Effect of Marketing Factors on Export Performance

Abstract

Exporting reinforcement is one of the main goals of a lot of countries. In Iran, reinforcing the non-oil exporting is one of the strategic goals. Accordingly, investigating the marketing effective factors on the exporting function has a specific position. The purpose of this paper is to examine the marketing factors influencing on export performance of firms in Iran. So in this study, the effect of exporting marketing mix, marketing capabilities on the export performance, customer orientation and competitor orientation on marketing capabilities has been discussed. The sample of this research includes 313 commercial firms in Iran. The data analysis has been done using the LISREL 8.5 and SPSS 16 software. The results indicate that the marketing capabilities and export marketing mix have a positive significant effect on the export performance. On the other hand, the costumer orientation has a significant positive effect on the marketing capabilities, while the positive effect of the competitor orientation on the marketing capabilities has not been confirmed. Finally, the results show that at the high level of export dependence, firms at the higher levels of marketing capabilities achieve a higher performance. At the end, in order to improve the firms’ exporting performance some suggestions have been proposed also for the future studies.