Effect of Inbound Marketing Factors on Marketing Performance:...

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International Journal of Agricultural Management and Development Available online on: www.ijamad.iaurasht.ac.irISSN: 2159-5852 (Print)ISSN:2159-5860 (Online)Research Paper

Keywords: Active listening, commu-nity building, inboundmarketing, purchase in-tention, visibilitymanagement, word-of-mouth

Received: 08 July 2018,Accepted: 28 August 2018 The present study explores the effect of inbound mar-keting factors on marketing performance. The statisticalpopulation was composed of all customers of six restaurantswith Gilaki names in Rasht, which are active in cyberspace.A total of 400 individuals were selected by conveniencesampling. The standard scales included visibility manage-ment, active listening, community building, word-of-mouth(WOM) intention, and purchase intention. Data were ana-lyzed by structural equations modeling in AMOS (ver. 24)software package. The coefficient of determination for thedependent variables showed that active listening, communitybuilding, visibility management and WOM intention couldaccount for 49 percent of the variance of customer purchaseintention. Also, active listening, community building, andvisibility management captured 28 percent of the varianceof customer WOM intention. Therefore, it can be concludedthat the active presence of restaurants in cyberspace is di-rectly related to customer WOM and purchase intentionand attention to inbound marketing tools will play a keyrole in the viability of their business.

Abstract

Effect of Inbound Marketing Factors on MarketingPerformance: The Case of Restaurant and CateringIndustry in Rasht with an Emphasis on Restaurantswith Gilaki Names

Mehdi Mohammadi Kouchesfahani a, Mohammad Jalili b,* and Mahmoud Noraei c

a PhD Candidate in Business Management-Marketing, Abhar Branch, Islamic Azad University, Abhar, Iranb Associate Professor, Department of Management, Abhar Branch, Islamic Azad University, Abhar, Iranc Assistant Professor, Department of Management, Abhar Branch, Islamic Azad University, Abhar, Iran

* Corresponding author’s email: [email protected]

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Effect of Inbound Marketing Factors on... / Mohammadi Kouchesfahani et al.

INTRoduCTIoNAfter the city of Rasht was registered as theonly Iranian city in UNESCO’s Creative CitiesNetwork on December 2015, a new wave ofrestaurant establishment commenced withreliance on the traditions and names takenfrom the Gilaki language, and a tough compe-tition was created in this industry. At theonset, the restaurants have mainly focusedon creating an atmosphere consistent withtraditional architecture and also, on foodquality. However, as the social networks de-veloped, it has been recognized that cus-tomers play a crucial role in the success of therestaurants so that their role is essentiallychanging from individual passive consumersto the actors in the context of value creation,knowledge development, and competition.The modern science of economy places moreimportance on the provision of services(marketing) by organizations than on theproducts themselves. This means that a merefocus on having a transaction with customersis given its place to a customer-oriented ap-proach. Most customers have a lot of choiceswhen they are to choose a restaurant. Hence,marketing process is gaining an increasingimportance in customer purchase intentionas we can see that service enterprises and or-ganizations have realized that the presencein the marketplace and offering lower pricesdo not guarantee their viability; rather, mar-keting and the use of modern marketingmethods, such as inbound marketing, have akey role to play. Since the beginning of mar-keting, the focus on customers has been oneof the main foundations so that the only goalwas to concentrate on informing the cus-tomers in order to attract their interests totheir own products and company and makethem loyal to their own brand in addition tohelping them in decision-making for a pur-chase. In traditional marketing, the focus onthe products in the marketing strategies ofthe firms has sometimes deviated the focusfrom the customers. In digital marketing, it istried to concentrate on customers and iden-tifying their demands in order to develop

strategies for effective interaction with them.A strategy that is merely based on contentmarketing cannot improve the sale by itselfbecause the experience and 80-20 rule showthat the content marketing that 80 percentfocuses on customers’ information andawareness can increase sale only by 20 per-cent. Therefore, digital marketing creates apreliminary relationship with customers onthe basis of trust and loyalty and the inboundmarketing establishes the main aspect. In-bound marketing enables an open and smartrelationship with a customer whose attentionhas been attracted to the product or serviceof the firm and creates a personal relation-ship by promoting the content tailored to theconsumer’s needs (Baltes, 2015). Since 2006,inbound marketing has been the main onlinemarketing method that has replaced the tra-ditional marketing techniques like the pur-chase of advertisement or email lists and hasfocused on creating quality content to attractpeople towards the firm and its products(Hubspot, 2016). All in all, inbound market-ing tries to create conformity between thecontent and the personality of the buyer whoapproaches the products of the firms volun-tarily. The personality of the customer is ofcrucial importance so that if it is not well un-derstood, the marketing strategies will fail(Baltes, 2015).Inbound marketing is a marketing tech-nique that requires an accurate goal-settingfor interaction with customers through qual-ity content. Therefore, inbound marketing isa strategy to link with customers’ abilitiesthrough experiences that they value. The useof the media, like blogs or social networks,enables marketers to get informed about thehobbies and entertainments they are lookingfor. By definition, HubSpot is a platform forinbound marketing software that enables thefirms to attract searchers, interest them, andfinally, build loyalty in them.Inbound marketing occurs in diverse formsincluding thematic blogs, social networkcampaigns, email campaigns, search engineoptimization, viral videos, web-based semi-

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nars (webinar), and so on (Marketing-Schools, 2016).Marketing communications used to be usu-ally in the form of one-way messages fromcompanies sent via TV, radio, print photos,telephone calls, banners, emails, and so on. Inthis method due to the large number of un-wanted advertisements, customers werestruggling to find ways to block or filter themessages (Goldstein & Lee, 2005). Compa-nies used to spend billions of dollars on ad-vertisement every year, but they hesitated toattract customers through websites and In-ternet advertisement (Lages, 2004). Mar-keters are still seeking new ways to find andattract customers (Eckler & Bolls, 2011). Cus-tomers are faced with hundreds of advertis-ing messages sent via diverse media in asingle day (Eckler & Bolls, 2011). In recentyears, search marketing has been a commoncomponent of content marketing programs ofcompanies and organizations. They use web-pages, weblog posts, photos, videos and othercontent types to solve their consumers’ prob-lems. This content may be their own ideas orguidelines and/or shared customer solutions.Search engine marketing tries to categorizeadvertisement websites by widening its viewon the pages that present the results ofsearch engines. Content marketing is a mediacampaign that commences in different ways,for example by making home movies todemonstrate how to use the items sold(Moran & Hunt, 2008). All these are orientedwith the changes in how people make pur-chases or how they receive services.Presently, the Internet, search engines, blog-ging, and social media enable the customersto search for what they want electronicallyand whenever they desire, to make a two-waycommunication with the intended company,or to consult with people – either friends orstrangers – before making the purchase inorder to learn about their experiences aboutthe consumption of the intended item/brand(Halligan & Shah, 2010). Social media are aset of programs that allows users to createand share content in the cyberspace on the

basis of the Web 2.0 technology. Social mediaexist in diverse forms, e.g. forums, blogs, andsocial networks (Kaplan, 2010). The chal-lenging consequence for retailers is to shiftfrom the old continuous non-consumer-in-terfered external-oriented marketing methodto the modern customer-involved, attraction-based, inbound marketing method (Lusch &Vargo, 2009).The goal for companies is to il-lustrate the company’s offerings to the audi-ence in an appropriate time withoutimpairing its attractiveness (Goldstein & Lee,2005), for example when they are searchingfor an item. Halligan and Shah (2010) coinedthe term inbound marketing to describe thismodern method, a term that is now common-place among experts. They argue that in-bound marketing involves attracting acustomer to a website through search en-gines, blogs, and social media. In the presentera, customers are burdened with a plethoraof information and advertisement withouthaving enough time to check all of them, sothey prefer to receive brief information fromthe friends and people around them (Silver-man, 2001).Marketing via social networksThis kind of marketing exploits socialmedia and the websites of social networks.The companies, even those that do not havea strong financial backing, can build their ad-vertising messages and publish them throughE-mails or social networking portals with alow cost (Madhoushi & Rezaei, 2013). Thetechniques of social networking marketingare generally used to enhance brand aware-ness, increase sales, optimize customer serv-ices, and implement marketing campaigns(Mangold & Faulds, 2009). Consumer behav-ior may be influenced by various advertisingmethods. However, it has been documentedthat word of mouth (WOM) is more effectivethan other advertisement methods on con-sumers and their decision for purchase(Wangenheim & Bayon, 2004). Trusov et al.(2009) investigated new customers of a so-cial website. They were exposed to both


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WOM and marketing advertisement to com-pare their effects on the number of newmembers of the site. According to the resultsof this empirical study, WOM was 20 timesmore effective than marketing advertisementand 30 times more effective than othermedia. Most consumers believe that WOM isa reliable source of information and it canplay a critical role in their intention for pur-chase (Lau & Ng, 2001; Leskovec et al., 2007).Wangenheim and Bayón (2004) argue thatWOM affects the purchase decision-makingprocess of consumers and can change theirdecisions. According to Parikh et al. (2014),online reviews act as an advertisement forthe restaurant. For example, when onlineusers read positive comments of customersabout the good quality of a restaurant in thecyberspace, they are likely to be motivated tovisit the restaurant and pay for its costs.In addition, Prendergast et al. (2010) ad-dressed the relationship between WOM in fo-rums and customer purchase intentions.Participants’ use of forums and their behav-ior intentions were measured in a survey. Theresults revealed that the similarity betweenforum theme and consumer purchase inten-tions directly influenced the customer pur-chase. The online forums of consumers aboutthe products where the consumers can usethe Internet to score the products and ob-serve the reviews and comments about theproducts, companies or brands is growing(Sandes & Urdan, 2013). In fact, direct con-tact with an individual who has used a brandhas never been easier so that just in a fewseconds, for example, one can see the scoresgiven by an individual who has visited arestaurant or in a few minutes, one can readpeople’s opinions about a hotel only by a clickon the relevant website. This kind of commu-nications is regarded as out-of-control mar-keting communications or off-brandcommunications and they operate withoutthe interference or direct control by thebrand owner or the company (Krystallis &Chrysochou, 2014). In a study on how to havea successful inbound marketing, Belz et al.

(2009) found that the control and examina-tion of consumers’ activities and responsive-ness through diverse communicationchannels are of crucial importance for in-bound marketing. Goldstein and Lee (2005)concluded that given customers’ increasingconcern for their privacy, companies shouldconsider “appropriate time” in making con-tact with customers in the first place in orderto be in a better place for competition. Lu etal. (2013) demonstrated that WOM advertise-ment had a direct, positive impact on sales,and Larson and Watson (2011) reported that,in addition to traditional activities that in-cluded business-to-customer (B2C) and cus-tomer-to-business (C2B) activities, socialnetworks allows communications betweencustomers (C2C), the control of C2C activities,and the building of B2C forums. Finally, Chaf-fey and Smith (2013) describe inbound mar-keting as a mix of search-oriented marketing,satisfaction-oriented marketing, and socialnetwork-oriented marketing.Variables of inbound marketingVisibility managementSearch engine marketing is a type of onlinemarketing that aims to enhance the visibilityin the result pages of search engines to in-crease the visitors to a site (Ramos & Cota,2008). Visibility management includes theactivities of a company focused on managingits online visibility to customers so that itsproducts are found when customers arebrowsing and searching the Internet (Purcell,2011).Active listeningInteraction cannot be made if there is no lis-tening, and listening typically cannot be pas-sive because speakers or message producersalways need audiences who provide evidencethat they have received and comprehendedthe message (Clark & Brennan, 1991). Sincemost interactions among the customers hap-pen freely in the Internet networks or forumsand the owner of the forum, network, or pagecannot support all addressees, so companies


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need to actively listen to the messages if theywant to know what people like and what theydo not, what opinions or complains they haveabout them, or if their opinions adversely af-fects other audience or concern them(Kriplean et al., 2007). The most common ev-idence of active listening is customer service,i.e. “responsive, helpful, willing service thatresponds to customer inquiries quickly”(Wolfinbanger & Gilly, 2003).Community buildingCommunity building is one of the mainideas of relationship marketing in cases mar-keters face the challenge of toughness ofmaking a one-by-one relationship with indi-vidual customers (Berry, 1995). Communitybuilding includes online initiatives of a firmto engage customers in theirproducts/brands in order to foster or createonline forums (Kozinets et al., 2010). In theera of social networking, customer trust tofirm brand depends on building a communityand gaining customers’ participation (Habibiet al., 2014).Purchase intentionConsumers make plenty of purchase deci-sions every day (Kotler et al., 2017). Purchaseintention reflects a consumer’s willingness topurchase an item (Belch & Belch, 2004). Thepurchase decision is made by a consumerthrough a series of social and cognitiveprocesses (Armstrong et al., 2014). Purchaseintention refers to a customer’s willingnessto buy a certain product/service. Consumerprediction is measured by indicators such asproduct/service statements (Venkatesh et al.,2003).Word-of-mouth (WOM) intentionOral advertisement, and thereby the ex-change of empirical knowledge, is regardedas one of the important information re-sources for consumers (Goyette et al., 2010).Word-of-mouth (WOM) advertisement in-tention refers to a customer’s willingness tomake positive remarks and recommenda-

tions and motivate others to purchase a prod-uct/service in an offline or online way. Thisis measured by indicators such as saying pos-itive things about a product/service to oth-ers, recommending the use of aproduct/service to others, and motivatingfriends and relatives to use a product/service(Babin et al., 2005). Conceptual ModelAccording to the review of the literatureand the relationship between the variables,the conceptual model of the research can bedrawn as Figure 1 (derived from Casas,2015). Overall, the present study measuresthe effect of visibility management, active lis-tening, and community building on purchaseintention directly and via the mediator vari-able of word-of-mouth (WOM) intention.According to the conceptual model, it is hy-pothesized that:H1: Online visibility management of a firmpositively influences a consumer’s purchaseintention,H2: Online visibility management of a firmpositively influences WOM intention,H3: Active listening positively influences aconsumer’s purchase intention,H4: Active listening positively influencesWOM intention,H5: Community building positively influ-ences a consumer’s purchase intention,H6: Community building positively influ-ences a consumer’s WOM intention, andH7: An individual’s WOM intention posi-tively influences his/her purchase intention.

METhodologyThe present research is descriptive-analyt-ical in terms of design and applied in termsof objective. The statistical population wascomposed of all customers of six restaurants,which were actively present in the cyber-space, with Gilaki names across the city ofRasht. The samples from these restaurantswere taken from the city of Rasht. Accordingto what the restaurants expressed, they had10,000 customers every month. The sample


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size was estimated to be 370 individuals byCochran’s formula. Finally, 430 question-naires were administered to customers se-lected by convenience sampling techniques.After the questionnaires with missing datawere removed, 400 questionnaires remainedfor the analysis. The profile of respondents ispresented in Table 1. Data on the research variables were col-lected by a standard questionnaire derivedfrom Casas (2015). It was composed of threeitems on the variable of visibility manage-ment, three items on active listening, threeitems on community building, three items onWOM intention, and three items on purchaseintention. The items measured the agreementon a 5-point Likert type scale ranging from‘completely agreed’ to ‘completely disagreed’.To check the face and content validity of theresearch instrument, the parameters wereprovided to the faculty members and expertsof marketing. Then, after all items of thequestionnaire were adjusted, their contentand face validity was confirmed and it was es-tablished that the research constructs werevalid. The reliability of the research instru-ment was estimated by Cronbach’s alpha that

was estimated to be 0.846 for visibility man-agement, 0.850 for active listening, 0.821 forcommunity building, 0.839 for WOM inten-tion, and 0.831 for purchase intention. It isknown that the closer the Cronbach’s alphato 1, the higher the internal consistency.Then, confirmatory factor analysis or factorloads show that when this indicator is equalor greater than 0.4, the variance betweenconstructs and their indicators is greaterthan the variance of the measurement errorof that construct and so, the validity of thatmeasurement model is acceptable (Hu &Bentler, 1999). In the present work, factorloads were greater than 0.4 for all studiedscales. Convergent validity examines the cor-relation between the scores of the tests thatmeasure a common attribute (Hu & Bentler,1999). We found that the coefficients for thisindex all were greater than 0.5, supportingthe validity of the research instrument. Diver-gent validity should be estimated by checkingif the average variance extracted is smallerthan the maximum shared variance. As diver-gent validity showed, the research instru-ment had optimal discriminant validity. Then,with respect to the indicators of reliability


Figure 1. The Conceptual Model Derived from Casas (2015)

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and Cronbach’s alpha, the average correlationwas estimated between the individual pairsof the items in order to reach stability andconsistency. The higher correlation impliesthat all items of the test measure a commonconstruct. Cronbach’s alpha of greater than0.7 shows the acceptable reliability. This wasreported to be greater than 0.7 for all itemsof the research questionnaire, showing theirgood reliability. Unlike Cronbach’s alpha,composite reliability addresses the likelihoodof a heterogeneous relationship between theitems of the constructs and calculates the co-efficient of reliability as a function of factorload between each item and the pertainingconstruct. The composite reliabilities ofgreater than 0.7-0.8 imply acceptable relia-bility (Hu & Bentler, 1999). In our research,

composite reliability was >0.7 for all researchitems (Table 2).REsulTs

Test of direct relationshipsAs the summary of reported beta (direct)coefficients of the model show in Table 3, ac-tive listening (0.231), community building(0.222), visibility management (0.194), andWOM intention (0.426) influenced purchaseintention significantly and directly. Lookingfrom another perspective, active listening(0.301), community building (0.343), and vis-ibility management (0.274) had a significantand direct impact on customers’ WOM inten-tion.


Variables Frequency %

GenderMale 203 50.8Female 197 49.2Age (year)<30 81 20.230-40 117 29.340-50 129 32.3>50 73 18.2Education LevelDiploma 58 14.4Associate degree 127 31.8B.Sc. 119 29.8M.Sc. and Ph.D. 96 24.0Social network usedFacebook 15 3.8Instagram 137 34.2Telegram 140 35.0Tweeter 72 18.0Etc. 36 9.0Go to restaurant (month) 1 143 35.82 105 26.23 84 21.068 17.0

Table 1Profile of Respondents

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Test of indirect effectsAs the coefficients of beta (indirect coeffi-cients) show in Table 4, active listening(0.128), community building (0.146), and vis-ibility management (0.117) directly and sig-nificantly influenced WOM intention, therebyaffecting customer purchase intention indi-rectly.Then, the coefficients of determination ofthe dependent variables indicated that active


Confirmatory factor analysis divergent

validityConvergent

validityCompositer

eliabilityCronbach’s

alphaItem Factor load

Word-of-mouthintention 1 0.72 0.549<0.621 0.621 0.830 0.8392 0.893 0.74Purchase intention 1 0.86 0.549<0.613 0.613 0.824 0.8312 0.623 0.85Active listening 1 0.83 0.179<0.643 0.643 0.844 0.8502 0.843 0.74Visibility management 1 0.79 0.176<0.644 0.644 0.844 0.8462 0.773 0.85Community building 1 0.78 0.232<0.593 0.593 0.814 0.8212 0.753 0.78

Table 2Summary of Coefficients of Validity and Reliability of the Research Instrument

Note: Confirmatory factor analysis has been reported as first-order confirmatory factor analysis.The divergent validity was calculated as the extent to which average variance extracted was smaller thanmaximum shared squared variance.

direct coefficients of research modelb value Critical ratio β value p value Path result

Active listening → Purchase intention 0.214 6.09 0.231 0.001 ConfirmedCommunity building → Purchase intention 0.219 5.75 0.222 0.001 ConfirmedVisibility management → Purchase intention 0.173 5.17 0.194 0.001 ConfirmedWOM intention → Purchase intention 0.409 10.09 0.426 0.001 ConfirmedActive listening → WOM intention 0.290 7.10 0.301 0.001 ConfirmedCommunity building → WOM intention 0.352 8.09 0.343 0.001 ConfirmedVisibility management → WOM intention 0.254 6.64 0.274 0.001 Confirmed

Table 3Table of Direct Coefficient of the Research Model

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listening, community building, visibility man-agement, and WOM intention could accountfor 49 percent of the variance of customerpurchase intention. Also, 28 percent of thevariance of WOM intention was captured byactive listening, community building, and vis-ibility management.Model developed by research and coefficientsof model fitThe adequacy of the presented model fitwith data was determined by the following fitindices: normed chi-square (χ2/df), goodnessof fit index (GFI), adjusted goodness of fitindex (AGFI), normed fit index (NFI), com-parative fit index (CFI), Tucker-Lewis index(TLI), and root mean square error of approx-imation (RMSEA).As can be observed in Table 5, the researchmodel exhibited a good fit (Hu & Bentler,1999).Figure 2 depicts the sum of standard esti-mations for regression weights including fac-tor loads and impact factors. Theindependent variables affected the depend-ent variables positively and significantly(p < 0.05). All factors loads were considered

to differ from zero significantly (Qasemi,2013).CoNClusIoNThe main objective of the present study wasto explore the effect of inbound marketingfactors on marketing performance. More pre-cisely talking, the present study focused onthe effect of main factors of inbound market-ing (visibility management, active listening,and community building) on the success ofmarketing (WOM intention and purchase in-tention of customers) in restaurants with Gi-laki names across the city of Rasht, Iran.According to the results, the restaurantsthat performed optimally in visibility man-agement influenced customer purchase in-tention significantly (H1). This is consistentwith Casas (2015), Rutz et al. (2012), Ghoseand Yang (2009), and Baye et al. (2009). So,service organizations that can work in accor-dance with their customers’ requirementsand preferences and provide desirable serv-ices can perform better in marketing andmanage the purchase intention of theirprospects more readily. For example, restau-rants with a desirable performance in visibil-


Path direct coefficients of research modelb-value β value p -value Path result

Active listening → Purchase intention 0.119 0.128 0.001 ConfirmedCommunity building → Purchase intention 0.144 0.146 0.001 ConfirmedVisibility management → Purchase intention 0.104 0.117 0.001 Confirmed

Table 4Table of Indirect Coefficients of the Research Model

Model fit indicators χ2/df gFI AgFI TlI CFI NFI RMsEA

Model estimation 1.769 0.995 0.973 0.982 0.995 0.988 0.044Acceptable level <3 Close to 1 = complete fit <0.08

Table 5Coefficient of Determination of the Research Model

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ity management can attract wandering cus-tomers. Customers who are looking for goodfoods that can satisfy their personal expecta-tions always search the Internet. Organiza-tions that can well manage visibility canreadily attract these customers because theycare for food taste, subjective preferences,and behavior patterns in the context of food.Also, we found that WOM intention is the me-diator of the relationship between visibilitymanagement and customer purchase inten-tion. If customers who are active in cyber-space perceive that the service brand X isoptimum in food quality and practices a suit-able visibility management, then they maytry to inform people around them about theperformance of the organization and use(oral or electronic) WOM (H 2). The factorsthat push a customer towards WOM aboutthe desired restaurant include, among all, thecustomer’s satisfaction with the interactionwith the restaurant in cyberspace, the cus-tomer’s willingness for social interaction, car-ing for the taste of friends, and theenhancement of self-image and self-valueamong others (Hennig-Thurau et al., 2004).Kim et al. (2011) suggest that visibility in cy-berspace is an integrated component of via-bility in new marketing. In this view, service

organizations including restaurants shouldmanage their behavioral patterns in cyber-space because as virtual networks are ex-panding and the Internet and e-commerceare gaining an ever-increasing attention, cus-tomers surf the channels and social websitesto find better and more quality services. Ithas been reported that building virtual chan-nels and sites for service supply by an organ-ization increased its new customers (Halligan& Shah, 2010). This study shows that therestaurants that are more active in cyber-space and establish constructive interactionswith their customers perform better in mar-keting.We also found that active listening of therestaurants to customers affects their re-pur-chase intention significantly (H 3) as re-ported by Casas (2015) and Wolfinbargerand Gilly (2003), too. In this view, customerswill show more willingness to purchase theproducts if the organization listens to theircritiques and suggestions. Active listening tocustomers in cyberspace and caring for theirconcerns and interests, and above all, satisfy-ing their reasonable demands can enhancetheir satisfaction with the quality of restau-rant services and subsequently, increase theirpurchase intention significantly. Casas (2015)


Figure 2. The standard model of the impact of inbound marketing on customer purchaseintention mediated by word-of-mouth

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reported that active listening plays a signifi-cant role in shaping customer purchase in-tention and WOM. Similarly, De Matos andRossi (2008) found a significant correlationbetween customer response service and cus-tomer WOM intention. When customers per-ceive that their intended restaurant has anactive presence in cyberspace to satisfy theirdemands and consider their remarks, theyshow more willingness for WOM. Customer-oriented is one of the necessary elements ofmarketing viability so that higher customer-oriented and response to customer require-ments in online and virtual channels increaseWOM advertisement as well as repurchaseintention (Casas, 2015).In this sense, serviceorganization like restaurants should not onlyrespond to their customers in cyberspace butthey should also develop strategies andmechanisms to manage the virtual networksand online websites where their customerssurf and discuss the quality of the servicesprovided by them and by competitors.Awareness of customers’ demands and pref-erences enables restaurants to provide thecorrect and optimal services as fast and effi-cient as possible. As Weinberg and Pehlivan(2011) showed, customers’ intention for re-purchase and WOM can be increased bystudying their demands, expectations, andneeds in cyberspace, examining the informalonline communication among customers,and responding to customers in formal web-site and channels of the organization (H4).With respect to community building, it wasfound to influence WOM and repurchase in-tention of customers significantly (H 5 and 6).This is in agreement with Casas (2015), Lu etal. (2013), Olbrich and Holsing (2011), Pow-ers et al. (2012) and You et al. (2015). Thecustomers who perceive that their intendedrestaurant has an active presence in cyber-space and is passionate and innovative in themanagement of its virtual and online chan-nels show more willingness to make a long-term relationship with that restaurant.Similarly, Lee and Youn (2009) reported thatcustomers’ awareness of community building

by their intended service organization affectstheir WOM intention significantly. Customerslend themselves to WOM more easily whenthey are satisfied with the products/servicesof the concerned organization. Sending theaddress or link of the organization’s websiteto friends and relatives and viewing the listof services in cyberspace are easier and thiscan increase their willingness for WOM(Casas, 2015). In this sense, customers’ WOMand purchase intention can be escalated bysound management along with the behav-ioral norms of the community – providing aplatform for e-commerce and awareness ofthe fact that virtual networks enhance adver-tisement and commerce – and active pres-ence in virtual networks, building formalchannels for the organization, inviting cus-tomers to these channels, creating an onlineforum, and updating the products/services.It should be noted that as the online activityof a service organization slacks and the or-ganization is reluctant to build virtual com-munities and interact with customers, thevisibility management and active listeninglevels of the organization are reduced to anextent that the organization is unable to pro-vide online products/services to the cus-tomers anymore and on the other hand, itcannot respond to their wants and needs cor-rectly. As a result of unawareness of cus-tomers’ response to the services (inparticular, the awareness of the informationthat the customers share in their informalcommunications), WOM and customer repur-chase intention start to decline.In the next dimension, WOM intention sig-nificantly affects customers’ purchase inten-tion (H 7). Shin and Thai (2015) argue thatWOM is one of the main factors contributingto the marketing viability and that the serviceorganizations that are satisfied with theircustomers can use their human resource inWOM as a competitive advantage. In thisview, WOM is the process of sharing of infor-mation and experiences about the services ofa restaurant – e.g. food quality, service provi-sion, behavior with customers, and relaxing


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atmosphere – among the customers. This canremarkably interact with the decision-mak-ing process of other customers (Moliner-Velázquez et al., 2015). According to Zhang etal. (2017), WOM shows either satisfaction ordissatisfaction with unpleasant experiencesand in the latter case, customers share theirnegative experiences with others. Jalilvand etal. (2017) suggest that customers who aresatisfied with the services are more willing todo WOM. In this case, the satisfaction andservice quality are so favorable that cus-tomers intend to receive the services of theorganization again in future and to establisha deep and long-term relationship with theorganization. It has been documented thatWOM influences re-purchase ofproducts/services significantly (Shin & Thai,2015). According to Hsu et al. (2015), cus-tomers who show more willingness for WOMadvertisement of the products/services of acertain brand have more intention for the re-purchase of the products/services of that or-ganization. Hsu et al. (2017) showed thatWOM had a significant impact on re-purchaseintention. Md Husin et al. (2016) reportedthat WOM in social networks plays a signifi-cant and important role in a product/servicepurchase. Baker et al. (2016) concluded thatWOM about products/services of a certainbrand influences the willingness to re-pur-chase the products/services significantly.Shin and Thai (2015) revealed a significant,direct relationship between the willingnessfor WOM and the intention for re-purchase.In other words, we found that WOM intentionwas the strongest factor underpinning thecustomer intention for re-purchase (Hypoth-esis 7) from the restaurants of Rasht activelypresent in the cyberspace. Looking from an-other perspective, the effect of customer pur-chase intention is a mediator of therelationship of inbound marketing in differ-ent aspects of marketing including active lis-tening, visibility management, andcommunity building. Casas (2015) demon-strated that WOM intention was the mediatorof the relationship between inbound market-

ing and customer purchase intention. Accord-ing to the results, if service organizations likerestaurants want to be actively present in thecontext of marketing, they should invest inWOM in the first place and explore the factorspersuading customers to use WOM. WOM ad-vertisement is so important than in You et al.(2015)’s meta-analysis, electronic WOM hasbeen regarded as the most important compo-nent of the marketing mix.The fact that there is a direct relationshipbetween active presence in the online plat-form and WOM intention and customer pur-chase intention implies that customers arechanging their behavioral norms in the newera – in which virtual networks are expand-ing. Presently, most customers surf the vir-tual networks to find quality services and tryto utilize cyberspace, which is characterizedby ease of use, accessibility, customizability,perceived usefulness, and pleasure. With re-spect to the contribution of the present study,it can be said that it is the first research on in-bound marketing that focuses on behavioralpreferences of customers. Our findings an-swer the question as to why some service or-ganizations outperform others in marketing.These findings enable customer service man-agers to orient themselves with customers’behavior patterns, take full advantage of theopportunities, and improve profitability andsale by more viable performance in cyber-space.Given the effect of visibility management onWOM and purchase intention of customers, itis recommended that service organization,e.g. restaurants, create formal online chan-nels on platforms like Telegram or Instagram.Since active listening affects WOM and pur-chase intention of customers, service organ-izations including restaurants are suggestedto manage cyberspace and consider the re-sponses of customers to the services andtheir wants and needs in order to improvetheir satisfaction and thereby increase theirWOM and repurchase intention. We foundthat community building affects WOM andpurchase intention of customers. So, it is rec-


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ommended to service organizations to buildonline communities for the exchange of ideasin order to improve their inbound marketinglevels.The main limitation of the present study isthat it is cross-sectional so that the re-searchers could only collect data for a certaintime period. It is recommended to conductlongitudinal and multi-sectional research inorder to extend the generalizability of thefindings. The lack of a comparison of theservice organization with a financial organi-zation like insurance and financial and creditinstitutions is another limitation of the pres-ent work. It is necessary to conduct similarstudies on diverse organization so as to allowthe comparison of the results among variousorganizations. For example, the present studyfocused only on restaurants with Gilakinames in the city of Rasht. Undoubtedly, com-parison with other service organizations willadd to the reliability of the research findings.Another limitation of the study was the factthat the mediator variables, such as the his-tory of restaurant activity, restaurant brandimage, and restaurant reputation, were notcontrolled. Researchers are recommended tocontrol these variables in similar works. Itshould be remembered that these variablescan play a key role in customers’ WOM andre-purchase intention.ACKNowlEdgEMENTsThe authors would like to thank managersand customers of Rasht restaurants who par-ticipated of this research.

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how to cite this article:Mohammadi Kouchesfahani, M., Jalili, M., & Noraei, M. (2019). Effect of inbound marketingfactors on marketing performance: The case of restaurant and catering industry in Rasht withan emphasis on restaurants with Gilaki names. International Journal of Agricultural Manage-ment and Development, 9(4), 363-378.uRl: http://ijamad.iaurasht.ac.ir/article_666756_dc70018dae2a61415825efab898ae1c8.pdf

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