Marketing strategies for organic products in Iran

The strategic planning of marketing and the application of marketing strategies for achieving sustainable competitive advantages are of the factors that help the survival of producers of agricultural organic products. Although, there are evidences of the growth of organic farming in Iran but, there are no useful information and proposals for making marketing strategies in organic production holdings for producers and traders. For this, we assessed the influence of three effective elements include marketing approach, pricing and the sale of organic products in Iran. The study was based on the factor analysis, explorative interview and structured questionnaire. The study population was composed of 20 experienced experts and 118 organic agricultural producers from the various regions include Tehran, Khorasan-e Razavi, Guilan, Khoozestan, Kerman, Kordestan, Qazvin and Isfahan for the periode of Jan 2014 to June 2015. It was found out that the main barriers to the development of organic products and their markets include inappropriate packaging, high transportation costs, the lack of unit manager and inconsistent strategy, market-making and customer-orientation, weak public advertisement, the lack of trust to organic brands at national level, and weak state support.