Strengthening Sales Performance and Consumer loyalty through Sales Promotion: An Empirical Investigation

Abstract

The continuing economic crises have placed heavy burdens on Nigerian managers in finding strategies for improved organizational performance. The decreasing revenue from oil, the unbaiting rise in unemployment, the depreciating value of the naira in foreign exchange market, weak purchasing power, among others have dampened the demand for goods and services in the country. In order to survive and beat competition in short term and perhaps prosper in the long run, Nigerian managers are falling on sales promotion as a viable strategic alternative. The study was carried out to determine the effect of sales promotion on customer loyalty and sales volume. The study made use of both primary and secondary data. The primary was collected through the use of structured questionnaires administered to 117 respondents who were customers of three manufacturing firms in Lagos. The secondary data was sourced from the sales department of one of the firms due to inability to get data from the other two firms. A quantitative research method was used to determine the extent to which sales promotion influenced sale volume in the short run. A six month Sales figures (6months pre and post promotion of a manufacturing company with head office in Lagos Nigeria were collected and used for the study. The paired sample Ttest of difference of means was used to determine if there were significant differences in mean sales figures within the corresponding periods. The results of the tests reveal that sales promotion increased sales volume and figure significantly from its pre promotion period, and increased customer loyalty. The study recommends that organizations should strategically and systematically take advantage of sales promotion in getting the best out of the present economic woes.