This paper considered the huge amount of money being expended on sales promotion in recent times and sought to know whether organizations that use such strategy have justification for such investment. It sought to know whether the increase in sales promotion expenses resulted to increase in the organizations' sales volume as well as profitability. Nigerian Breweries Plc was used for the study because of its high-level involvement in sales promotion. Personal interview was used to collect relevant information from the key staff of the organization while the published annual report was to collect relevant information from the key staff of the organization while the published annual report was used to source information on the organization's performance in terms of sales of sales turnover, marketing expenditure, and profitability. Findings showed that sales promotion was used because the strategy was very effective in developing and sustaining patronage and loyalty among channel members. It was further found that there was a strong positive correlation between sales promotion expenses and sales volume and between sales promotion expenses and profit. It was therefore recommended that organizations should use sales promotion as a strategy for leveraging sales and profit, provided that such organizations manage the sales promotion programmed effectively to generate desired results.

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Various governments all over the world have acknowledged that entrepreneurship and the formation of micro, small and medium enterprises is the key to economic growth, employment generation and poverty alleviation. However, for entrepreneurship to play this role effectively and efficiently, it must be a vital and an integral component of productivity and growth. Most SMEs in Nigeria experience abysmally low performance, and some even fold up within five years of start-up despite governmental efforts in encouraging entrepreneurial development in the country, This work on the importance of marketing in entrepreneurial development and poverty alleviation in Nigeria aims at identifying the sources and causes of problems in the orientation and practice of entrepreneurship and marketing in SMEs. The paper is a conceptual study and as such relied more on the review of the views of different scholars and researchers in marketing, entrepreneurship and SMEs in Nigeria and elsewhere. The study revealed that most SMES in Nigeria needed more exposure to the principles and practice of marketing and entrepreneurship so as to contribute maximally to economic development, employment and poverty alleviation in the country in spite of the ever-increasing competition both locally and internationally. To achieve this, the study recommended, among others, that the entrepreneurial and marketing skills of budding entrepreneurs and chief executive and directors of SMEs. Should be enhanced through education and training. This can be achieved through either formal regular education for those who can afford it, or by some part-time arrangements with professional marketers, and university lecturers as consultants.

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