4. Online Marketing Possibilities of the Domestic Dairy Sector

The online appearance of the local milk processing micro-, small and medium-sized enterprises is rather bare (e.g.: official website, social media site), so they are not really able to maintain the online information collecting and shopping demands of the Hungarian digital food-consumers. Without this active participation, consumers cannot be involved in the company processes, in spite of the fact that food related search for information and the eventual shopping are key elements in the willingness to turn consumers’ lifestyle towards a healthier way.  We used primary and secondary marketing research methods. During the secondary data and information collection, we collected and arranged already available data. During our primary data collection we carried out a quantitative research which was based on the analysis of our secondary data collection. We made our company observation project, where we analysed the online appearance of the members in the local milk industry with the help of an observation sheet, based on the database of NÉBIH (National Food Chain Safety Office). The members of the dairy industry (88 companies) were filtered for factory types and processed species. Fifty-nine per cent of the milk processors provide a personal online platform for the users. A third of the related milk processors have Facebook account. In the examined sector, every second company refreshes its timeline, or adds new entries less often than monthly, which is an extremely low tendency. Based on the results, we can say that these processing companies have exclusively Facebook accounts within the different types of social media, and they are quite passive. With the previous observation, we took into consideration the methods and tools given to the examined companies in order to judge the involvement of the consumers in the company processes. The rate of this involvement was observed on a Likert 1 to 5 scale and the obtained results were disappointing and regrettable. The value was 1.93 in the case of milk processors with a website and/or Facebook account. The results strengthen our assumption that the local companies in the related sector are not eager at all, or only at a minimum rate to involve consumers in the company processes.

DOI:

Hungarian Dairy Journal. 2018. 75 (1) 55-65.