ABSTRACT

Management of most money deposit banks in Nigeria do not really believe that the huge investment on marketing communication pays off and as such, find it very difficult to adopt an appropriate tool to carry out this pertinent function. In order to address the above identified loophole, the study was set out to ascertain the effect of marketing communication mix on customer patronage of commercial banking services. However, specIcally, the study was geared to ascertain the effect qf advertising on customer loyalty, to examine the extent to which personal selling enhances customer patronage and to determine the effect of sales promotion on customer patronage. The stusy adopted survey research design, which involves the distribution of questionnaire to elicit favourable response. The sample size was 100 respondents. Data generatedfrom respondents was analyzed using analytical tools like correlation and regression analysis with the aid of Statistical Package for Social Sciencs (20.0). the outcome provided the followingjindings: there is signifIcant relationship between advertising and customer loyalty of deposit money banks, this is considering the fact that customers likes constant persuasion and refreshing their memories about the existence of a particular product or service; to a large extent, as the firm increases their personal selling efforts, it tends to enhance customer patronage and it was ascertained that sales promotion is key fbr customer patronage and hence, there exist a significant relationship between the two variables. Based on the findings of this study, the researcher, therefote, concludes that effective and efficient marketing communication influences customer patronage offIrins in the financial sector. A ndfor sustainable customer patronage, they should always improve on their promotional mix and also have sound knowledge of their current and potential customers as this will guide them to determine the best promotional mix element to use for a given market segment. Therefore, the following recommendations were made: Firms in the financial industry should take cognizance of the impact of each of their marketing communication mix element as they influence the level of customer satisfaction and customer perceived value with services rendered and overall marketing performance; the deposit money banks should fully integrate an encompassing promotional mix that helps them attain predetermined communication objectives, as this will enhance customer patronage and customer loyalty; effective and efficient monitoring policies should be put in place for measuring the performance of these communication elements as it will reduce the high risk bearing and risk taking which is inherent in the firm 's marketing communication process and financial firms should incorporate more favorable promotional activities that will cause consumers to always sort for services as basis for closing sales.