THE PRACTICE AND EFFECT OF INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS ON PERFORMANCE OF COMMERCIAL BANK OF ETHIOPIA (INTHE CASE OF DILLA CITY BRANCHES)

VI<br> Abstract<br> Integrated Marketing communication is an integral factor in the success of any firm and<br> therefore a great deal of professionalism is required to apply IMC. Nowadays the Ethiopian<br> banking industry is in a stiff competition against each other to dominate the market.<br> Therefore, the aim of this study is to investigate the practice and effect of integrated<br> marketing communication strategies on the performance of CBE, Dilla city branches. The<br> study used descriptive and explanatory research design and quantitative research approach.<br> Census was used a total of 159 respondents from marketing and other staffs of CBE, Dilla<br> citybranches. Primary data was collected using self-administered questionnaires for<br> analysis. Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS 20) and STATA 14 version was used to<br> process and manipulate the data into the desired analyses. Both descriptive and inferential<br> were used to analyze the data. From Descriptive statistics table, percentage, means and<br> frequencies, while inferentially statistics such as Pearson correlation and regression was<br> used. The results of the study shows that the CBE Dilla city branches uses the integrated<br> marketing communication tools such as advertising, sales promotion, direct marketing,<br> public relation and personnel selling to enhance performance of the bank. However, the<br> bank did not work on providing information about the usage of ATM and its advantage. In<br> addition the bank does not implement sales promotion for the purposes of branch expansion<br> and did not use public relation to increase sales and to improve customer loyalty. Multiple<br> linear regression model result shows that, advertisement, personal selling, sales promotion,<br> public relation has a positive significant effect on the market performance the bank<br> respectively. However, direct marketing has negative and statistically significant relationship<br> with the bank’s performance. Therefore, CBE in general and Dilla city branches in<br> particular should effectively use integrated marketing communication tools to enhance<br> performance of the bank