Rural Area Businesses Development in a Marketing Technology (MarTech) Context

Abstract

The knowledge revolution and the knowledge-based economy are making their presence felt at
the macro and micro-economic levels. Knowledge proved, time and time again, to be the most
important resource for an organization, capable of individualizing it and propelling it to market
competitiveness. Even though the world is facing a medical and economic crisis right now,
experts believe that economic growth and a high standard of living are closely linked to the
governments’ ability to create and foster the use of knowledge. Marketing technology is a trend
imposed on the market for effective management in the relationship with customers, using
digital tools in the creation and development of organizations through an effective management
of activities in this fiel. In this paper, we tried to better understand the way knowledge-based
economy works in a rural environment with a focus on martech application, and we conducted
an extensive qualitative study using in-depth interviews to see how much entrepreneurs in rural
communities understand and are willing to adopt knowledge-based economy and marketing
technologies. Our study includes almost 50 respondents and it has given us valuable insights on
both challenges and opportunities faced by European rural businesses and how they relate to
traditional sustainable entrepreneurship.