E-MARKETING AND THE PATRONAGE OF AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS IN NIGERIA

The main purpose of the study was to examine e-marketing and the patronage of agricultural products of selected organisations in Cross River State, Nigeria. The objectives sought were to: Examine the effectiveness of e-mail marketing on the patronage of agricultural products in Cross River State, and determine how social network marketing influences the patronage of agricultural products in Cross River State. The Descriptive research design was adopted for the study. Subjects were selected using the purposive sampling techniques. The population comprised all the one hundred and seventy-seven top and middle level management staff of the selected agricultural organisations in Cross River State that have registered their presence on the internet. The data collected was summarized and analyzed using descriptive (mean and standard deviation) and inferential statistics (multiple regressions). The findings revealed that; Email marketing significantly influence the patronage of agricultural products. No significant relationship was found between social network marketing and the patronage of agricultural products. We concluded among others that email marketing influences patronage of agricultural products while social network marketing does not influence patronage of agricultural products in Cross River State. We recommended among others that, agricultural organisations should employ the use of internet communication tools like email, and social network in the marketing of agricultural products. Agricultural organisations should endeavor to register their presence on the internet by either creating a website for the organisation, or register with an independent „netpreneur‟. And after registering their presence on the internet, a deliberate effort should be made to direct traffic to the website through the use of emails, social network etc.