A Comparative Study of Marketing Plans and Strategies of Small Scale Enterprises in Imo State of Nigeria.

Abstract

Small scale enterpises in Imo State of Nigeria operating in the Nigerian business environment do so with practically no recorded plans and strategies. Most of these organisations are successful, still competitive and with the desire and potentials for future growth and expansion of their market shares even with no documented marketing plans and strategies. The success of these enterprises with no proper planning and recorded marekting plans and strategies does not suggest that effective marketing plans and strategies are irrelevant among the big and small enterprises whether in Nigeria and or elsewhere. The objectives of this research has been to investigate the different marketing plans and strategies adopted by the small enterprises in Imo State, how they are implemented, the constraints facing them and make some useful suggestions on how they would become more operational and efficient. Both the Secondary data and primary data were collected for this work. While the secondary data came from journals, periodicals and other texts, the primary information came from the questions and answers received from the organizations studied. Both the exploratory, descriptive and survey research designs were used while written questionnaires were set out to and collected from the respondents. Tables were used to analyze data collected withe the x2 statistics was employed to test the few hypotheses formulated. It was found, from his research work, that majority of the small firms in Imo State do not have recorded marketing plans and strategies even thought their managements have plans and adopt one form of strategy or the other to succeed in the marketplace. These firms seen not to recognize the importance of documented plans and strategies, lack of personnel to do the jobs and do not want to mortgage their future by following some stereo-typed procedures. However, some of the firms have good product planning and developments, good pricing structure and distribution patterns in addition to some form of promotional tools and strategies to compete successfully. In addition, few of these firms conduct marketing research while the rest seem to see no reasons for such a marketing effort. Lack of time and personnel, no knowledge of a known method of researching and the high unaffordable costs involved in conducting marketing researches among these firms are some mentioned reasons. On the information collected from the field work and compares with the data from the secondary source of information, the small scale enterprises in Imo State need to adopt some extra marketing strategies to succeed in the present and future business environment of Nigeria.