CHAPTER ONE

1.1      INTRODUCTION:

Many people consider “selling” and “marketing” as synonymous terms but actually selling is only one of the components of marketing. Selling is defined as “the personal or impersonal process of assisting and or persuading a prospective customers to buy a commodity or a service or to act favorably upon an ideal that has commercial significance to the seller”.

Selling and promotion are used synonymously, although promotion is the preferred term. This preference is based on the belief of some people that selling suggests only the transfer of title or the use of personal salesman and does not include advertising or other methods of stimulating demands.

We are saying that promotion includes advertising, personal selling, sales promotion, and publicity and other selling tools. While the two words may be unfortunately similar; it should be noted particularly that “promotion” and “sales promotion” are different. Promotion is the all-inclusive term representing the broad field under discussion here and sales promotion is only one part of it.

In line with the systems approach, a company should treat all its promotional efforts as a complete system within the total marketing system. This means co-coordinating the sales force activities, the advertising programs, and other promotional efforts. Unfortunately, today in many firms those activities still are fragmented, and management in the advertising and sales force areas often conflict and compete with one another.

In economic theory terms, the essential purpose of promotion is to change the location and shape of the demand {revenue} curve for a company’s product. Through the use of promotion, a company hopes to increase a product’s sales volume at any given price. It also hopes that promotion will affect the demand elasticity for the product, making the demand inelastic in the face of a price increase and elastic when the price goes down. Basically, promotion is an exercise in information, persuasion, and influence. These three are related in that to inform is to persuade and conversely. If a person is being persuaded, he is probably also being informed Many years ago, Prof. Neil Borden, of Harvard University, recognized the pervasive nature of persuasion and influence in our socioeconomic system, he said that “the use of influence in commercial relations is one of the attributes of a free society. Just as persuasion and counter persuasion are exercised freely in many walks of life in our free society – in the home, in the press, in the classroom, in the pulpit, in the court rooms, in the political forum. Etc.

1.2      STATEMENT OF PROBLEM

Until recently the banking industry was, and probably is still be-labored with disturbing distress some of the depositors who were customers of these banks only had their faith to blame while others today view banks with skeptical attitudes. The wake of distress however, has today more than ever before, created a serious problem for the industry leading to the need for the application of promotional tools as not only survival strategy, but also one to give the industry the success it may presently require.

Thus the identification of the application of the promotional tools and its roles in the Nigeria Banking Industry is necessary.