it can aid LSHOP in raising public awareness so that LSHOP attracts attention and forges bonds with the community.