EFFECT OF PERSONAL SELLING AND MARKETING ON SALES GROWTH

EFFECT OF PERSONAL SELLING AND MARKETING ON SALES GROWTH

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Personal selling is an important component of the overall marketing strategy of an organization. According to Adamu (200) personal selling is the presentation of a persuasive message by selling to a potential customer or group of customers, personal selling can also take place through personal correspondence telephone conversation or email.

Personal selling is an effective communication with potential buyers of a product with the intention of promoting sales. Personal selling may focus initially on developing a relationship with the consumers and potential buyers of a product. This relationship ultimately ends with an attempt to “close the sales†(Okoh, 2009).

The oldest form of promotion is personal selling. It involves the use of a sales force to encourage intermediaries to buy the product or a pull strategy where an organization may be limited to supporting retailers and providing after sales services. Personal selling is designed to present a form of face-to-face communication, personal correspondence, or a personal telephone conversation, unlike advertising a personal sales message can be justified. For example, the marketing of a sophisticated computer system may require the use of personal selling, while the introduction of a new products are door-to-door  selling and home demonstration parties. These two personal selling methods are primarily used for personal care products, cosmetics, cookware, encyclopedias, books, toys foods and other items of special interest to home markets. Ideally, personal selling should be supported by advertising to strengthen its impact. Delivery of a specially desired message to a prospect by a seller usually in the form of face to face communication, personal correspondence, or a personal telephone conversation, unlike advertising, a personal sale message can be more specifically targeted to individual prospects and easily altered if the desired behaviour does not occur.

However, inspite of the importance of personal selling to the overall marketing strategy of an organization, previous studies have indicated that organization do not hold it to a high esteem like other promotional tool. For example Emena (2006) in her study of problem and prospect of personal selling in business enterprise, observed that most companies in Nigeria seldom used personal selling to promote their product or do not channel the required resources to it.
It is against this background that the researcher sees the subject matter worthy of investigation.

STATEMENT OF PROBLEM

Inspite of the importance of personal selling in sales promotion, scholars in Nigeria have done few empirical investigations on the subject matter. Although a lot of researches on sales promotion study personal selling as a component or segment of such empirical work. This has created a gap in the study of personal selling from a broad perspective (Okoh,2008).

Hence, Personal selling is neglected by so many companies in Nigeria. This is sequel to the fact that personal selling fail to realize its objectives in most companies in Nigeria (Okoh, 2007), this failure may be attributed to the poor capital budget, poor sales management and ineffective sales campaign. It is against this, that the researcher seek to carry out an empirical investigation on the subject matter to cover this gap.

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

The central objective of this research is to examine the effect of personal selling on sales growth in Dansa food. The specific objectives of the study are:

To determine how personal selling affects sales growth in Dansa food limited.

To find out the effect of personal selling on customer satisfaction and retention.

To determine how personal selling affect sales volume in Dansa foods limited.

To identify the problems militating against personal selling in Dansa food limited.