Title: The impact of viral marketing on successful development of new financial services in life insurance

Authors: Mehran Rezvani; Marzieh Rezamand Parsaei; Zeinab Fathollahzadeh

Addresses: Faculty of Entrepreneurship, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran ' Faculty of Entrepreneurship, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran ' Faculty of Entrepreneurship, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran

Abstract: This study, for the first time, attempts to measure the impact of viral marketing on the success of developing new financial service. Based on the past studies, a model has been developed to measure the impact of viral marketing indicators, including the number and valence of online comments, specialty of responder and visual features, on the success of the new financial service. To do this, a standard questionnaire was designed based on the Likert scale and tested by 224 employees of insurance companies providing life insurance in Tehran. The data were analysed through structural equation modelling (SEM) and using SPSS and SmartPLS software. According to the results, viral marketing indicators, including the number and valence of online comments, as well as visual features and the specialty of the responders, have a positive and significant impact on the success of the new financial service.

Keywords: viral marketing; new financial service success; new service development; insurance industry.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEB.2018.095960

International Journal of Electronic Business, 2018 Vol.14 No.3, pp.238 - 255

Received: 26 Jan 2018
Accepted: 25 May 2018
Published online: 05 Nov 2018 *

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