The Influence of Sale Promotion on Customers Patronage free essay sample

The major tasks of marketers are to produce the right goods, charge the correct price, gives the product exposure through distribution networks, and to induce the consumers to purchase the product. All these marketing skills will be a waste of effort if consumer fail to become aware of the existence of a product or service. However, sales promotion is the array of method or techniques that marketers use to stimulate or improve immediate purchase. In most cases, sales promotion is used in conjunction with other promotional tools especially advertising and personal selling to achieve desire result. But unlike advertising and personal selling, sales promotion comprises a wide variety of technical promotional tools of short term incentives designed to stimulate a target market response. In other words, sales promotion is one of the methods or ways by which information about a product or service is passed to potential consumers. Generally, sales promotion has two main objectives which could be categorize into broad objective and specific objective. We will write a custom essay sample on The Influence of Sale Promotion on Customers Patronage or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page The broad objective of any sales promotion will include product exposure, attention acquisition and comprehension of sales promotion, attitude change and behaviour while in a specific objective the target consumers are specified as well as the intended effect of the promotion upon the target market (Engel et al, 1973). Furthermore, in whatever form sales promotion is carried out, it’s aimed at achieving the following: i. Encourage customers to sample. ii. Encourage dealers to stock iii. Combating competition iv. Improving distribution Sales promotion is either directed to traders or customers. According to Gilbert Baker (1986) the following techniques or methods can be used in consumers promotion, premium offers, contest, coupon, special discount and free trials. Finally, sales promotion has taken a strong position in marketing. This is as a result the increasing back log of products which manufacturers cannot sell as a result of high costs charged and diminishing purchasing power of the consumers. Another major reason is an increase in the level of competition among manufacturers brought about by increased entrepreneurship. Sales promotion helps increasing sales volume. It’s also contributes to the building of a product and company image and assist in determining correct price for it product or service. This is possible especially when a company is using promotional pricing. Since it launched it’s services on August 29, 2003 Glo mobile has been at the forefront of revolutionary changes in the GSM sector in Nigeria, offering both prepaid and contract packages along with a range of value added services. In it’s first year of operation, Glo mobile became the fastest growing GSM network in Africa, achieving a record of one million subscribers and covering over 87 towns in just nine months. The subscriber figure at the moment stands at over 22 million with coverage extending to over 50,000 cities, towns, communities and major roads, thus making the company the 5th largest operator in Middle East and Africa (MEA) region as well as the fastest growing network in the region. However, vigorously pursuing it’s expansion strategy, the network has earned the identity of the Nigerian innovator. This is because it boasts a wide variety of innovative packages and tariff designed to fulfill the needs of a broad spectrum of market segments in Nigeria. Prominent among the innovations Glo mobile has introduced are the per second billing, black berry, multimedia messaging service (MMS) magic plus, Glo Direct, Glo Bile Internet, Glo Fleet Manager, M-banking and Glo mobile office. Meanwhile, competition argued that per second billing (PSB) was not possible until 2007 and that no network in the world has been able to launch with PSB, Globacom introduced the billing platform at launch. This caused a stir in the industry and is regarded as the most innovative landmark in the communications industry since the introduction of GSM services in Nigeria in 2001. Furthermore, Blackberry is an integrated wireless, handheld device, which supports push button e-mail, mobile telephone, text messaging web browsing and other wireless information services. In addition to the regular PDA applications and telephone capabilities, Blackberry can send and receive e-mail anywhere it has access to an appropriate wireless network. With mms, subscribers can send and receive pictures sound and text in a ingle message. Also, Glo mobile internet provides the subscriber high speed access to all popular sites which have been customized for mobile phone browsing, while Glo direct is an advanced wireless internet access service that allows subscribers to stay connected to the world wide web, using their phones as a modem for devices such as laptop and smart phones. And also, Glo m-banking is a new product which gives customers swift and easy access to their bank accounts from their mobile phones. The launch of Glo m-banking. Glo m-banking access to your account on the move and it has the following services: 1. Check account balance at the cost of N40 and it has the easy access to view your account balance at anytime, anywhere. 2. Statement at the cost of N40 and it has the comprehensive information view of last five transaction on your account. 3. Recharge i. e. the total convenience to recharge your Glo prepaid line anytime, anywhere. 4. Transfer at the cost of N40 i. e. more flexibility of transfer money from one account to another account within the same bank. 5. Change pin at the cost of N40 because it increased security and have the option to change your pin for greater security. Consequently, Glo fleet manager is a revolutionary vehicle tracking solution which enables the subscriber to track, locate and communicate with a vehicle by utilizing the Glo mobile network. It offers a lot of features which are not available on normal tracking services. Glo mobile office is a GPRS – based service that allows the subscriber to access his Microsoft exchange mail, appointment, calendar and tasks directly on his mobile phone. The service can also allow him to use his corporate applications like sales force automation and customers relationship management system directly from the mobile phone. The service revolutionizes the way Microsoft office is accessed across the country over Glo mobile’s GPRS coverage area. Subsequently, Glo foreplay enables it’s subscribers to make new friends and fine new love on their mobile phones. The WAP – based service provides an exciting medium for subscribers to meet and chart with new people on their phones within the Glo mobile GPRS Network. Meanwhile, in line with it’s commitment to avail Nigerians the benefit of advances made in telecommunications technology, Globalcom has launched the 3G plus network. This followed a successful test-run of the platform by telecom vendors Alcatel. This is the second time that Globalcom has been in the forefront of pioneering the latest transmission network in Nigeria, having introduced the 2. 5G technology at launched in 2003 when other operators were running on the 2G. However, the 3G plus technology enables a much faster transmission of data, voice, broadband internet and multimedia services over a range of frequencies. It will allow customers to do video calling, video streaming and high speed mobile internet access from their 3G mobile handset. It also offers other advanced mobile services. Finally, Globalcom Nigeria Limited fighting poverty, restoring the dignity of man. Because economic empowerment is a major challenge in Nigeria today. Globalcom initiated an involving partnership with the National Poverty Eradication Programme (NAPEP), to help unemployed youths to establish call centres, thereby providing economic freedom to Nigerians. However, several state government are partnering with Globalcom in providing thousands of call centre packages for unemployed youths to start their own businesses. Globalcom is committed to ensuring that our subscribers benefit from the advances made in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for the purpose of spurring economic and sociopolitical success. This we demonstrated by being the only operator in Nigeria to launch operations on 2. 5G network which enables the convergence of voice, data and multimedia technologies. Globalcom with coverage of the 36 states and Abuja Nigerian in just 30 months and gearing to expand similar operations to other African countries, Globalcom’s vision of building the biggest and best telecommunication network is fact becoming a reality.