Marketing Communication Strategies of Public and Private Sector Banks- A Comparative Analysis (With special reference to ICICI BANK and STATE BANK OF INDIA)

Marketing Communication becomes increasingly necessary in today’s competitive environment. It becomes mandatory for the banks to think seriously about how they can compete effectively with other financial institutions. This has led them to pay due importance to marketing communication strategies. Marketing Communication strategies perform two different functions i.e. attract the deposits on one hand and attract the borrowers and users of services. In banking sector marketing communication elements are especially important, they help to create powerful images and a sense of credibility, confidence and assurance. Therefore it is essential to evaluate all the elements of communication strategy that are used in banking service sector. The present study evaluates and compares the effectiveness of marketing communication strategies in public and private sector banks. The study assess the effectiveness of advertising, sales promotion ,personal selling and publicity and public relations in Indian Banking sector on the basis of five parameters i.e providing information, creating awareness , changing attitude ,creating Brand image and Brand loyalty. The study is exploratory in nature and two banks namely ICICI & SBI in the private and public sector respectively were selected with the target areas of Karnal and Kurukshetra districts of Haryana. A non-probability sampling technique was used comprising of 50 respondents from each bank spread over two districts with 25 each. The sampling technique may be referred as a simple convenience sampling. The respondent units were customers of both the banks respectively. A well structured questionnaire was prepared for the collection of necessary primary data on different aspects of marketing communication strategies as adopted by the two banks. A standard likert 5 point scale was used to measure the response of the selected customers and was further subjected to tabulation and analysis. In order to draw logical and scientific conclusions and inferences of the study necessary statistical tools are applied to arrive at the findings.