EXTENT OF UTILIZATION OF INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATION STRATEGIES BY MANUFACTURING COMPANIES IN ANAMBRA STATE

SOURCE:

Faculty: Education
Department: Technology Education

CONTRIBUTORS:

Okafor, S. N.
Ibeneme, O.T.

ABSTRACT:

The need to improve and ensure effective marketability of products of manufacturing companies necessitated this study on the extent of utilization of integrated marketing communication strategies by manufacturing companies in Anambra State. Five research questions guided the study and 10 null hypotheses were tested. Descriptive survey research design was employed for the study. The population consisted of 298 executives (managers and owners) of registered manufacturing companies in Anambra State . The entire population was studied without sampling because the size was not too large. The instrument for data collection was a researcher developed questionnaire titled “Integrated Marketing Communication Strategies Questionnaire (IMCSQ)”. The questionnaire was validated by three experts. The internal consistency of IMCSQ was established using Cronbach Alpha and reliability coefficient values of 0.86, 0.81, 0.80, 0.82 and 0.79 were obtained for the five clusters with an overall reliability coefficient value of 0.82. On the spot completion and collection was adopted. Mean and standard deviation were used to answer the research questions and to determine the closeness of the respondents’’ means while t-Test and ANOVA were used to test the null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. Findings of the study revealed that manufacturing companies in Anambra State utilized advertising, sales promotion, direct marketing and personal selling as marketing communication strategies to a moderate extent but utilized public relations to a small extent. Findings of the study also revealed that level of education and status did not significantly influence the respondents’’ mean ratings on their extent of utilization of the five components of marketing communication strategies. Based on the findings of the study, it was concluded that the extent of utilization of integrated marketing communication strategies by manufacturing companies in Anambra State was not adequate for effective marketing of their products. It was recommended among others that business educators in tertiary institutions should be innovative in their instructional delivery by exposing their students to all components of marketing communication strategies to enable them successfully operate their own small and medium scale enterprises after graduation.

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