The Entrepreneurial Marketing Mix in Rural Women's Local and Traditional Art Business

Rural women are the carriers of traditional culture and art of Iranian ethnicities inherited naturally and mainly through generations. Iranian rich and native culture can creatively be presented and protected; this can lead the unemployment to be erased, especially in rural areas, while at the same time rural businesses can thrive by promoting the potential of rural entrepreneurial women.

This was a descriptive-analytic study aiming to describe the primary and secondary factors involved in the marketing mix of Iranian local art businesses using a consent-based Likert scale questionnaire developed by Mobaraki et al. (2016). A total of 28 local art entrepreneurs responded to the questionnaire in Tehran and across Iran. The five primary components called 5C including the "networking and communications", "content of local artwork", "creativity", "cultural value" and "artwork creator" and 32 related items were evaluated.

The reliability of the questionnaire was confirmed with the Cronbach's alpha of 0.94. Data were analyzed by comparing the means of variables using the Friedman test. The most influential subset in the marketing mix of local art businesses was related to the category of the artwork content, composition and harmony. And the impact of other elements was also determined by considering their impact factors through mean comparison using the Friedman test.

There were plenty of shortcomings observed in the theoretical foundations of marketing the artworks and traditional arts, while the number of women active in manufacturing marketing traditional arts and participating in the relevant research processes was very limited.

Relying on the findings of this research and the model presented for the entrepreneurial marketing mix of traditional rural women's arts as well as training, we can expand business establishments active in marketing and also enhance the selling artworks and traditional arts.

The results of this research can be applied in marketing the traditional artworks of Iranian rural women.