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Introduction

1. Theoretical aspects of direct marketing of a modern organization

1.2 Features of the current stage of development of direct marketing in Russia

2. Study of the activities of Adriatic-Tour LLC in the field of direct sales

2.1 Characteristics of Adriatic-Tour LLC

2.2 Analysis of the marketing activities of Adriatic-Tour LLC

2.3 Assessing the effectiveness of the company’s activities in the field of direct sales

3. Recommendations for improving direct sales at Adriatic-Tour LLC

3.1 Developing strategic goals for the company's direct marketing

3.2 Recommendations for improving direct marketing tactics

Conclusion

References

Introduction

The direct oral appeal of the seller to the potential buyer chronologically preceded all other forms of commercial communications. In modern conditions, this type of forming connections with target audiences is defined as direct marketing.

Direct marketing is currently one of the most rapidly growing areas not only of marketing communications, but, perhaps, of all marketing activities in general. According to some forecasts, in the coming years the share of sales through direct marketing in total sales will increase dramatically. It is expected that direct marketing will seriously displace advertising as the main means of marketing communications between manufacturing companies and individual consumers.

The object of study in this work is the travel company Adriatic-Tour LLC.

The subject of the study is the elements of direct marketing in this company.

The purpose of the work is to develop measures to improve direct marketing at Adriatic-Tour LLC.

Job objectives:

1. Determine the theoretical foundations of direct marketing.

2. Conduct a study of the activities of Adriatic-Tour LLC.

3. Analyze the effectiveness of direct marketing activities at Adriatic-Tour LLC.

4.Identify the main directions for improving activities in the field of direct marketing.

To solve the problems posed in the work, educational and methodological literature in the field of marketing and advertising, results of marketing research (internal information of the company), materials from travel agencies, periodicals, as well as materials from the official websites of marketing companies and advertising agencies were used.

The practical significance of the work is that in the course of the work, the effectiveness of the company’s marketing communications will be calculated and proposals will be made to improve it, which will allow the company to more rationally spend funds on direct marketing.

1.1 The essence and place of direct marketing in the enterprise communications system

In recent years, along with the increasing role of marketing, the role of marketing communications has increased. It is not enough to have good products and services; to increase sales and make profits, you need to convey to consumers the benefits of using products and services.

Marketing communications enable the transmission of messages to consumers in order to make company products and services attractive to the target audience.

Marketing communications, considered as a process, imply a close connection with the target audience, carried out through any contact with the consumer. These contacts occur constantly when the consumer is involved in the process of the seller’s activity, for example, when he is transferred from the “evaluation of options” stage to the “purchase decision” stage. Certain results and market reactions are prepared by the marketing mix.

Marketing communications refers to the management of the process of promoting goods and services at all stages: before sale, at the time of purchase, during and after completion of the consumption process.

Marketing communications systems must be developed individually for each target market segment and contain not only mechanisms for transmitting information to the target audience of buyers, but also functions for feedback from the buyer to the seller of goods and services. It is the analysis of feedback data that allows you to evaluate the effectiveness of investments in a marketing campaign.

There are several types of marketing communications that make up the marketing communications system. These include advertising, sales promotion, public relations (public relations) and direct marketing. In order to more accurately describe direct marketing, we will briefly consider other marketing communications.

Advertising, as a rule, created and published by an advertising agency, informs about the manufacturer or its product, forms and supports their image and is paid by the advertiser in accordance with the tariffs for placing advertising messages in the media.

Sales promotion is the activity of implementing commercial and creative ideas that stimulate sales of advertiser's products or services, often in a short time.

Public relations involves the use of the editorial part of the media for the purpose of carrying out prestigious advertising aimed at winning a favorable attitude towards product families or the companies that produce them.

Direct marketing is constantly maintained targeted communications with individual consumers or firms with obvious intentions to buy certain goods. Direct marketing activities are primarily carried out through direct mail or highly specialized advertising media. The income of an advertising agency when working in the field of direct marketing is generated from commissions and depends on the amounts spent by the client.

In modern conditions of a saturated market, the success of marketing communications is one of the main guarantees of business prosperity. Managing a marketing communications system must be approached systematically, just like managing finances or logistics. The widespread policy of targeted marketing activities, as a rule, does not allow achieving results that would largely satisfy the needs of medium and large businesses.

The differences between the above communication elements lie in their goals (Table 1).

Table 1 Types of marketing communications and their goals

Direct marketing is designed to obtain a measurable response and aims to establish long-term relationships with clients (client relationship). The Direct Marketing Association of America (DMA) defines it as “an interactive marketing system that uses one or more advertising media to generate a measurable response or sale, regardless of the location of the seller and buyer.”

N.D. Eriashvili divides marketing into active and passive, and classifies direct marketing as active: active marketing includes a system of the following activities:

· holding one-time events, in particular presentations and conferences, at which the process of directly studying consumer assessments of the quality and completeness of the product range takes place;

To analyze the marketing activities of the Pink Elephant travel agency, it is necessary to assess the general management system formed in this company during its existence, since it is within the framework of this system that the company’s marketing activities are carried out.

The management system of a travel agency includes strategic, operational and current management, through which the process of constant movement of the company towards the greatest economic and managerial efficiency is carried out.

The goal of the Pink Elephant travel agency is to provide diverse and high-quality tourism services to its clients.

The implementation of this goal involves the formulation of certain activity objectives, namely:

• 1) formation of a diverse and high-quality tourism product;
• 2) effective interaction with tour operator companies;
• 3) development of own tour operator activities;
• 4) providing a high level of service to the population based on a differentiated approach to different groups of clients;
• 5) expanding its presence in the tourism industry market of Rostov-on-Don.

To implement these tasks at the strategic level of management, the owners of the travel agency and its managers plan the company’s activities in its entirety, namely:

• - carry out external and internal analysis of the company’s activities;
• - assess their own capabilities for progressive development in the current conditions of the external and internal environment;
• - determine the objectives of activities for the planning period;
• - determine the company’s behavior strategy in the tourism industry market.

At the tactical level, the company's strategy is implemented by achieving effective interaction between its management and specialists, line-level managers. As part of making management tactical decisions, quantitative and qualitative justifications for these decisions, measures for their implementation are developed, direct executors are determined, forms of control over execution, etc. At this level, the problems of managing the company’s personnel, their motivation, issues of logistics and financial support for the company’s divisions, etc. are solved.

At the current level of managing the activities of a travel agency, line managers determine specific mechanisms, procedures and algorithms for the performance of professional duties by the company’s employees, ensure the return from each employee and, in general, in each area of ​​work. These efforts make it possible to ensure uninterrupted functioning of the entire company and the provision of tourist services to clients in full quantity and quality.

It should be noted that the management of the activities of the Pink Elephant travel agency at all levels is carried out on the basis of mandatory analysis and consideration of factors of the external and internal environment in which the company operates. This work is carried out directly by marketing specialists of the travel agency, within the framework of the functions of the marketing department.

This organizational structure is a traditional linear-functional management structure, with a predominance of vertical connections, reflecting the corresponding functional relationships that have developed in the organization. It reflects the main directions of the company’s activities (Russian and local tourism, foreign tourism) and the company’s focus on marketing activities (marketing department).

Let us turn directly to the analysis of marketing management in the Pink Elephant travel agency, which is carried out by specialists from the marketing department.

Marketing activities are carried out in a travel agency in the totality of all stages assumed within the framework of such management - analytical, stages of developing a marketing policy, organizing promotion and sales of tourism products and subsequent control. Their development is carried out by specialists from the marketing department in agreement with the director of the company and under his direct supervision and control.

The analytical stage involves conducting marketing research, which forms the information base for subsequent planning of the travel agency’s marketing activities. At the planning stage, a travel agency's marketing plan is formed - medium or short-term. At the stage of implementing the marketing plan, activities and mechanisms for the formation, promotion and effective sale of tourism products are developed. The control stage involves the implementation of the control function of marketing, without which it is impossible to manage marketing in any organization.

In general, the activities of the marketing department of the Pink Elephant company are aimed at flexible adaptation of its activities to the conditions of the regional tourism industry market, its changes and combines a complex of research, economic and sales activities. The purpose of the department is to contribute to the main goals of the company: meeting the needs of clients in tourism services while optimizing profits.

Considering the specialization of the company’s activities, its status as a travel agent and tour operator, the marketing department pays special attention to the research of the target audience, which, as indicated above, is heterogeneous. For marketers, it is important to determine the circle of potential clients of the company, their requests and wishes, financial capabilities and, based on this, then determine a set of actions aimed at winning and retaining them.

It is on this basis that a travel agency’s marketing plan is formed, the basis of which is primary data on the state of the market and the state of the target audience of the Pink Elephant company, collected during surveys of the company’s clients, sample surveys on the city streets, as well as secondary information data (press, travel agency reports etc.). Such a plan is necessary as a guide to action for the company’s employees who practically implement each of its activities.

The marketing plan of a travel agency has several goals:

• - determines the directions in which the marketing activities of the travel agency should be built and developed (sales territories, types of tourism, sales volumes, etc.);
• - links marketing goals with the general objectives of the travel agency;
• - obliges the company to proceed from the real situation in the tourism services market;
• - helps to correlate marketing costs with the financial and material capabilities of the travel agency.

Such a plan is drawn up by the Pink Elephant travel agency once a year. In itself, drawing up a marketing plan stimulates management and line managers to analyze and think through all the issues of its content, and therefore deepen their knowledge and practical skills in the field of marketing. Discussing this plan in a team helps maintain the spirit of a single team and is good training for ordinary employees.

Today, the strategic marketing goals of the Pink Elephant company are focused on two areas:

• a) development of a tourism product taking into account the company’s status as a travel agent and tour operator;
• b) strengthening its market position in the tourism industry market of Rostov-on-Don.

From these positions, the travel agency develops elements of the marketing mix:

• 1) tourist product;
• 2) pricing;
• 3) place of sale;
• 4) promotion of goods to the market.

By implementing this marketing mix, the marketing department of the Pink Elephant company solves the following problems:

• - analysis of the market position of a travel agency based on an analysis of factors of its external and internal environment and the position of its competitors;
• - analysis of the company’s pricing, sales, advertising activities, sales promotion methods, identifying their strengths and weaknesses;
• - development of medium- and short-term forecasts for the sale of tourism products;
• - selection and development of target segments of the tourism services market and practical actions focused on them;
• - development of elements of the travel agency’s corporate style, their correct use in office design and in the advertising media used;
• - development of an action plan for advertising and public relations using the most effective means of advertising, operational analysis of the effectiveness of their implementation and, if necessary, adjustments;
• - development of proposals for the formation and adjustment of a positive image of a travel agency in the minds of consumers of tourism services and a unified corporate culture in the company, direct participation in their practical implementation using advertising means.

These tasks are solved by two specialists from the company’s marketing department: a manager for planning, formation and sales of tourism products and a public relations specialist.

Let's look at how the elements of the marketing mix are implemented in the Pink Elephant company.

A tourist product is a company’s product, and therefore its formation in quantity and quality demanded by the target audience is a key task for the marketing department. In addition, the tourism product of the Pink Elephant company must be somewhat different from similar products offered by its competitors, in principle, for the same target audience.

Today, the tourism product of the Pink Elephant company includes tours organized by the company itself in Russia and the Rostov region, and tours abroad purchased from large Russian tour operators.

In the first case, when forming a tourism product, the company’s marketing department forms a portfolio of orders for the year and quarterly. This is done on the basis of concluded agreements for the provision of relevant services with the owners of tourist centers, sanatoriums, and hospitals in the Rostov region, based on the places they have available for receiving vacationers. It is obvious that in conditions of fierce competition between local travel agencies, high population demand for vacations in the Rostov region and limited capabilities of service owners, the Pink Elephant company receives a rather limited number of places that it can sell to its clients.

This implementation occurs as a result of active promotions, for example, advertising offers for organizing the New Year holidays, May holidays, summer holidays, weekends, etc. These promotions are carried out long before the start of each offer, and before this time, up to 85% of available vouchers are in demand. The rest of the places are sold immediately before the start of the offers, but at higher prices.

This method of creating and promoting a tourism product is quite effective, especially when working with corporate clients. Today, an increasing number of employers are striving to be socially oriented.

When forming and promoting this tourism product, the Pink Elephant company, as a tour operator, makes a profit by varying the size of the markup on the initial cost of services established by their owners under contracts. The size of the markup varies, depending on the holiday destination, class of service, seasonal demand, time of clients’ stay at the holiday destination, form and time of payment, etc., from 20 to 75%. At the same time, every quarter the marketing department analyzes the volume of profit received, the types of tour operator services provided by the company, the volume of tourist flow for each service and the price level for them from the standpoint of its own commercial benefit.

In a similar way, the tourism product and price level for various types of services are formed when a travel agency offers excursion, medical, educational, etc. tours around Russia. Advertising campaigns are also held here, contracts are concluded with the owners of travel services and carriers, but so far on a very limited range of routes (Moscow, St. Petersburg, tours along the Golden Ring of Russia). Medical, educational tours, group tours for schoolchildren, etc. are carried out upon preliminary requests, and, based on existing demand, the company forms groups for certain dates.

Accordingly, pricing for such services is carried out depending on the level of consumer demand and ranges from 25 to 50% of the price set by the owners of the services. Transport costs are not subject to such surcharges. During peak seasonal demand (for example, for holidays at tourist centers, holiday homes and sanatoriums on the Black Sea coast), prices can be set individually - depending on the place of holiday, time of purchase of the tour, number of holidaymakers, forms of payment, etc.

Foreign tours are formed differently. Being a travel agent in this case, the Pink Elephant company only sells tours prepared by Rostov tour operator companies to its clients, charging a commission of 10% for this, which is determined in the agreement between these entities. Consequently, the profit from a company’s travel agency activities depends on the number of tours it sells, since for every 100 tours sold, the company receives an additional percentage of profit from its counterparty (usually 1%).

At the same time, depending on the state of consumer demand for certain routes, seasonal factors, etc., the travel agency offers its clients discounts throughout the year, which can reach 70% for “last minute tours.” Thus, the pricing process as an element of the marketing mix is ​​carried out in the Pink Elephant company quite flexibly, which is largely due to the high level of competition.

The specified activities within the framework of the implemented marketing complex are also subject to analysis by specialists from the company’s marketing department, who quarterly and annually determine the volume of tourist flows in each of the presented destinations and the volume of profit received.

Places of sale of tourism products as the next element of the marketing mix in relation to the Pink Elephant company are determined by two factors: the company’s location in Rostov-on-Don and targeted work to attract new clients to the company’s services. At the same time, additional work in this direction is aimed at corporate clients, and therefore the company’s managers form a list of corporate clients throughout the entire period of the company’s operation on the market.

Here, this element of the marketing mix turns out to be inextricably linked with the promotion of the tourism product to the market. The main way of such promotion, of course, is advertising. Typically, the Pink Elephant company publishes it in local print media, as well as in the form of a “crawling line” on local television channels. The latter give advertisers a good opportunity to simultaneously publish their advertisements on all Omsk TV channels broadcasting to the city and region, as well as in 5 local newspapers. This allows the company to significantly save on advertising, given that with this method of presenting advertising information, the potential audience reaches hundreds of thousands of people - viewers and readers.

In general, the company's costs for marketing activities are not yet too high and amount to no more than 8% of profits. When determining the marketing budget, the company's management uses the "fixed percentage" method, which is based on the deduction of a certain percentage of last year's sales volume. This method is quite simple and convenient, and at the stage of the life cycle at which the company is currently located, it is quite acceptable. At the same time, when expanding its activities in the future, the company should use a more advanced method for determining the marketing budget.

Thus, the analysis of marketing management in the Pink Elephant travel agency showed that this management in the company is carried out, quite professionally, within the framework of a special structural unit created in its organizational structure. At the same time, it is too early to talk about the high efficiency of marketing management, since the company still works too little in the tourism industry market to declare its success. In addition, it should be noted a number of problems existing in this area, which in the future may reduce the effectiveness of marketing management in the Pink Elephant company and weaken its market position in comparison with the positions of competitors.

A travel agency sells tourism products and individual travel services to consumers through the process of personal selling.

Personal selling is an oral presentation of a tourism product during a conversation with one or more potential buyers.

Firstly, it is a form of marketing communications of an enterprise that is used to establish certain relationships with the client. Communication characteristics of personal selling include:

2 the direct nature of the relationship between a travel agency employee and a client;

3 interactive mode of communication, which allows you to flexibly respond to consumer requests and personal behavior through individual explanatory work and the use of other methods of sales promotion;

4 adjustment of the components of the tourism product; the ability to complete the process by selling a tourism product;

5 high reliability of continued contact after consumption of the tourism product.

Secondly, personal selling is the direct implementation of sales operations, a form of direct marketing of tourism products.

The personal selling process is very complex and can be represented as several successive stages.

1st stage. Accepting the client and establishing initial contact with him. Each tourism enterprise must have its own form of meeting a client - a set of behavioral actions that help establish contact. It is during the meeting procedure that the client is initially identified and assigned to a certain psychological type. Even if the visitor behaves aggressively or insecurely, looks sloppy, that is, does not correspond to the manager’s idea of ​​​​a real buyer, this should not affect the atmosphere of attentiveness and goodwill.

The choice of the manager's next course of action depends on the type of client.

2nd stage. Identifying client needs. During the conversation with the visitor, the manager finds out his needs and priorities regarding each component of the tourism product, starting with the route, type of tourism and price range. At the same time, the tourist’s purchasing center and his readiness to make a purchase are determined.

3rd stage. Presentation of travel product options that, in the manager’s opinion, meet the client’s needs. At this stage, all means of materializing the story are used - slides, printed materials, films, virtual travel, showing reviews of other tourists. The conversation is conducted in a dialogue form, the argument is selected in accordance with the psychological type of the tourist. An important condition for the effective sale of a tour is the manager’s absolute truthfulness and correct coverage of all aspects of the purchase.

It is known that there are many ways to deceive a client without saying a single word of lies. Yes, the manager of one Kyiv agency, telling a married couple of elderly tourists about a seaside hotel in Italy, noted that the distance from the hotel to the beach is 100m. Arriving at the place, the tourists were very surprised because the hotel stood on a cliff, and a 100m long path led up. Throughout their stay, tourists covered several hundred paths to the sea.

Among the positive examples of working with clients is the activity of the Kyiv travel company "Assol", whose director strictly monitors the completeness, accuracy and reliability of the information that his managers provide. An employee of this company would rather answer “I don’t know” than give unverified information to a tourist.

4th stage. Overcoming possible contradictions. During the conversation, contradictions often arise, initiated by the client. Consumer objections can be both psychological and logical in nature. Psychological ones depend on the personal characteristics of the buyer. They can only be overcome through the ability to communicate with different types of personalities. The reasons for the emergence of logical objections are related to the lack of obvious advantages of the tourism product or its inept presentation.

5th stage. Making a sale is the highest goal of direct marketing. Not all contacts with a client result in a sale. But if the tourist has already indicated an intention to purchase a tourist product that was offered to him by the agency, an agreement on the provision of services is concluded, the manager explains the payment procedure and conducts a conversation.

6th stage. Ensuring the following contacts with the client is a prerequisite for effective marketing of a tourism enterprise. After all, there is a high probability that a satisfied client will repeatedly turn to the services of a travel agency. To ensure the following contacts, the company stores information about the client, he is informed about the company’s new assortment positions and the benefits that he receives when purchasing tours again, and is invited to tourism exhibitions and fairs.