Veritatis Gaudium: Multidisciplinary Journal of Postgraduate Studies

Objective: To examine the effect of public relations (PR) strategies and enabling factors on public relations outcomes at Zenith Bank PLC's Kubwa, Gwarinpa Primary and Gwarinpa II branches in Abuja, Nigeria.Background: Nigerian banks operate in an increasingly competitive and trust-sensitive environment in which the effectiveness of PR strategies significantly shapes customer perception, satisfaction and loyalty, yet many institutions continue to rely on ad hoc or poorly integrated PR practices, underscoring the need for empirical evidence on which strategies work best.Methods: A survey research design was adopted. Of 384 structured questionnaires distributed across the three branches using proportionate sampling, 366 valid responses were retrieved (95.3% response rate). Data were collected on a five-point Likert scale measuring trust, satisfaction and PR effectiveness, and analysed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) with bootstrapping (5,000 resamples). Results: All four PR strategies significantly predicted PR outcomes, led by social media relations (β = 0.461, p < 0.001), followed by newsletters (β = 0.182, p = 0.005), press releases (β = 0.176, p < 0.001) and email communication (β = 0.088, p = 0.050). Customer literacy (β = 0.338, p = 0.001), PR feedback mechanisms (β = 0.357, p = 0.001) and digital PR tools (β = 0.164, p = 0.003) also significantly and positively predicted outcomes. Conclusions: A hybrid PR model that integrates the immediacy of digital channels with the credibility of traditional tools underpinned by customer-literacy initiatives and institutionalised feedback mechanisms is most effective for building trust and loyalty in Nigerian retail banking.

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