Gulnara Chernobaeva Project activity should be distinguished from the equally important operating activity. The latter is used when external conditions are well-known and stable, manufacturing operations are well-researched and repeatedly tested, and the performers’ functions are defined and consistent. Emerging in the 1960s as the technology for organising activities in the construction field, project management settled in the IT sector in the 1980s. In the 21st century, there is hardly any area where companies have not yet employed the methodology of project management to improve their effectiveness and efficiency. Not long ago, the project activity, which had already surpassed the boundaries of specific industries, would be primarily classified as a creation of new products. However, today, the design techniques are increasingly used to implement targeted changes within individual organizations and across the whole social and economic systems. Presently, project activity is no longer restricted to large and medium-sized businesses. It is also becoming a powerful competition tool for small businesses. Projects of any scale, implemented in any field, require effective, adequate marketing support. Marketing orientation for the management of all kinds of activities implies the possibility of improving the process of company goal achievement by meeting the needs of customers, clients, partners, and society as a whole. The success of any project is defined as complete satisfaction with its results for all project participants, as well as for multiple parties involved in the project (such as customers, executors, sponsors, project team, project manager, contractors, subcontractors, investors, and suppliers). Marketing communications play a significant role in the satisfaction of these audiences. Their importance has increased substantially in the current conditions of complex product differentiation within a competitive group. Today, with the help of marketing communications, we often establish an emotional, rather than rational, basis of rating and choice. Through marketing communications, we can influence the relationships, expectations, and interests of not only customers, but also all representatives of the marketing media environment of the whole company, as well as the specific project. Communications enable us to modify the ranking of the existing criteria to evaluate products, companies, and their representatives. Communications also allow changing the sets of criteria for evaluating and selecting the product, brand, or company. The effects of these and other influences contribute to the creation and maintenance of a sense of satisfaction in the target audience, the building of loyalty, an increase in sales, and achievement of other goals. The high costs of marketing communications, reduced effectiveness of their main instruments, high availability of information, and increased professionalism of information users determine the development of new communication technologies and tools targeted at specific audiences. Established in 1993 by Professor Don Schultz, the concept of integrated marketing communications (IMC) can improve the effectiveness of marketing influences. A commonly used definition of IMC is as follows: IMC is a concept of marketing communication planning that recognizes the added value of the comprehensive plan that evaluates the strategic roles of a variety of communication disciplines - for example, general advertising, direct response, sales promotion, and public relations - and combines these disciplines to provide clarity, consistency, and public communication impact (Schultz, Tannenbaum and Lauterborn 1993, p. 6). The use of the integrated marketing communications concept in the marketing practice allows coordinating communications with all the company's contact audiences and solving the following tasks:
Image consolidation;
Creation of a reliable, consistent relationship between the consumer and the seller;
Impact on all the contact audiences of the enterprise;
Increase of the message credibility;
Reduction of the communication budget costs by eliminating duplication;
Implementation of the communication impact at all stages of the purchasing process;
Use of the communication component of all marketing kit elements (such as product, place, and price).
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