Abstract:
The major purpose of this study was to determine the marketing strategies utilized by Small and Medium Scale Enterprises in marketing their products in Enugu State Metropolis. The study adopted survey research design. The population consisted of three hundred and thirty five respondents made up of managers and entrepreneurs of registered small and medium enterprises in Enugu metropolis. The entire population was studied. Five research questions were answered and three hypotheses were formulated and tested at 0.05 level of significance. A structured questionnaire was the main data-gathering instrument. The research instrument was subjected to face validation by three lecturers in the department of Vocational Teacher Education, University of Nigeria, Nsukka. The reliability coefficient of the instrument was 0.852 which was calculated using Cronbach Alpha Reliability Test. The research questions were analyzed using frequency count and Mean. The five utilized marketing strategies were: 1) product development strategies, 2)pricing strategies 3)promotional strategies 4)distribution strategies and 5)customer-management-relationship strategies. The findings among others include: SMEs always differentiate their products in different sizes and shapes; they very often utilize new product pricing strategies in the form of penetrating and skimming pricing for products in the introductory stage of their life cycle. Beyond concentrating on increasing sales and marketing shares through the satisfaction of customers, the SMEs try to maintain a good working relationship with the employees, customers and the neighboring communities in which they operate, to guarantee their confidence in their organizations. There was no significant difference in the opinion of entrepreneurs and managers of SMEs on the extent to which SMEs adopt these marketing strategies to a very large extent, but not completely. It was recommended among others that SMEs in Enugu metropolis should completely adopt the use of marketing strategies so as to improve on their knowledge of their customers, improve sales and at the same time, their profit margin.
