The development in the banking industry in the present age are fast changing and at the same time taking an aggressive posture whereby success in the industry is only for the most aggressive and innovative operators in the game. The dramatic changes taking place in the industry have further hardened the competition, therefore making it intensive and a survival of the fittest. The zero sum nature of the competition resulting from the interactors of complex environmental factors such as political, social, cultural and economical, all operate to influence the operators in the industry. Banks whether commercial or merchant, big or small, government or private-owned, cannot be stagnant in their operations especially in the area of rendering services to the public. But as a necessity has to strive to keep pace with the changes in the industrial competitive environment.
As a result of the generic environmental influences, most banks are involved in the practice of strategic marketing in order to achieve their desired objectives. For example, most of these new generation banks are adopting aggressive marketing strategy as an optimum strategy to reach to their customers. This objective is achieved if bank management can find out the needs and wants of their target customers and at the same time, fashioning out products and services to meet the needs of these target customers at a profit to the bank. In the present day, banks especially First Bank of Nigeria Plc practice strategic marketing in diverse ways such as in new product development, by providing special incentives to stimulate customers' patronage.
Gone are the days when banks rely heavily on their capital base as a prerequisite for customers' patronage. The idea of marketing is to tell people about the product on sale, the benefits and the reasons why the product is preferable to others. Therefore, for any bank to achieve appreciable degree of success in the banking sector in Nigeria competitive business environment, it must devote a lot of time, personnel and money to seek and service their
customers satisfactorily more than their competitors.
The central focus in the project is to ascertain the effectiveness of marketing of banking services in a competitive environment using First Bank of Nigeria Plc as a case study. The Bank as one of the banks in the industry, has developed and introduced some technologies in the banking sector especially in areas of customer services, efficiency and general operations to stimulate staff to put in more efforts towards her customers satisfaction which is the foundation for her existence.
It is indisputable fact that the industry is so competitive that survival is for the fittest, therefore achieving the objectives of any bank, especially First Bank in the set up, and at the same time meeting up the demands of teeming customers, is not mere practicing the banking business.
That is, it goes beyond the mere banking operations, it includes carving out marketing strategies to get to and maintain their target customers and attract prospective ones. Furthermore, major strategic marketing policies of the bank will be reviewed and the advantage to be of high value to both the bank and her customers in general and marketing students in particular, because of its literary contribution to knowledge.
