CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF THE STUDY
A Marketing Promotional Strategy is saliently concerned with the role be played by each of the promotional mix elements towards effective and efficient dissemination of information potential customers and clients. Promotion practices are essential especially under condition of imperfect competition, noon-rational behaviours of customers and incomplete market information.
Intensified competition among different insurance companies may well inform the need for serious attention to promotion. The emphasis to be placed on promotion has relevance for both products and services marketing. The Insurance marketer needs to understand the environment in which the function, and to look at the promotion mix elements those he uses and those which he must adjust.
Promotion Strategy can therefore, be seen as the design and management of a marketing subsystem for the purpose of informing and persuading present and potential customers and clients.
A firm should coordinate all its promotional efforts as a complete subsystem in the total marketing system. In economic terms, the basic purpose of promotion is to change the location and shape of the demand curve for a company’s products, service or idea. Through promotion, a company attempts to shift a product’s demand curve to the right, and change the shape of the curve. Through the use of promotion, a company hopes to increase a products sales volume at any given price. It also hopes that promotion will effect the demand elasticity for the product, that is, making the demand elastic when the price decreases.
The basic purpose of promotion strategy is to let actual and potential customers, clients know about the product/ service, i.e. to disseminate relevant information. Nigerian corporate marketing managers should determine what combinations of advertising, personal selling and other promotional tools will be the most effective promotional strategy for their companies. Four factors that should be taken into account in deciding on the promotional mix.
· The amount of money available for promotion
· The nature of the market
· The nature of the product
· The stage of the products life cycle
The major purpose of promotion is to inform, persuade and influence people including customers, clients and other relevant publics.
A marketing promotions strategy/policy prescribed the role to be played by every means of disseminating information to consumers about a particular product or service. The relevant aspects of formulating this strategy include such topics as determining the information to be communicated to consumers, clients, the budget for it, and the choice of means or tools for disseminating information.
Meeting promotion is also salient in the strategy or market segmentation. Promotion is used to inform market segments of the availability of products or services produced for them to meet their precise needs and wants. Good customer/company relations should be paramount in a Nigerian product or service organization. Nigerian company employees should develop a behaviour that is tolerant, patient, polite, honest and sincere in all their dealings with customers and clients.
Promotional activities and decisions, other than advertising activities and decisions, include special price reduction, free offers, technical leaflets, exhibitions, seminars and conferences, press free edition In appropriate media, planning the size, selecting the administrative methods to be used and nature of the sales office staff, remittent, remuneration and training of the members of the sales department and devising a suitable monitoring service and information system to keep track of results versus plans.
1.2 STATEMENT OF PROBLEM
Nigerian business environment is full of uncertainties and instability. Therefore, a Nigerian marketing manager must identify, understand and utilize the major element of the business environment in strategic marketing decisions. Generally, a Nigeria marketing manager operates within the following business environments’economic, technological, legal restrictions, competitive, socio-cultural, political and operating environment among others.
· The economic environment includes inflation rate, interest rate, exchange rate, income per capital, more also as the world experience global economic crisis which is affecting many industrial and organization and also budget constraints.
· The socio-cultural environmental factors are consumers’ and clients’ lifestyles, level of hygiene, customs, beliefs, values, age, geographical distribution and literacy level of consumers and clients.
· The technological components are company’s technical facilities for the production and delivery of goods and services.
· The legal environment includes the business laws operating in land and its compliance.
· The political environment refers to the type of government policies, philosophies, programmes and priorities.
· The competitive environment refers to the alternative companies that cou