General concepts and tools of political marketing

The aim of the article. The aim of the article is consideration of political systems using marketing concept, which has recently received significant development in society live. The general laws of economic and social systems development are confirmed.The results of the analysis. It is known that systemic approaches to the solution of certain scientific problems make it possible to transfer properties of studied patterns on other systems. In the beginning of twenty-first century economy and politics intertwin with each other. So it is naturally to consider political events of recent years using marketing methodology, principles of market segmentation, research methods, properties of certain elements of the marketing mix: product life cycle graph, financial policy, instruments of marketing communications and more. Nowadays marketing approach moves from the market of goods and services to nonprofit sector. It happens because a lot of processes in this sphere are based on the use of market approaches and mechanisms. President, parliamentary and local government elections are the most felicitous objects to verify the effectiveness of marketing concept inpolitics.Political marketing is defined as a system of means and measures to create an image of party or its leaders. This image has to meet the expectations of their potential electorate and stress the differences between our party and competitors. The purpose of political marketing is to coordinate steps and program of the party or its leader with electoral expectations, to attract voter and to form assessment criterions. Such criterions can be: win or significant percentage of election results, the current rating of the party and so on.The subject of research in political marketing is election campaigns, mass political and educational events, propaganda work, lobbying process, preparation and implementation of various projects, work with political parties and public organizations. An applied sphere of political marketing is power relationships. It is a space in which parties, social movements, public organizations, state institutions and public interests exist and interact.Conclusions and directions of further researches. It is shown that political market is a place where the political product, problems, programs, analyzes, comments, concepts, events appear as a result of competition between involved agents. Ordinary citizens (consumers) choose among them. Thus, marketing categories can be used to explaine, understand and research political systems. Also they confirm the common patterns of development of political and socio-economic systems.