PROMOTIONAL STRATEGIES ON THE PERFORMANCE OF SELECTED SUPERMARKETS IN EDO STATE.

ABSTRACT

The study assessed promotional strategies on the performance of selected supermarkets in Edo State. Five research questions guided the study. Descriptive survey research design was used for the study. The population of the study was 130 supermarkets staff made up of 12 marketing managers and 118 sales staff of selected supermarkets in Benin City in Edo State. There was no sampling as the entire population was used because it was manageable. Questionnaire was the instrument used for data collection. The instrument used was validated by three experts. Chronbach alpha statistics was used to compute reliability of the instrument which yielded a correlation coefficient of 0.87. Data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistics of mean and standard deviation. The t-test was used to test the hypotheses. From the results of the analysis, it was concluded that the promotional strategies that influence the performance of supermarkets in Edo State were advertising, sales promotion, publicity/public relations, direct marketing and personal selling. Consequently, it was recommended that sales representatives of organizations should be well trained on what is expected of them on the job. This would enable them to be able to convince customers as to why they need to purchase specific products. The formulation of strategic marketing/advertising plan that would pave the related innovative ways to capitalize on strategic opportunities for sales should be encouraged by all and sundry. Furthermore, marketing managers must develop promotional strategies peculiar to their locality and target audience for improved performance of their organization. Finally, recommendations were made for further studies such as influence of promotional strategies on employees productivity in supermarkets.