A comparative analysis of marketing strategies in commercial banks in Uganda: A case of Barclays Bank and Centenary Bank

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to conduct a comparative analysis of marketing strategies employed by Barclays Bank and Centenary Bank Uganda. The study was motivated by the fact that marketing is the life blood for survival of an enterprise since it invites new customers and maintains the old one, it is widely acceptable by scholars, policy makers and entrepreneurs. The study was guided by five research objectives which include:- to identify the strategies employed in marketing financial products, to find out how the marketing strategies have affected the banks’ performance, to compare the effects of the marketing strategies, to find out the most pressing challenges in marketing financial products and design possible solutions to improve the marketing strategies employed in Barclays Bank and Centenary Bank in Uganda. The study used a quantitative research designs which was cross-sectional and non-experimental in nature. Units of analysis were customers and staff. Primary data was collected using structured questionnaires anchored on likert scaled range. Data from questionnaire was analyzed using SPSS to generate descriptive statistics including mode, mean, standard deviation, correlation and simple regression. Findings from the study indicate that both banks use the marketing strategies with the difference on prioritization of corporate social responsibility which was more prioritized with Centenary bank than Barclays whereas Barclays bank prioritize more on use of clear vision and bill boards to market the financial products. Results from the correlation revealed that market strategies had a positive statistically significant effect on the commercial banks’ performance. Nonetheless from simple regression analysis, it was established that financial product marketing strategies had a statistically significant effects on performance of the banks at 1% level and 5% level of significance for Centenary bank and Barclays bank respectively. It was concluded that both banks need to harmonize the use of all financial product marketing strategies because of their significant influence on the performance of the commercial banks. However, price strategy should be implemented with caution because of its negative effects on profits. The study recommends that commercial banks should adhere to the use of local language depending on the familiar language used by the majority of the people in the target geographical area.