Promotional strategy of diving adventure limited to enhance product and service awareness and create sales referrals in hong kong

e. customer awareness and sales referrals. The results showed that there was a negative relationship between promotional strategies and the organization’s performance based on customer awareness and sales referrals. Table of Contents ABSTRACT 2 Chapter One: Introduction 5 1. Background 5 1. Product Awareness 12 2. Sales Referrals 13 2. Congruency Theory 14 2. Persuasion Theory 15 2. Conceptual Framework 15 Chapter Three: Research Methodology 17 3. Promotional Strategies at Diving Adventure 22 4. Effect of Promotional Strategies at Diving Adventure 22 4. Promotional Strategies from Customer Perspectives 23 4. Effectiveness of Promotional Strategies on Awareness and Sales Referrals 24 4. Discussion 24 Chapter Five: Summary, Recommendations, and Conclusion 27 5. Majority of organizations adopt advertising, personal selling, sales promotion, and publicity to appeal to different types of customers. The main aim of adopting promotional strategies is to generate more traffic of customers on a company’s products or services.

The most effective way of measuring this is through the level of product or service awareness among members of the public and the number of sales referrals generated per customer (Gupta & Mittal, 2008). An organization is able to gauge the performance of its promotion strategies based on the information the customers have about a product and their ability to use the value proposition to spread the word about the commodities. Diving Adventure Overview Founded in 1998, Diving Adventure is a company that located at Lockhart Road, Hong Kong. To achieve this, it engages in different marketing strategies aimed at reaching out to new markets and customers. The company, as a result, has adopted different promotional strategies that target customers in Hong Kong and across the world.

Problem Statement Although Diving Adventure has several promotional strategies targeting the Hong Kong market, the marketing department is often faced with the problem of identifying the value of those strategies. Understanding the effect of the promotional strategies adopted is of vital significance to any organization across the world. The effectiveness of promotional strategies is based viewed in the most immediate reactions from customers. What promotional strategies are used by Diving Adventure? II. What is the relationship between promotional strategies and customer awareness of products and services? III. What is the relationship between promotional strategies and sales referrals at Diving Adventure? Chapter Two: Literature Review 2. Introduction In this section, a review of existing literature on concepts of promotional strategies that enhance product awareness and create sales referrals is done.

Promotional Strategy Brassington and Pettitt (2007) define a promotional strategy as the direct way through which an organization communicates its products or services to its customers. Advertising According to Adekunle (2014), advertising is being able to present to an audience a product or service by using non-personal, paid-for, sponsor-identified message. It is used in communicating business information to a specific targeted audience. An advertising message often contains information about the product, it uses and the key value proposition to customers. It is the most effective way of introducing customers to new products or services or informing them of changes that have been implemented on them. Adekunle (2014) identified different forms of advertising as use of televisions, internet, public speaking events, radio, and newspapers. The personal sellers were each given certain targets by their organization and it was up to them to apply their skills achieving high performance.

The results showed that those who had good people skills and social skills attracted more customers which in turn resulted in better performance against their targets. Sales Promotion This is an initiative undertaken by an organization and aimed at promoting sales. Sales promotion is a tactical marketing strategy that is often aimed at meeting specific sales targets. According to Mendez et al. However, the results indicated that there was no effect on the non-financial performance indicators of the company. Publicity Xie and Peng (2010) conducted a study to identify the effect of corporate publicity on customer relationships with a brand. Their study centers the effect of corporate ability and social responsibility as publicity techniques. Firstly, the define publicity as the process of gaining public awareness and visibility for a product or service by using the media.

Publicity is letting other people talk about the product on behalf of the company. The way customers feel about a company’s commodities is important as it decides whether they are capable of purchasing their products or services. Organizations strive to improve their brands to appeal to different types of customers. This, according to Macdonald and Sharp (2000), is achieved through clear articulation of the value proposition of the products or services through promotional strategies like advertising and publicity. Secondly, product or service awareness is achieved by ensuring customers discover or learn about the products (Lu et al. As Bailey (2005) notes, it depends on the promotional strategies an organization adopts. Sales referrals, according to Tuk et al. occurs when an organization uses customers to generate new leads to other potential customers.

These customers are required to provide contacts of other potential customers who may be willing to purchase a company’s product or services. This is often done after successful sales have been completed. In other instances, sales referrals occur during after-sale services when customer care agents are evaluating customer experiences with products or services. also indicated that congruency is applied more in utilitarian products or services as more utilitarian benefits were provided. This was mostly in the case of monetary promotions. In non-monetary promotions, hedonic products provide more hedonic benefits to customers. Congruency is dependent on the product or service being promoted by an organization. In utilitarian products, for instance, customers value price cuts more than they value free gifts while in hedonic products, gifts are more effective than price cuts.

This in turn results into an attitude towards a product. Attitudes will eventually give birth to customer behavior, which may come in the form of repetitive purchases or referral to other potential customers. Conceptual Framework The different promotional strategies that have been discussed above can be modelled into a conceptual framework as shown in the figure below Figure 1: Conceptual Framework From the figure above, the conceptual framework outlines the relationship between promotional strategies and organization performance in terms of product awareness and sales referrals. The framework, however, does not include an interception of unilateral casual relationships brought about by spurious associations that can impact an organization’s business environment like image differences, culture receptiveness and legal considerations. Chapter Three: Research Methodology 3.

It is also the most effective design that aids in addressing the research questions in this study. Population This study targets customers and employees of Diving Adventure Limited in Hong Kong. The company has over 100 employees in Hong Kong and serves unlimited number of customers in the region and abroad. Sample and Sampling Technique According to Kotrlik and Higgins (2001), a sample is a population’s subset. It contains majority of the characteristics of a population. They included existing literature on the concept of promotional strategies and the relevant theories used. Data Analysis Data that was collected through the means of a questionnaire was compiled by the researcher. Data collected was presented in tables and analyzed through different statistical tools. In this study, the analysis of the data collected was done through the use of measures of central tendency and correlation analysis.

Ethical Issues Although this study was conducted successfully, it however, had a few ethical challenges. A total of 20 questionnaires were handed to the Diving Adventure offices. The questionnaires targeted officials and employees at the organization with enough knowledge about the rural electrification project. In response, all the questionnaires that were provided to Diving Adventure were properly answered and returned to the researcher. This represents 100% response rate. Based on the requirements of the study, this response rate was considered to be adequate for generating conclusive analysis of the collected data. Demographic information, source: Research In the biodata section of the questionnaire, the respondents were required to provide their age, location, and diving interests. To adhere to the ethical standards of the study, the researcher only targeted adults who were over the age of 18 years in the region.

From the questionnaires received, 50% of the respondents were over 18 years but less than 30. Respondents who were over 31 years but less than 45 accounted for 30% while those who were over 46 but less than 60 accounted for 20%. There were no respondents over 60 years. In the findings, all the employees stated that they were aware of all the four promotional strategies i. e. advertising, sales promotion, personal selling, and publicity. More than 50% of the respondents added public relations as another promotional strategy that they knew about. In terms of the promotional strategies that were applicable at the organization, 75% of the employees agreed that advertising, personal selling, and sales promotion were widely used by Diving Adventure. Promotional strategies used have an impact on the sales referrals 0 20% 30% 20% 30% Table 4.

Effect of promotional Strategies on Diving Adventure From table 4. above, it is also evident that 45% of the respondents strongly agreed that promotional strategies applied by the organization were effective in generating sales for the company. agreed, while 15% of the employees were not sure. of the respondents disagreed that the promotional strategies had an effect on the sales of the company. As summarized in table 4. below, respondents who strongly agreed accounted for 20% of all the respondents. agreed, 20% were unsure, 25% disagreed while 10% strongly disagreed. Cumulatively, more than 50% of all those who respondents were at least not sure whether the promotional strategies used by Diving Adventure were effective in creating awareness. SD D N A SA 1. It shows that the provisions of the persuasion theory have worked in this area.

Furthermore, respondent employees agreed that the promotional strategies created awareness. It is always the desire of organizations to persuade customers to gain interests in their products or services. In this case, it is clear that employees feel the promotional strategies create awareness to customers. In terms of customer perceptions, the persuasion theory seems to not be effective in explaining the relationship between the promotional strategies applied and the effect on sales referral and awareness. In this case, for instance, the price could fail to match the expectations of the customers in terms of the monetary benefits they expect to receive. In this case, the price may be too high for the customers creating a sense of dissatisfaction. Chapter Five: Summary, Recommendations, and Conclusion 5.

Introduction This chapter aims at evaluating the entire study in order to identify if the key objectives were fulfilled or not. The section provides a summary of the results of the research and recommendations based on the interpretation of the researcher. Results showed that customers did not rely on the promotional strategies to refer the company to their friends and families after purchasing a product or a service. Recommendations Based on the findings of the study as outlined in chapter 4 above, there is need for change. Diving Adventure needs to adopt changes in its marketing department aimed at creating effectiveness of the company’s products and services. Based on the information collected and analyzed in this study, the following recommendations have been proposed; a) Diving Adventure should come up with different messaging to attract customers.

Use of specific similar messages in creation of awareness might have resulted in lower customer awareness from customers. In turn, this will result in increased sales referrals. e) Diving Adventure should engage in consumer franchise-building promotions through frequent programs that encourage repeat purchases among customers. This will help build a long-term brand preference for its customers. The customers, upon developing loyalty to specific brands, will engage in sales referrals by recommending friends and families members that could be interested in the products. f) The company must also adopt nonfranchise-building promotions that will help fasten the purchasing decision process. A. Consumer awareness and use of product review websites.  Journal of Interactive Advertising, 6(1), 68-81. Bator, R. Cialdini, R. Journal of Marketing, 64(4), 65-81 Drennan, J.

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Stewart, G. Wigboldus, D. H. Sales and sincerity: The role of relational framing in word-of-mouth marketing.  Journal of Consumer Psychology, 19(1), 38-47. Verbeke, W. D. Personal selling and sales management: A relationship marketing perspective.  Journal of the academy of marketing science, 27(2), 241. Xie, Y. Peng, S. Please respond to the following by indicating whether you Strongly agree, agree, neutral, disagree, or strongly disagree Use SD=Strongly disagree D=Disagree N=Neutral A=Agree SA=Strongly Agree SD D N A SA 4. Promotional Strategies used are effective in creating awareness 5. Promotional Strategies used are effective in generating sales 6. Promotional strategies used have an impact on the sales referrals Part II: Customer Questionnaire A: Background Information 1. What is your Age? Please Tick where applicable.