Promotion of Sharing Services on the Example of Car Sharing

The car-sharing market in Russia has reduced the market growth rate and interest rates over the past two years, which was one of the reasons for working on the promotion policy. Despite the lack of researches in the academic field, it is actual to raise the questions about using marketing, the issues of proper positioning, communication with stakeholders and the promotion of the product in the conditions of the sharing economy. The purpose of this work is to develop recommendations for the promotion in the car sharing industry. The work contains the analysis of the previous studies in the field of promoting sharing services. The features, advantages and problems, related to the stakeholders of THE car-sharing companies, were highlighted, and with the help of this data, we developed the recommendations for promoting the car-sharing industry. The essential conclusion is that the nature of the marketing messages for people who addicted to personal cars should be treated with caution. It can be said, that the number of cars, their density, distribution and sticky advertising is important for the promotion. It is substantiated, that companies have opportunity to make sales to small corporate clients. There were also highlighted the features of marketing in the sharing economy, such as the network effect, the “winner-take-all” model, the risks associated with working conditions and confidentiality, the innovation of business models, the important role of the consumer. All of them concern to the car-sharing industry as well. During the work, there were conducted the survey and interviews. The obtained data was also analyzed using cluster and content analysis, and on this basis there were given additional recommendations for the promotion of the car sharing companies. There are two segments of consumers with different preferences. With the help of this information the companies should choose the information channels and the character of messages for the consumer. It is necessary to open car sharing in new regions because of the demand. It has been proven that social networks for communicating with the target audience are very useful. This work will help the future researchers to develop and test a specific advertisement on the users in order to assess its effectiveness basing on the proposed recommendations. From a practical point of view, this work will allow managers of the car-sharing companies to understand better the specifics of promotion in their industry.