Integrated Marketing Communication and Performance of Kenya Post and Savings Bank

This study examines the Integrated Marketing Communication and Performance of Post Office Savings Bank Nairobi. Integrated marketing Communication is an integral factor in the success of any firm and therefore a great deal of professionalism is required of the provider due to ever-increasing competition. It’s no longer enough to use Traditional advertising but it requires integrated marketing communication where all tools of communication mix was integrated to bring results of performance, a lot has been done to build a strong focused by creating awareness, improving sales, branch expansion, customer loyalty and recruiting of new customers through the use of integrated marketing communication. The main objective of the study is to find out whether Advertising, Sales Promotion Personal selling; Direct Marketing and Public relation is used to improve performance in the bank. The research design was descriptive in nature. Stratified proportionate random sampling technique was used to select the sample. From each stratum the study used simple random technique to select 80 respondents. Data collection instrument was using questionnaires with both closed and open ended questions. Data from 80 employees was analyzed to determine Integrated Marketing Communication effects on performance The data was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics and presented using tables, graphs, pie charts. SPSS v. 20 was used to process the data. Findings show that advertising, direct marketing, personal selling, sales promotion and public relations enhance the company’s performance by enhancing customer attraction, customer loyalty, sales volumes, branch expansion and reminding customers of the bank’s products. The study recommends that management take seriously strategies that can improve the execution of these IMC tools as they are crucial to performance of the company.


Background of the Study
Integrated marketing communication is the strategic coordination of all marketing messages and the alignment of methods of communication to customers be they consumers or other targeted, relevant (external and internal) audiences (Peltier, Schibrowsky, & Schultz, 2003). Schultz, in Jones (1999) defines IMC as 'a planning approach that attempts to co-ordinate, consolidate and bring together all the communications messages, programmes, and vehicles that affect customers or prospects for a manufacturer or service organization's brands'. Integrated Marketing communication has evolved as marketers have moved away from traditional mass media based communications strategies, towards those that are most personalized, customer-oriented and technologydriven (Palgrave, 2000). It combines these disciplines to provide clarity, consistency, and maximum communication impact Marketing communications helps to define an organization's relationship with its customers. This emphasizes the strategic importance of such communication and its longterm effect on consumers. Communication models act as predictive guides, but in the end it is important to recognize the autonomy and unpredictability of consumers (Messah & Immaculate, 2011). Integrated marketing communication is a concept on marketing communication planning that recognizes the added value of a comprehensive plan and evaluates the strategic roles of variety of communications disciplines such as advertising, direct marketing, sales promotion and public Performance of Kenya Post and Savings Bank relations in an effort to provide clarity, consistency and maximum communication impact (Eagle & Kitchen, 2000). According to Kotler (2005), there have been very few studies conducted in relation to the relevance, significant and meaning of marketing communications in the context of small and medium size enterprise. This situation may have changed over the years but still the case in the context of SMEs in Zimbabwe. The management of SMEs do not emphasize the promotion of goods and services. There is no proper planning in promoting their product and services (GOZ, 2009). Lahti and Beyerlein (2000) argue that marketing communications (MC) tools can create competitive advantage, boost sales and profits, while saving money, time and stress. MC wraps communications around customers and helps them move through the various stages of the buying process. The organization simultaneously consolidates its image, develops a dialogue and nurtures its relationship with customers. This 'Relationship Marketing' cements a bond of loyalty with customers, which can protect them from the inevitable onslaught of competition. The ability to keep a customer for life is a powerful competitive advantage (Messah & Immaculate, 2011). Richard et al. (2009), states that organizational performance encompasses three specific areas of firm outcomes, that is financial performance (return on assets and return on investment), product market performance (sales and market share) and shareholder return (total shareholder return and economic value added). The ultimate goal of strategy is longterm, sustaining, and superior performance (de Kluyver & Pearce 2006). Such superior performance now depends on the ability of manufacturing organization to become a fully integrated partner within a supply chain context (Cooper et al, 1997). In Tanzania, microfinance sector has recently experienced tremendous growth due to the increased number of firms engaging in microfinance services including commercial banks and other profit oriented firms. The microfinance mostly focused on financial performance of the institutions in terms of efficiency sustainability and profitability and they compare the achievement of the organization with intended objectives that was achieved (Kipesha, 2013). Organizations adopt a supply chain strategy with focus on how both internal and external business process can be integrated and coordinated throughout for better service to ultimate customers while enhancing the performance of the individual supply chain member (Cohen & Roussel, 2005). Manufacturing managers must learn to communicate, coordinate, and cooperate with supply chain partners (Gammalgaard &Larson, 2001). Organizations today undergo some structural, operational, and business strategic change with the aim of improving their performance. In pursuit of the goal of performance improvement within the public sector, new public management emphasis on the adoption of private sector practices in public institutions. New public models have therefore been invariably seen through the public service reform initiatives in many developing countries as the solution reversing failing services delivery. Kenya introduced performance contracting not only to improve service delivery but also to focus the mind set of public service away from a culture of inwards looking towards a culture of introducing performance management of corporate objectives, customer orientation and increased focus toward incremental productivity and cost reduction that can lead to improvement in service delivery (Obongo, 2009). Proctor & Kitchen (2002) state that in marketing communication, there has been a shift in emphasis from the individuality of advertising, sales promotion, personal selling and public relation to movement towards integrated marketing communication. According to Proctor and Kitchen (2002), questions have been raised concerning the organization itself as a brand rather than individualism brand in its own rights. Schultz and Kitchen (1997) argue that most marketing communications activities in the past have focused on breaking down concepts and activities into even more finite specialisms. Few marketing communications approaches have involved integration or holistic thinking. Whilst it is acknowledged that the pace of change towards the adoption of a holistic approach has been relatively slow, nonetheless, many practitioners and clients have moved progressively towards IMC. Smith (1996) states that 'Integrated marketing communications is a simple concept. It brings together all forms of communication into a seamless solution. At its most basic level, IMC integrates all promotional tools so that they work together in harmony. Fitzgerald (2000) States that the argument against IMC challenges, the approaches are being nothing more than traditional marketing and advertising dressed up in new clothes and given a new title. Such an argument suggest that integrated is nothing new, that it revolves around an academic argument and has few real managerial implications. Studies have been done and found that many organizations are shifting from normal marketing communication to IMC. In the case of Kenya Post Savings Bank, IMC has not been accepted and as a result of this, the bank is experiencing a lot competition in banking sector. This competition has forced Post bank to loss most of their customers to other banks and microfinance (Kenya Post Office Savings Bank, 2008). Post bank took a lot of time to install Automated Teller Machines (ATM) and eventually when it did customers who could not cope up with this automation since they were used to the manual Post Bank passbook opted to get there services elsewhere The researcher took a keen interest on how IMC improves performance in Post Bank.

Specific Objectives
i) To find out advertising effects on performance of Kenya Posts and Saving Bank.
ii) To establish how direct marketing influences performance of Kenya Posts and Saving Bank. iii) To determine the influence of sales promotion on performance of Kenya Posts and Saving Bank. iv) To examine public relations effect on performance of Kenya Posts and Saving Bank. v) To assess the level of influence personnel's selling has on performance of Kenya Posts and Saving Bank.

Theory of Reasoned Action
Godin,(1994) argued that the primary goals of the theory of reasoned action are to understand and therefore predicts social behaviors. To do this, the behavior must be clearly specified, under rational control and performed in a given situation. In addition, an assumption is made that the immediate and sole determinant of the behavior in question is the intention to perform or not to perform that behavior. Consequently, this theory interprets social behavior at the level of individual decision-making and is acceptable in interrogating integrated marketing communication.

Theory of Dagmar
Karisson, (2007) argued that he created Dagmar when he prepared a report for association of National Advertisers. This report was entitled "Defining Advertising Goals for Measured Advertising Results, shortened down to DAGMAR, and therefore of the name (Belch &Belch, 1995) and was later in 1969 published as a book with the same title. Dagmar was created to encourage measurable objectives for each stage of the communication (Smith & Taylor, 2002). Dagmar focuses on the level of understanding that a customer must fulfill for the organization and on how to measure the result of an advertising campaign (Belch & Belch, 1995). The Dagmar theory has had a huge influence on how to set objectives in the advertising planning process and many planners used these models as their base. However just as the other theory within advertising, Dagmar has been met with critique. One of the major critisms towards Dagmar is on its reliance on the hierarchy-of-effects theory. The main conclusion on the Dagmar theory was expressed in the following quotation "all commercial communications that weigh on the sale must carry a prospect through for level of understanding that the prospect must first be aware of the existence of a brand or an organization. Secondly, he must have a comprehension of what the product is and what do for him. Thirdly, he must arrive at a mental suspicion or conviction to buy the product and finally he must stir himself to action (Mackay, 2005)".

Theory of Persuasion
Understanding the effect of advertising, whether positive or negative on its audience is the focal point of persuasion theory. The general notion of persuasion has led to advances in other aspect of attitudes and persuasion research that have strong input on marketing and advertising research. Attitude certainly tends to increase when people perceive themselves as resisting a persuasive communication (Reid, M.2005)

Advertising and Performance
Any paid form of non-personal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods, or services by identified sponsor (Michael J. Baker 1991). According to kevin et al. (2009), advertising is any paid form of non-personal communication about an organization, good service or idea by an identified sponsor.  argued that advertisement deals with policies and procedures related to amount to spend. He then concluded that advertising attracts new customers to a company besides enhancing customer loyalty, as it seeks to make the brand well known to people. Perreault (2000) states that advertising seeks to promote the seller's products by means of publicizing them through different kinds of media like printed and electronic. Advertising budgets represents a large and growing element in the cost of goods and service. The use of interactive media in the market place is experiencing explosive growth. Unfortunately, high expectations have been replaced by disappointment with many companies becoming increasingly skeptical as to when, if ever, their interactive media efforts will turn profitable (Korganjor, 1999). Reminder advertising is important for mature products -its keeps consumers thinking about the product (Kottler, 2011). Mass media advertising has made advertising to be more precise, has played a major role in business to consumer marketing and enabled companies to meet communication and other marketing objectives. Kotler & Armstrong (2004) argued that direct marketing is the use of consumer direct channels to reach and deliver goods and service to customer without using marketing middlemen. These channels include direct mail, catalogs, telemarketing, interactive television, kiosk, websites, and mobile devices. It consists of direct connections with carefully targeted individual consumers to both obtain an immediate response and cultivate lasting customer relationships. Direct marketers communicate directly with customers, often on one-to-one, interactive basis. Using detailed database, they tailor their marketing offers and communications to the needs of narrowly defined segments or even individuals buyers (Ibid). Existing customers can be contacted to introduce them to new products and special offers, hence, affecting their loyalty while the new customers can be identified and encouraged to purchase products or services of a firm through direct channels (Van der Merwe, 2003). According to Peter & Donnelly (1998), Direct marketing has seen consumers increased use of the internet for purchasing many products. Direct marketing activities are often very effective in generating sales leads when a customer asks for more information about a product or service. Using detailed databases, they tailor their marketing offers and communicate to the needs of narrowly defined segments or even individuals (Kottler, 2006). Brubaker (2007) states that direct marketing ethical activities can be best fostered through leading with moral courage by creating an ethical business environment for direct marketing, efforts to make a conscious commitment that you and the organization will accept and adhere to high standards by adopting, leading with moral courage, hiring and promoting the right people and creating an ethical culture. Stanton et al. (1994) define sales promotion as a demandstimulation devices designed to supplement advertising and facilitate personal selling. The target for producers' sales promotions may be middlemen, end users-households or business users or the producers' own sales force (Peter & Donnelly, 1998). Perreault (2000) noted that sales promotion includes a wide assortment of tools-coupons, contest, centsoff deals, premium, and others -all of which have many unique qualities. They attract consumer attention, offer strong incentive to purchase, and can be used to dramatize product offers and boost sagging sales promotions -where advertising says "buy our product", sales promotion "says buy it now". Sales promotion effects are often short -lived, however, and often not as effective as advertising or personal selling in building long-run brand preference (Kotler, 2011). In fact, studies like Aliata et al. (2012) found a statistically significant relationship between sales promotion and performance. They established that sales promotion enhanced brand preference, which then enhanced brand performance hence high profits/performance. Push strategies involve aiming promotional efforts at distributors, retailers, and sales personnel to gain their cooperation in ordering, stocking, and accelerating the sales of a product. Pull strategies involve aiming promotional efforts directly at customers to encourage them to ask the retailer for the product (Peter & Donnelly, 1998). Stanton et al. (1994) talked about selecting the appropriate techniques in promotional devices, which include; the nature of the target audience, why they expect the target group to be loyal to the brand, the nature of the products, which lend itself to sampling, demonstration, or multiple -item purchase. Kerin et al. (1992) emphasis on the advantages of sales promotion in that the short-term nature of these programs often stimulates sales for the duration. Advertising support is needed to convert the customer who tried the product because of a sales promotion into a longterm buyer. According to Warren J. Keegen (2002), sales promotion refers to any consumer or trade program of limited duration that adds tangible value to a product or brands.

Public Relations and Performance
Etzel et al. (2007) emphasize that Public relations is a management tool designed to favorably influence attitudes towards an organization, its products, and its policies. It is an often overlooked form of promotion. Public relation is any form of commercially significantly news items about organizations, goods, medium that is not paid for by the sponsor, it is news carried in the media by the editor or reporter, and which has significant news value. Based on their position, managers know better the direction and vision of the company, hence, must ensure that the image the organization's activities portray is the most desired and in line with the company's objective and vision. Kerin (2009), states that public relations is a form of communication management that seeks to influence the feelings, opinions or beliefs held by customers, prospective customers, stock holders, suppliers, employees and other publics about a company and its products or services. Public relations managers prefer to focus on communicating positive news about the organization, but they must also be available to minimize the negative impacts of a crisis (Kotler & Armstrong 2005). There are several forms of publicity and they are news release that is an announcement regarding changes in the organization or product line, sometimes calls a press release and news conference, which involves meetings held for representatives of the media so that the organization can announce major news events such as new products, technologies, mergers, acquisitions and special events (Kotler, 2006). Public relations is the management function that establishes and maintains mutually beneficial relations between organizations and the public on whom its success or failure depends.

Personal Selling and Performance
According to Etzel et al. (2007) personal selling is a direct communication between a sales representative and one more prospective buyer in attempt to influence each other in a purchasing situation. According to Futrell (2008) Personal selling refers to the personal communication where one unselfishly persuades a prospective customer to buy something that satisfy the individual. It involves personal interaction between two or more people, so each person can observe the other needs and characteristics and make quick adjustments (Peter & Donnelly, 1998). Kotler (2006), states that Personal selling also allows all kind of relationships to spring up, ranging from matter-of-fact selling relationships to personal friendship. Personal selling is also the company's most expensive promotion tool, costing companies a lot of money (Dibb et al, 2001). Yeshin (2012) further adds that companies that effectively engage in personal selling enhance their performance by way of increasing sales of the company's products. Aliata et al. (2012) found that personal selling significantly related with profits of banks in a positive manner. Personal selling is a form of person-to-person communication, in which a seller attempts to assist and/or persuade perspective buyer to purchase the company's products and service (Van der Merwe, 2003). Personal selling is any face-to-face promotion of the company and its products to the customer's and is commonly used by suppliers (manufacturers and importers) to deal directly with retailers. It is the most effective tool at later stages of buying process (Dibb at el., 2001). According to Kerin, (2009), personal selling is the two way flow of communication between a buyer and a seller, designed to influence a person's or group's purchase decision. According to (Perreault, 2005) the importance of personal selling is that the clients can get more attention than advertisement or a display since the sales person can adjust what they say or do to the prospect's interest, needs, questions, and feedback.

Research Design
The study used descriptive design. Descriptive designs intend to produce accurate descriptions of variable relevant to the decision being faced, without demonstrating that some relationship exist between variables (Luck & Rubin, 1987). Descriptive studies are aimed at finding out 'what is'. Descriptive research can include multiple variables for study (Borg and Gall,1996). Description emerges following creative exploration and serves to organize the findings in order to fit them with explanations and then test or validate these explanations (Krathwoh, 1998). Kothari (2009) points out that descriptive research studies are concerned with specific predictions, narration of facts and characteristics concerning individuals, groups or situations. The descriptive design enabled the researcher identify integrated marketing communication variables effects on the performance of post office Savings Bank.

Target Population
The study was done at Post Bank's head office which has a total number of 450 employees as reflected in table 1.

Sampling Technique and Sample Size
Stratified sampling technique was used to sample between senior and junior staff. According to Deming (1990), stratified proportionate random sampling technique produces estimates of overall population parameters with greater precision and ensures a more representative sample is derived from a relatively homogenous population. The researcher then used simple random sampling to select 10 senior and 70 of junior staff. According to Cooper and Schindler (2003), random sampling frequently minimizes the sample error in the population.

Data Collection Instruments
The data collection was done using questionnaires. The questionnaire included both open-ended and closed questions. Gay (1992) maintains that questionnaires give respondent's freedom to express their views or opinion and to make suggestions. The questions in each subsection of the questionnaire were unique to each of the variables as they sought to establish how integrated marketing communications affects performance of the Post Office savings bank. The researcher used drop-and-pick later method.

Validity of Research Instrument
According to Cronbach (1955), validity is the measurements that the author has taken to make sure that everything is relevant to the context. According to Mugenda and Mugenda (2003), validity is the accuracy and meaningfulness of inferences, based on the research results. Content validity and construct validity were used. Content validity is based on the extent to which a measurement reflects the specific intended domain of content, while construct validity seeks agreement between a theoretical and a specific measuring device or procedure.

Reliability of Research Instrument
Reliability is the extent to which an experiment, test, or any measuring procedures yield the same results on repeated trials. To test the internal consistency of the instrument, the study used Cronbach's Alpha, which ranges between 0 and 1.

Data Analysis and Presentation
Data collected from the various respondents in the group was classified and tabulated into different categories according to their common characteristics; Data was analyzed using descriptive and inferential methods and presented in tables, graphs and pie charts. Statistical Package for Social Scientists (SPSS 20) was used to process and manipulate the data into the desired analyses. In descriptive analyses, measures of central tendency and frequencies were used to present information while inferentially; pearson correlation and regression were used to show the relationship Performance of Kenya Post and Savings Bank between integrated marketing communication and performance of Kenya Posts and Saving Bank .
Where y = performance of Postbank, 'a' is the intercept and 'ɛ' is the error X 1 -Advertising, X 2 -Sales Promotion, X 3 -Personal Selling and X 4 -Direct Marketing X 5 -Public Relations, b i are coefficient . The calculated Cronbach's alpha for this study was 0.802, indicating high reliability in the instrument used as shown in table 3.

Objective Tests and Analysis
The correlation results of the different marketing communication tools and performance presented according to the objectives of study as indicated in the subsequent results.

Advertising and Organizational Performance
On advertising, the correlation results between advertising and customer loyalty, attraction of new customers, branch expansion, awareness creation and management role are as shown in table 3. The results in table 3 show that advertising practiced by Post Bank and customer loyalty have a significant relationship at 0.01 significant level. The Pearson coefficient (0.739) indicates that a unit increase in advertising is responsible for an increase in 0.739 units of customer loyalty. Given that advertising enhances brand publicity, it reminds most of the bank's available customers of the continued existence of the bank and its products, hence, motivating the need to purchase. This leads to the loyalty. Similarly, there is significant relationship between advertising and the attraction of new customers (p=0.000). A unit increase in advertising is responsible for attracting 0.624 units of new customers. Just as it has been explained in customer loyalty, advertising enhances brand publicity to new customers as well thus giving them a reason to join the bank. These results concur with the findings by  who observed that advertising familiarized a firms brand to its present and new customers, thus enhancing customer loyalty as well as customer attraction. The relationship between advertising and increase in sales volume is also statistically significant (p=0.033). This leads to the loyalty. Similarly, there is significant relationship between advertising and the attraction of new customers (p=0.000). A unit increase in advertising is responsible for attracting 0.624 units of new customers. Just as it has been explained in customer loyalty, advertising enhances brand publicity to new customers as well thus giving them a reason to join the bank. These results concur with the findings by  who observed that advertising familiarized a firms brand to its present and new customers, thus enhancing customer loyalty as well as customer attraction. The relationship between advertising and increase in sales volume is also statistically significant (p=0.033). A unit increase in advertising leads to a 0.302 units increase in sales volumes the bank records. This could be associated with the fact that when advertising increases the customer base as well as their loyalty, it creates more points of business for the company hence the increased sales volume Table 4. Correlation results on advertising and performance.
This finding is similar to Perreault's (2000) that advertising promotes the seller's products by publicizing them for enhanced purchases. A unit increase in advertising is also responsible for 0.314 increase in branch expansion at 0.05 significance level due to the fact that p=0.027. This can be linked to the fact that advertising enhances customer loyalty and attraction of new customers who prompt expansion due to increased business/customer base. There is no significance between Post Banks advertising and its ability to create awareness of the bank (p=0.136). Since the findings have already indicated that advertising publicizes the bank hence leading to customer attraction/loyalty, it will be abnormal to argue that the bank's advertisements do not create awareness as there is no significance. However, the right analysis is that the bank could not be measuring awareness created by advertising probably due to availability of other indicators upon which awareness is measured. This finding does not agree with those by Aliata et al. (2012) who found significance between advertising and awareness. As to whether advertising reminds customers, there is significance of 0.000. However, the relationship is negative meaning that an increase in a unit of advertising leads to a reduction in reminding customers. This relationship could mean that Post Bank's customers do not forget to buy the bank's products when they are not advertised but rather for other reasons. As such, the customer's purchasing behavior of the bank's products is not influenced by advertisement. This disagrees with Kottler's (2011) discussion that advertising acts to remind customers of a brand's products/services. The role management take in advertising Post Bank is not adequate based on the lack of significance (p=0.53) between advertising and Management's role being adequate. The negative relationship indicates that managers do not implement the right advertising, hence, leading to the negative relationship.

Direct Marketing and Organizational Performance
The correlation results between direct marketing and factors of performance are as shown in table 5. There is significance between direct marketing and customer loyalty (p=0.001). A unit increase in direct marketing results into a 0.455 loyalty among customers. Just like any other marketing tool, direct marketing publicizes the company's products hence enhancing loyalty of existing customers. This finding concurs with that by Van der Merwe (2003) who also considered direct marketing a key ingredient to enhancing loyalty. The correlation between direct marketing and attraction of new customers is not significant (p=0.551). This means that direct marketing does not act to attract new customers in Postbank. This could be attributed to the fact that direct marketing is done one-on-one to customers to make them aware of and purchase available products. Additionally, the results shows that direct marketing has a negative statistically significant relationship with reminding customers to purchase the banks products. This result disagrees with Kotler & Armstrong (2004) and Kottler (2006) who found direct marketing to create a oneon-one interactive communication channel with the customer, hence, reminded customers of the products a given firm was offering. The findings may be attributed to the fact that the management of Post bank was not implementing direct marketing in the required manner by, for instance, deploying less trained employees, hence, the negative relationship. The significance between direct marketing and sales volume is p=0.001 indicating that Post bank significantly used direct marketing as a strategy to increasing sales volumes. Specifically, a unit investment in direct marketing resulted to 0.444 increase in sales volumes. The enhanced loyalty that this strategy creates could be providing enhanced business that makes the bank increase its sales volumes. This is similar to the findings that direct marketing is efficient in producing sales (Peter & Donnelly, 1998). As to whether direct marketing enhances bank expansion and creates awareness, there is no significance. This could be attributed to the fact that direct marketing only reaches to the available customers and not new ones, thus, it does not increase the customer base who will prompt an expansion, nor does it create awareness to new customers. This disagrees with Kotler and Armstrong (2004) observation that direct marketing enhances awareness. There is no significance between direct marketing and frequency of management's involvement in implementing the strategy (p=0.204). This indicates that management has not taken adequate measures to see the success of direct marketing. This could explain why direct marketing does not relate to branch expansion, awareness, and attraction of new customers.

Sales Promotion and Organizational Performance
The correlation results between sales promotion and factors of performance are indicated in table 6. Sales promotion directly and significantly affects sales (coefficient =0.988; p=0.000). This may be attributed to the fact that sales promotion aims to publicize and market a company's products to its customers. Additionally, sales promotion offers things like discounts which lure customers to purchase hence increasing sales volumes. This result concurs with the finding by Kotler's (2011) that sales promotion tells customers 'buy now'; and Peter and Donnelly's (1998) that sales promotion involves the push factors that accelerate sales and the pull factors that encourage customers to ask for certain products they seek to buy. The fact that there is no significance between sales promotion and the other variables of performance means that sales promotion in Post Bank was majorly used to enhance sales volume. There is no significance between sales promotion and customer loyalty (p=0.667); branch expansion (p=0.161); management's role (p=0.386); awareness creation (p=516); and improved performance (p=347). This means that Post bank does not implement sales promotion for purposes of increasing or enhancing these factors.

Sales promotion improves sales Pearson Correlation
.988 Sig. (2-tailed) .000** N 47 Sales promotion improves performance Pearson Correlation .136 Sig. (2-tailed) .347 N 50 Sales promotion creates awareness Pearson Correlation .094 Sig. (2-tailed) .516 N 50 Management of PB uses sales promotion frequently Pearson Correlation .125 Sig. (2-tailed) .386 N 50 Sales promotion improves customer loyalty Pearson Correlation .064 Sig. (2-tailed) .667 N 48 Sales promotion leads to branch expansion Pearson Correlation .206 Sig. (2-tailed) .161 N 48 Table 7 shows the correlation of different components of performance of Post Bank to public relations. Public relations implemented by post bank only correlated significantly with reminding customers to purchase the bank's products and management's keenness (p=0.018 and p=0.000 respectively). A unit increase in public relations led to 0.335 units of customers being reminded on the need to purchase the bank's products. This could be attributed to the fact that PR enhances the relationship customers have with the bank, hence, influencing customers' need to purchase the bank's products. This result concurs that by Cutlip et al. (2000) that the aim of PR is to establish mutual relations between people and the organization. The coefficient between public relations and management's keenness is negative indicating that management's keenness to PR was poor or negative. As such, the management of Post Bank was not implementing PR in the direction that it would result into positive impact to the organization. This is contrary to Cutlip et al.'s (2000) observation that managers were the people who held the company's vision at heart hence were the first to focus on the kind of image the company ought to have by ensuring relevant PR. The table also shows that public relations did not have statistical significance with enhanced image of the bank; increased sales volume; enhanced customer loyalty; enhanced attraction of new customers and branch expansion. This is attributed to the significant levels that are greater than 0.05. .335 * Sig. (2-tailed) .018

Personal Selling and Organizational Performance
The correlation between personal selling and the different components through which performance of Post Bank is measured revealed the results indicated in the table 8. Personal selling and Post bank's ability to persuade customers to purchase the bank's products have a significant relationship that is positive (coefficient 0.318; p=0.024). This means that the bank achieves 0.318 increase in persuading customers to buy its products when it implements a unit increase in personal selling. Since personal selling involves a sales executive directly reaching to people to market the banks products, the executive can be very insisting on wanting a customer to purchase hence the results. This is similar to the finding by Futrell (2008) that personal selling enhanced direct customer-bank executive communication that enhances purchasing rates. The ability of personal selling to enhance customer loyalty is also positive and significant (coefficient 0.418; p=0.003). This means that a unit increase in personal selling in Post Bank accounts for a 0.418 units customer loyalty. This result is attributed to the fact that personal selling involves the bank's marketing executive interacting with the customer directly. In that exchange, most of the customers questions, uncertainties and concerns about the bank's products are addressed hence motivating the need of the customer to patronize the bankloyalty. This was also replicated earlier by Kotler's (2006) that personal selling allows a relationship to grow between sales people and customers, which is then changed into customer loyalty. .318 * Sig. (2-tailed) .024 N 50 Personal selling building of customer loyalty to the bank Pearson Correlation .418 ** Sig. (2-tailed) .003 N 50 Personal selling increasing bank sales Pearson Correlation .375 ** Sig. (2-tailed) .007 N 50 Personal selling improving bank performance Pearson Correlation .603 ** Sig. (2-tailed) .000 N 50 Personal selling increases bank sales by 0.375 for every unit; the relationship is significant (0.007). This could be attributed to the enhanced customer loyalty and persuasion to buy that the strategy creates. Loyal customers will always purchase from post bank hence enhancing sales. Persuasion will also see every customer being motivated to buy the products hence increased sales volume. These analyses replicate what Yeshin (2012) observed. This result also concurs with that presented by Etzel et al. (2007) who noted that personal selling involved the sales person influencing the customers to enhance their purchasing behavior of their company's products. It was also found that personal selling improves bank performance in Post Bank as they had a significant relationship (p=0.000). A unit increase in personal selling accounted for 0.603 units of enhanced bank performance. This can be attributed to the fact that personal selling enhanced the bank's customer loyalty, product purchases, and sales volume. This result also concurs with the findings by Yeshin (2012) that personal selling enhanced performance of companies.

Performance of Integrated Marketing Communication Tools
The study regressed the performance of Post Banks products against the different IMC methods as use in the bank. The regression output results are as indicated in the tables 8 and 9. The model summary shows that there is a strong linear relationship between performance of Post Banks products and advertising, PR, direct marketing, sales promotion and personnel selling (R=0.661). The R 2 value of 43.7% indicates the percentage of accuracy to which performance of Post bank's products can be accurately explained by the company's advertising, PR, direct marketing, sales promotion, and personal selling. This means that 56% of the performance of Post Bank's products is explained by other factors other than the IMC factors studied in this research. The coefficients table show that the performance of Post Bank's products has a positive relationship that is statistically significant (P=0.009; T=2.732) to advertising. An increase in the performance of the bank's products is attained with an increase in advertising of 0.504 units. As such, the bank's increased advertising of its products results in enhanced performance of the products. This finding concurs with Perreault (2000) that advertising seeks to promote the seller's products by means of publicizing them through different kinds of media. The result also concurs with the findings Aliata et al. (2012) who found advertising to have a positive statistical significance with performance measured in terms of profits in NBK. Personal selling also has a direct (positive) relationship with the performance of Post Bank's products where a unit increase in the performance of the bank's products is caused by a consequent increase of 1.07 units of personnel selling. This relationship is statistically significant (P=0.000; T=4.414). This also means that Post Bank significantly uses personnel selling as a way of enhancing the performance of their products. This confirms the findings presented by Yeshin (2012) that companies that effectively engage in personal selling enhance their performance by way of increasing sales of the company's products. Aliata et al. (2012) also found statistically significant positive relationship between personal selling and performance though they measured their performance in terms of profits. There is an inverse relationship between the performance of Post Bank's products and sales promotion strategies of marketing. Thus, a unit increase in the performance of the bank's products is caused by a drop of 0.274 units of sales promotion. This means that the manner in which the bank engages sales promotion is wrong to an extent it reduces the performance of the products. This could be attributed to poor training or under trained sales promoters who do not turn the strategy into positive results. The fact that there is no statistical significance between the performance of the bank's products and sales promotion (P=0.255; T=-1.154) also confirms that the bank has not taken sales promotion seriously as a strategy of enhancing the performance of its products. As such, things like inadequately trained sales promoters could be one such reason. This result contradicts what Aliata et al. (2012) found, as they noted a statistically significant relationship between sales promotion and performance.
Direct marketing also has an inverse statistically insignificant relationship with the performance of the bank's products (coefficient= -0.133, P=0.535; T=-0.625). This also indicates that the bank has not invested in direct marketing as a key component to enhance the performance of the bank's products. The way direct marketing is done is wrong to an extent that it reduces the performance of the bank's product by 0.133. Given the company is a service company, the negative insignificant relationship may be a result of less qualified or less trained direct marketers who do not attract the right result from direct marketing. This results contradict the arguments presented by Van der Merwe's (2003) and Peter & Donnelly (1998) who associated enhanced performance with increased direct marketing-a positive relationship. The results also show that PR has an inverse statistically significant relationship with performance. This result shows that the PR in Post Bank does not lead to performance as established by Kerin (2009). This could be attributed to the fact that Post Bank does not adequately invest in public relations as a crucial component to enhancing the performance of its products. This could be the reason why instead of PR enhancing, it reduces the performance of the bank's products. However, the fact that the relationship is statistically significant (P=0.000; T=-4.192) means that the company uses PR in making decisions concerning the performance of its products. This relation then enhance customers' ability to purchase more from the organization.

Advertising and Performance
First, the study investigated whether advertising Post Bank's products improved customer loyalty. The results showed that 86% agreed that advertising enhanced customer loyalty of Post bank and 100% agreed that advertising attracts new customers to the bank. Majority (84%) also agreed that advertising increases the sales volumes that Post Bank makes at any given moment. Aggressive advertising that resulted into high customer attraction, loyalty, and high sales also led to branch expansion as argued by majority (70%) of the respondents. Eighty-four percent of respondents agreed that advertising creates awareness on Post Bank and its products and 74% agreed that advertising reminds customers to purchase Post Bank's products. However, majority (76%) said that management of Post Bank does not offer adequate advertising to the bank's products/services. The performance of advertising in Post Bank has a positive statistically significant relationship with advertising.

Direct Marketing and Performance
As to the effect of direct marketing on performance of Post Bank, the study found that 72% of employees agreed that direct marketing enhances customer loyalty for Post Bank while majority of 82% said that it attracts new customers. Majority of 86% of the employees also agree that direct marketing enhances sales volumes of Post bank, 66% agreed that direct marketing allowed expansion of post bank branches, 86% agree that direct marketing enhances awareness on the banks products, and (83%) of the employees agreed that direct marketing reminded customers to purchase products that Post Bank offered. According to 74% of employees, the management of Post bank manages direct marketing frequently. Direct marketing was, however, found to have an inverse statistically insignificant relationship with the performance of the bank's products.

Sales Promotion and Performance
The third objective established the effect of sales promotion on the performance of Post bank. The results showed that majority (56%) of employees perceived sales promotion as fair and out of these, 83%, said that the reason why the perception was fair was because there was inconsistency in implementing sales promotion while 50% said sales promotion was poor because it was not done well. This made it difficult for sales promotion to be good or better. However, according to 85% of employees, most customers had positive response towards sales promotion. Majority, 100% of employees also agreed that sales promotion improved the sales of Post Bank. Summarily, 92% of respondents agreed that sales promotion improves performance of Post Bank. Majority, 96%, also agreed that sales promotion created awareness of the bank among the public. Sixty eight percent of respondents agree that sales promotion enhances customer loyalty of Post Bank, and 44% agreed that sales promotion leads to the expansion of Post bank's branches. Statistically, the study also found there to be an inverse statistically insignificant relationship between the performance of Post Bank's products and sales promotion strategy of marketing.

Public Relations and Performance
On public relations, the study established that majority of 40% of employees note that public relations had increased post banks image to a large extent; 76% of the respondents said that PR influenced sales volume of post bank to an average extent; and majority 44%, of respondents said PR built customer loyalty to an average extent. Majority (46%) of respondents agreed that on an average extent PR in post bank attracts new customers; 22% said public relations attracts new customers to a large extent while 18% said it attracts customers to a very large extent. This result also shows that the management of Post Bank had not done much to ensure that PR attracts customers to a large extent. A majority (42%) also agreed that good PR enhanced branch expansion to a large extent; 60% of employees said that to an average extent PR reminded customers to purchase the bank's products; and 50% considered the public relations offered by Post bank as poor. According to majority (44%), the reason why PR was poor in Post bank was because management of the bank had not been keen on issues to do with PR. To correct this, majority of the respondents proposed hiring, training, and deploying staff appropriately to handle PR issues. Summarily, the results show that PR has an inverse statistically significant relationship with performance of the bank's products.

Personal Selling and Performance
The last objective investigated how effective personal selling is to the performance of Post Bank. Findings show that 52% of employees believe that personal selling was very effective when selling Post Bank's products; 54% agreed that personal selling was very effective in building customer loyalty, and 44% of the respondents said that personal selling increases sales very effectively. Concerning how personal selling affected bank performance, 32% said it was very effective in improving the bank's performance. Majority of 47% of the employees said that the company must provide incentives and rewards to well performing sales executives to enhance their morale and effectiveness. Additionally, the study found that personal selling has a direct (positive) statistically significant relationship with the performance of Post Bank's products.

Advertising and Performance
In Post Bank, advertising has contributed to enhancing customer loyalty, attraction of new customers, increasing sales volumes, enhancing branch expansion, creating awareness on the bank and its products, and reminding customers to purchase the bank's products. However, the extent to which the bank has implemented advertising is still low and its full benefits have not been tapped. The performance of Post Bank is statistically significant to advertising (P=0.009; T=2.732).

Direct marketing and Performance
The study also concludes that direct marketing has also contributed to the customer loyalty, attraction of new customers, increasing of sales, expansion of bank's branches, enhancing awareness on the banks products/services, and reminding customers of the need to purchase the bank's products that the bank currently enjoys. The management also manages direct marketing frequently based on the importance the strategy has on the company's performance. However, though the significance of direct marketing on past performance of Post bank is visible, the company's management does not include direct marketing as a key decision maker while thinking of the marketing tool to adopt. The study also concludes that direct marketing relates inversely and insignificantly to performance of Post bank (P=0.535; T=-0.625).

Sales Promotion and Performance
The extent to which Post Bank does sales promotion is not adequate due to inconsistency. Nevertheless, customers appreciate sales promotion strategy significantly. So far, sales promotion has enhanced the sales volumes of Post Bank, created awareness of the banks products, enhanced customer loyalty, expansion of the bank, and attracted new customers. Though this progress has been made, management is not keen on using sales promotion to enhance the bank's performance, as there is no statistical significance. It is also concluded that there is an inverse relationship between the performance of Post Bank's products and sales promotion (P=0.255; T=-1.154).

Public Relation and Performance
Public relations significantly builds bank's image, enhances sales volumes, averagely builds customer loyalty, attracts new customers, enhances branch expansion to a large extent, and on average reminds customers to purchase the bank's products. However, the extent of implementation of PR in Post Bank is poor because management is not keen on issues to do with PR. Management may not be investing in PR as required prompting an inverse relationship with performance. Additionally, public relations at Post bank has a statistically significant negative effect to the performance of the bank (P=0.000; T=-4.192).

Personal Selling and Performance
On personal selling, the study concludes that according to employees, personal selling is an effective way of selling a bank's products. Personal selling enhances customer loyalty, increases sales, and enhances performance. However, the bank does not invest strategically in personal selling. Personal selling has a direct statistically significant relationship with the performance of Post Bank's products (P=0.000; T=4.414).

Policy Recommendations
The management of Post bank should significantly invest in all the five IMC tools as they offer tangible benefits on the performance of the company. The bank should invest further in employing well-trained staff to participate or take charge of the marketing communication tools. Additionally, the bank should engage in on-the-job training programs to equip available employees on the changing needs of the market so that the employees can engage marketing strategies that match to those needs. The bank's management should play the leadership role in ensuring the IMC tools work to the benefit of the company by being keen on the relationship between the tools and the performance of the bank. Additionally, the management should show goodwill towards enhancing the performance of the bank by significantly investing in the success of the IMC tools. The study has also established CSR as an important aspect that the bank needs to invest in.

Recommendations for Further Study
One of the recurring recommendations that employees gave for making the performance of the IMC tools better is by engaging customers and employees in decision making. As such, the study recommends an investigation into the extent to which employees and customers of Post Bank are involved in decision making, particularly concerning the different marketing strategies used. Even though CSR has a lot of benefits to firms, Post bank rarely appreciates this activity. This is retrieved from the recommendations employees gave on enhancing PR of the company.