MARKETING ACTIVITIES AND FAITH BASED ORGANIZATIONS

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Introduction

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1.1. Background of the study

Marketing is an integral part of any organization. This would help increase customer base and make an organization very popular if adequately and properly done. Marketing is the action or business ofpromoting and selling products or services, including market research and advertising( Wikipedia). It can also be a process for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offeringsthat have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large. Organizations that want to be successful must do all it can to have an effective and efficient marketing network. There are various marketing activities that organizations can employ to boost patronage. They are;

Relationship Marketing

Relationship marketing can be highly effective, but it also requires a great deal of commitment on the part of those doing the marketing. Relationship marketing occurs over a period of time, creating a long-term strategy that addresses every stage of the customer cycle. It delivers the message of the business to customers on an ongoing basis, often requiring a daily commitment from the business. Relationship marketing activities include such practices as welcoming customers, soliciting feedback, creating customer loyalty programs, emails thanking customers for purchases and individual meetings with high-volume customers or influencers.

Online Marketing

Online marketing has been the hottest trend of the past decade. Many small businesses have found it especially effective because they can control their marketing budget while targeting niche markets. Some initial online marketing strategies include pay-per-click advertising, banner advertising, email marketing and search engine-optimized website content. Social networking sites have also become sources for online marketing for businesses of all sizes. Social networking marketing on such sites as Twitter and Facebook are very low in cost, but require a great deal of time commitment, as frequent updates contribute to greater success.

Traditional Marketing

Online marketing has not completely supplanted more traditional marketing methods, in no small part because many of them remain effective ways to reach an audience and to create several different impressions. Traditional marketing activities include hosting customer events, participating in the community, creating television and radio spots, sending out direct mail, renting billboards, sending costumed employees out with billboards to wave in customers and taking out print advertisements in newspapers, magazines and trade journals.

Other Types of Marketing

Marketing centers on the customer, which means there are nearly as many different types of marketing as there are types of customers. The way to reach a particular market segment will depend on the characteristics of the people within that segment. For some, such things as newsletter marketing will be effective, while other niches respond better to messages delivered at trade shows or through personal referrals. Guerilla marketing refer to such practices as organizing a rave or creating an iPhone app. Other marketing types include affiliate marketing, viral marketing, database marketing or promotional marketing. One important key to creative marketing choices is that a business can choose only those activities that are in harmony with the image it wants to portray.

Faith based organizations

Faith based organizations are organizations based on a particular religious ideology, has religiously oriented mission statements and often draws its activists (leaders, staff, volunteers) from a particular religious group(Wikipedia).

“Faith-based organization” currently acts as broad shorthand for a wide spectrum of organizations that deserve more specific treatment in the academic literature. Those who have attempted to move beyond a brief dictionary-style definition frequently turn to a typology format to accommodate the diversity of organizations. This recognizes the relevance of the concept of religious integration: organizations incorporate religion “in a variety of ways and intensities.” The two typologies discussed below represent the kinds of broad criteria researchers find useful and important.

Steven Rathgeb Smith and Michael R. Sosin’s 2001 typology rejects the term “faith-based” in favor of “faith-related,” arguing that the more common term is too exclusive and would preclude the typology from addressing the full range of organizations with religious connections. They identify three major sources of constraint: resources, authority, and culture. Organizations and faith “couple” along these dimensions, to varying degrees. Smith and Sosin derived their data from a case study of social service organizations in Seattle and Chicago. They described coupling variance among organizations categorized by mission, service focus, and bureaucracy. Smith and Sosin note that all of the organizations they studied maintain ties with secular culture and frequently encourage greater government responsibility for the poor; most faith-related organizations also attempted to mitigate concerns about desecularization through deliberate resource choices.

In 2004, Ronald Sider (a leading evangelical scholar in the field of development and social justice) and Heidi Rolland Unruh produced a typology based on case studies of domestic community service organizations. Their work offered distinct criteria for organizations and programs, rightly noting that programs run by religious organizations may be completely free of religious references, and vice versa. Sider and Unruh separated organizations into six different categories (listed from most to least faith-based): faith-permeated, faith-centered, faith-affiliated, faith-background, faith-secular partnership, and secular. They described categorical archetypes according to eight criteria, including mission statement, board member and staff selection, and financial support. Programs and projects were placed into identical categories using criteria such as religious program content and expectation of religious outcome. Sider and Unruh offer the caveat that their criteria deliberately address only the “tangibly expressive ways” organizations incorporate religion and do not address personal issues of belief and motivation, since the former are both more visible and controversial.

Much of the current academic literature on this topic reflects the researchers’ concern with (and access to) U.S.-oriented groups. Less work has been done on faith-based organizations with an international relief and development focus. Nevertheless, general definitional concerns are roughly similar, especially for global organizations with Nigerian roots.

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1.2. Statement of the general problem

The activities of faith based organizations in Nigeria have witnessed a steady decline in patronage due to religious inclination of Nigerians. Since it’s a proven fact that marketing improves other organizations that are not faith based.

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1.3. Aims and objectives of the study

The following are the aims and objectives of carrying out this research work:

1. To know if marketing can actually arrest the low patronage of customers.
2. To know if there is a relationship between marketing activities and faith based organizations in Port Harcourt.
3. To advice the public on the inevitability of marketing.

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1.4. Significance of the study

A major importance of this study is to advice faith based organizations in port Harcourt on proven ways of improving patronage by strategic marketing. This study would also unveil the unique relationship between marketing and faith based organizations in Port Harcourt.

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1.5. Scope and limitation of the study

This study is restricted to the garden city of port Harcourt, rivers state and its focused on the effect of marketing activities on faith based organizations. Financial and time constraint in getting the enough data from respondents was a major limitation of this work.

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1.6. Research questions

1. Is there a relationship between marketing activities and the level of patronage of faith based organizations?
2. Do faith based organizations need to employ adequate marketing strategies to improve their level of patronage?
3. Is there a significant impact of marketing activities on faith based organizations in Port Harcourt?

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1.7. Research hypothesis

1. H0: there is no significant relationship between marketing activities and performance of faith based organizations in Port Harcourt.
   H1: there is a significant relationship between marketing activities and performance of faith based organizations in Port Harcourt.
2. H0: there is no significant impact of marketing activities and faith based organizations.
   H1: there is a significant impact of marketing activities and faith based organizations.

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1.8. Definition of terms

Faith based organization (FBO):

Organization based on a particular religious ideology, has religiously oriented mission statements and often draws its activists (leaders, staff, volunteers) from a particular religious group.

Marketing:

This is about communicating the value of a product, service or brand to customers or consumers for the purpose of promoting or selling that product, service, or brand. The oldest – and perhaps simplest and most natural form of marketing – is ‘word of mouth’ (WOM) marketing, in which consumers convey their experiences of a product, service or brand in their day-to-day communications with others. These communications can of course be either positive or negative.

Marketing Activity:

Marketing activities are nothing but how you are going to handle the marketing mix (price, product, place, promotion, positioning, people, physical evidence) in order to market your product successfully. The various activities involved in handling the above mentioned comprises the marketing activities.

Organization:

This is an entity comprising multiple people, such as an institution or an association, that has a collective goal and is linked to an external environment.