Promotional Strategy In A Service Industry

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
One of the fillers of marketing id the provision of good and service to satisfy the needs and wants of the consumer at a profit to the satisfacus of the consumer or customer is the focus of marketing making price it right, distributed it well and position i.e. to best meet the needs of customers, you must have wasted all the marketing skills if nobody knows you have done these. Your customer will only know through promotional activities.
It becomes imperative that firms must not only create high quality goods that meets the expectations of the target market but tell success stories, that is , disseminate information about the product attribute and benefits to the target market.
Engle (1983:16) defines promotion as a controlled integrated programme of communication method and materials designed to present a company and its products to prospective customers to communication need satisfying attributes. Promotion is a vital ingredient of survival and development, without adequate promotion product may not sale, where they sell their continuity is in doubt . no wonder much of the budgets of some companies is spent on promotion
However, this may involve determine the optional combinations of the promotional mix,
Advertising, sales promotion, personal selling, public relation publicity to achieve it’s promotional objectives.
According to onal and Nnolim (1998:9) decisions with these components of promotional mix should be consistent with other variable mix in order to accomplish the objectives of any given organisation of the company including banking industries, manufacturing industries and the producers of goods and services are were that promotion does only inform or persuade but can strive towards profit making through increased sales., there is a lot of competitions in the banking industries, and this is affecting the patronage of Afribank. Many firm today have seen that promo tools serves as a supremacy vehicle of competition.
Meanwhile, it is because of the importance of promotion not only as a tool for informing the company that the researcher try’s to examine promotional strategy in a service industry a case study of Afribank.

1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
In as much as the world is dynamic, things changes every passing day competition was not so intensive among business some years ago. But today because every business wants to be at the top of the ladder, so many developments have arisen. This has lead to tremendous technological innovations like commuters, cell phones, automatic machines and many others. The business sector devised several means to market their products and service to achieve a manful results. This manifests itself as many organisations now embrace on milliohm Naira advertising campaign, training of high rate salesman, modification of their products, innovations in service rendering all are aimed at matching with the chafing trend are to provide products/ services that can withstand competition and enhance profitability.
Therefore the problem of most banks with especial reference to Afribank is that they do not really know the implications o poor promotional message in their effort to market bank products/ service. And this study intends to elucidate those things especially as it affects Afribank PLC.
1. Is the customer influenced by the any promotional strategy in the patronage of banking service?
2. do customers receive the promotional message effective form any specific medium?
3. do other service factors such as bank charges, availability of service and quality of service influence customers patronage of Afribank? These and many more forms the task of this research work.

1.3 OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY
The purpose of this research work is as follows
1. To find out if the product promotion affects customer patronage of bank service.
2. To measure the effectiveness of advertising in creating awareness of bank services.
3. To determine whether promotional strategy used by Afribank increases customer patronage.
4. to evaluate the promotional strategies of Afribank in increasing profitability
5. to measure the impact of persona selling strategy on the marketing of bank services
6. to recommend promotional measures to improve on the performance of Afribank.

1.4 HYPOTHESES OF THE STUDY
The following hypothesis have been formulated in other to ensure in objective analysis of the study.
1. Hoi: consumers are satisfied with the quality of service rendered by Afribank
Hoi: consumers are not satisfied with the price chare of Afribank services.
2. Hoi: consumers are not satisfied with the price chare of Afribank service
HO2 Hoi: consumers are satisfied with the price chare of Afribank service
3. HO3: Afribamk is readily and accessible in their service offering to consumers.
HO3: Afribamk is not readily and accessible in their service offering to consumers.

1.5 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
The importance or significance of the study cannot
be overemphasized. The researcher believes strange that this work will serve as a reference point and consultative material to other banks and would be most effective and efficient promotional strategy to adopt, so as to enhance customer patronage of Afribank services.
It will equally be if great benefit to readers and researchers as it may farm a base for further research an moreover it will widen their scope of understanding and knowledge in promotion

SCOPE OF THE STUDY
This study under took an in-depth look at the effectiveness of promotional strategies in industry. Again the study was limited to Afribank operation within Enugu metropolis. Questionnaires were distributed and collected from marketers and consumers of Afribank PLC in this area

1.7 DEFINITION OF TERMS
LIMITATIION OF THE STUDY
A lot of constraints have limited the scope of this study, some of them are.
1. FINANCIAL CONSTRAINTS inadequate financial resources is a limitation to this work be cause nwney is required in almost every aspect of this work.
2. DISTANCE: this is another factor, there should be adequate designed time because the research have to be in the particular place of research to get respondents to enable the research progress
3. TIME CONSTRAINTS: limited time to execute this study comprehensively is one of the limitation of this study, adequate time for deserting this project should be properly considered for the effective smoothing of this work.
4. inadequate co-operation of consumers: this is another hindering along to enable appropriate research work in the aspect of questionnaire, if the consumers refuse to comply in corresponding flimsy excuses like time there will be problem.

1.8 DEFIINITION OF TERMS
1. promotional strategy: it is a controlled integrated programme of communication method and materials designed to present a company and its products to prospective customers.
2. Advertising : a marketing functions of making know what we to sell or buy. It presents the most persuasive possible selling massage to be right prospective for the product or service at the lowest possible cost. More so, advertising must use identifies, it must not be personal it must use the maze media and it must be paid for.
3 sale promotion: this consist o all the activities aimed at promoting immediate sale. It is designed to achieve fast sales or consumer repose.
4. personal selling : face to face interaction with one or more prospective purchase for the purpose of making presentation, answering questions and producing orders.
5. direct marketing: this consists of direct communications with carefully target individual consumers to both obtain an immediate response and cultivate lasting customer relationships.