Service Marketing Mix Strategies and Their Contribution to Improving the Financial Performance of the Banking Sector: An Exploratory Analytical Study of a Sample of Commercial Banks Listed on the Iraq Stock Exchange

Service marketing mix strategies are considered among the most significant contemporary intellectual developments in the field of marketing management, expressed as a new approach whose primary objective is to understand and integrate business strategies. Their influential role soon expanded in dealing with financial performance indicators and mechanisms for improvement. The main objectives of service marketing mix strategies are regarded as mediumterm goals, determined by tactical organizational and administrative levels. These objectives should focus on achieving adaptation in line with environmental changes, beginning with the identification of the target market, followed by adjustment and engagement with market requirements, and culminating in the identification of the most appropriate service marketing mix. Accordingly, the present study aims to clarify the role of service marketing mix strategies in improving financial performance. To achieve this objective, a questionnaire was designed in alignment with the research goals and distributed to the targeted organizations banks listed on the Iraq Stock Exchange in Erbil, Kurdistan Region of Iraq. The research sample consisted of ten banks, with a total of 236 distributed questionnaires, of which 213 were retrieved and deemed valid for analysis, representing a response rate of 90.2%. The collected data were analyzed using correlation coefficients and linear regression models, which facilitated the derivation of a set of results. Based on these results, several conclusions were formulated, the most important of which indicates that certain elements of service marketing mix strategies such as branch expansion, increasing the number of ATMs, and enhancing human resources exhibit a strong positive correlation with banks’ financial performance, while other factors, such as transfer fees and interest rates, demonstrate a weaker and less evident association.