INTRODUCTION
Background to the Study
Marketing is the study of human activities directed at satisfying needs
and wants through a profitable exchange. Strategy is borrowed from
military literature which refers to a plan of action (Anyanwu, 2003). Of
all business activities or functions, none is as interested in the
consumer and his purchasing behavior as marketing. Marketing is
invariably connected with the research into consumers purchasing
behavior, namely what the consumers want, need, prefer and value, who
are the prospective consumers and where they live, their income and mode
of spending, how and why they make purchase decision and so on. In fact
the influencing of the buyer behavior is the primary task of the
marketing department in any organization (Inyanga, 2004).
Equally, marketing tries to define the right type of products in terms
of the company’s objectives and attempts to make it available at the
right place and at the right price, with the right promotions. This
performance of marketing functions involves basically marrying consumer
wants and with the appropriate products and services. It is the duty of
the firm to adopt appropriate marketing strategy to attract customers to
its products (Inyanga, 2004).
This is important because in a free market economy, the ultimate judge
of the firm performance is the consumer. Consumer purchasing behaviour
will determine the fate of the enterprise. This behaviour can best be
described by a marketing manager who can also tell how he will be
influence by market variables such as price, promotion, product
variation and distribution and place.
Effective marketing strategy requires decisions that successfully
integrate a firm marketing program towards satisfying the consumer whose
act in obtaining and using goods and services, including his decision
process that precede and determine those acts, are highly affected by
the strategy adopted by the marketing manager in marketing the firm’s
products (Kotler and Armstrong, 2006).
Since the performance of marketing functions involves basically marrying
consumer needs and wants the appropriate product and services, and since
it is generally believed that marketing begins and ends with the
consumer, this project therefore attempt to examine how the use of
marketing strategies have generated sales for small scale enterprises
following its impact on sales performance . Efforts are therefore made
to show the relationship between sales turnover and amount spent on
marketing activities and its resultant impact on sales performance. We
shall also concentrate on establishing how consumer purchasing behavior
is influenced by a firm’s strategy for accomplishing marketing
objectives and plans. Also, the designing of marketing mix strategy,
centering on product strategy, distribution policy, pricing and
promotional strategies will be examined.