Abstract

Co-creation of value has drawn an increasing attention of researchers over the last two decades. Co-creating value through customer engagement, documented as experiential marketing, not only benefits suppliers but also consumers. Involving and responding to customers and creating customer memorable experiences are of key concerns to owner/managers in establishing and developing customer relationships, within which shared value resides and evolves. As technology advancement moves fast exponentially, digital channels play an important role in transforming the ways by which customer engagement takes place, this is particularly true during Covid-19 pandemic whereby the crisis caused disruptions therefore great challenges to businesses in keeping connected to customers. Given that little research has shed light on that of small businesses, this study explores those hard-reach owned by women migrant entrepreneurs in the UK with limited resources in sustaining the crisis. We’re interested in establishing how they survived the engagement and relationship development with a key stakeholder group, customers and through which digital channels may play a critical role to mitigate the negative effects on their marketing practices and therefore co-creation of value in Covid-19 and how virtual networking helped. Our samples were based on self-employed African women entrepreneurs owning micro and small business in Aberdeen, UK. We interviewed sixteen respondents in order for gaining an insight into their life experiences. Thematic data analysis undertaking the constant comparative methods were employed, involving a process of making sense of the entrepreneurs’ lives.