THE IMPACT OF MARKETING STRATEGIES ON PRODUCTIVITY

THE IMPACT OF MARKETING STRATEGIES ON PRODUCTIVITY

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1    BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

Companies create, devise, and implement a variety of strategies to accomplish a set of organizational goals and objectives. These tactics may be corporate, commercial, or practical. One of the practical tactics that modern businesses can employ to improve performance is marketing strategy. Depending on the author’s background, interests, and education, marketing has been described and theorized in a variety of ways.

For instance, marketing can be viewed as a matrix of commercial activities set up to plan, create, price, promote, distribute, and market products, services, and ideas to target audiences of customers and clients. Any firm, whether it is focused on providing services or selling goods, needs a solid marketing strategy to be successful. A company’s marketing plan is a tool it employs to draw clients as it works to reach its target market. Market research is the first step in any successful marketing plan. It allows companies to focus their limited resources on the most promising prospects to boost sales and gain a durable competitive advantage (Nymous, 2006).

One of the most challenging problems facing decision-makers is determining the return on investment from marketing expenditure on activities like advertising, promotion, and distribution. Marketing strategy must focus on providing greater value to customers and the company at a reduced cost. In today’s fast-paced, competitive marketplaces, marketing performance is essential to success, and assessing it is essential for effective management (Chiliya, 2009). A company must deconstruct its marketing function into its component elements and have a method for analyzing how those parts interact in order to evaluate the effectiveness of its marketing strategy. This will enable decision-makers to connect marketing expenses to shareholder value and comprehend how to link marketing initiatives back to the value produced for the business. The internal motivations driving the marketing value of the company will be clear to decision-makers. Increased profits for businesses will result from the manipulation of the following marketing variables, including pricing fluctuation and price promotion, research, advertising, product differentiation, quality, packaging, and site. Commercial banks use marketing techniques as the cornerstone of marketing plans created to satisfy consumer wants and accomplish marketing goals. A thorough examination of both the internal and external environments is necessary for marketing strategy. The marketing mix is one example of an internal environmental component, along with performance evaluation and strategy limitations. The evaluation of the component of the technological, economic, cultural, or political/legal environment likely to have an impact on success is one of the external environmental factors, along with customer analysis, competitive analysis, target market analysis, and customer analysis of the environment.

The main goal of Nigerian commercial banks’ marketing strategies is to profitably channel the flow of banking services to their target clients. Because of the fierce competition among financial institutions—not just banks—an efficient marketing plan is required. Thus, banks plan their marketing to determine customer demands, meet those needs, and create customer value in order to enhance the value of their services and obtain a competitive edge. Measuring marketing techniques in connection to production is difficult, though. In fact, a number of researchers claim that this is a myth (okoh, 2009). In opposition to this, the researcher thought the subject matter to be a problem deserving of examination.

1.2    STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Marketing plans are interactive and dynamic. They are only partially planned as such, and due to the effect of macro and micro environmental conditions, the majority of organizations do not strictly follow their organization’s intended strategy. As a result, the majority of the organizational components of the marketing plan are inconsistent with the company’s broader objective, making them ambiguous and difficult to understand. As a result, it becomes extremely difficult for most organizations to implement their strategic marketing plans.

This is clear from the fact that many marketing literatures and journals have failed to address the difficulties in measuring marketing tactics in connection to productivity. Indeed, according to a number of researchers, this is a myth (okoh, 2009). The researcher believes the topic is worthy of inquiry because of this. Because of this, the study tackles issues with gauging marketing strategy in relation to productivity that have not been addressed by other studies and marketing literature in Nigeria.