The integrated use of social media, digital, and traditional communication tools in the B2B sales process of international SMEs

For your marketing

Possible founder application

Use it as a B2B mechanism or sales-process design reference. Validate the relationship in your deal size, buying committee and sales cycle.

Reported result

What the study found

Social media and digital tools are used jointly with traditional sales communication, blending the traditional selling steps into three main phases: identifying new opportunities, persuasion and relationship management; follow-up interviews reported increased social-media use.

Research question

What the authors investigated

How do international B2B SMEs use social media, digital and traditional communication tools across the sales process, and how do these tools affect that process over time?

Design

Exploratory longitudinal, multi-country qualitative study using semi-structured interviews with knowledgeable informants, follow-up interviews and secondary-data triangulation; grounded-theory analysis.

Sample and setting

International SMEs in service industries across Finland, Italy, Poland, Brazil and the United States; interviews involved sales directors, marketing managers, CEOs or the most knowledgeable available employee.

Scope and transfer

Limitations to keep in view

The publisher text explicitly notes that small firm size limited the availability of diverse perspectives, so two interview rounds were judged sufficient.

Research sources

The publisher’s empirical-process table reports that the B2B sales process can be improved by social and digital tools, that use varies across phases and is joint with traditional tools, and that the model was confirmed in longitudinal follow-ups. Direct publisher-page retrieval was recorded on 2026-10-09; profile summarizes the accessible record and does not claim independent review of inaccessible full text.