Methods of using websites in integrated business promotion of enterprises

Abstract

The use of digital tools in marketing communications has become an obvious precondition for a successful business. At the same time, the modern concept of holistic marketing establishes that the purpose of marketing communications is to promote business of a firm, which includes not only the promotion of its goods and services, but also the management of its relations with all stakeholders. These provisions fully apply to Ukrainian industrial enterprises that seek to develop foreign sales markets. In the paper the concept of a site was chosen as the key term for research of marketing online communications. From the standpoint of their purpose, sites represent different types of social media that make it easier for their users to communicate and exchange multimedia information with each other. Websites are viewed as marketing communication channels that use certain methods to promote business activities. This raises the problem of integrating promotion channels into a single marketing communications system. The paper is devoted to the analysis of methods of promoting business activities of enterprises using social media sites and their systematization to create integrated marketing communications. We have classified websites according to the role they can play in integrated business promotion. It has been established that one should highlight the official sites of an enterprise promoting its business activities and the sites used to obtain information services. Many enterprises have two official websites: a representative one for presenting their business activities and a transactional one for e-commerce. The developers of information services sites are their owners, for whom the provision of these services constitutes the content of their business activity. These sites include social media supporting email, social networks, blogs, instant messengers. The analysis of the main methods of promotion in various social media is carried out. It allows one to establish the necessary logical connections between the promotion processes through various communication channels for their integration into a single system.