Having made several articles on setting up a WooCommerce online store, I realized that I did not pay attention at all to the possibility of creating and setting up an online store of virtual goods on WooCommerce. For example, let's create a store with free download of WordPress themes, and then make the download paid.

Disabling payments

In, disable all types of payments. To do this, we go through the types of payments and remove checks.

On the Payments>>> Checkout Options tab, remove the check in the "Allow guests to checkout" line. Thus, we allow guests to issue goods without prior registration. You can do the opposite.

Adding an agreement

Paragraph " Terms and Agreements' on the same tab. Let's slow down at this point. I did not show this item in previous articles, the time has come.

You know about the new addition to the law on personal data (July 27, 2006 N 152-FZ). Briefly. Then for any site you now need to create a user agreement on the collection of personal information and acquaint the visitor with it before filling out any form.

I offer a standard sample. What to do with him? Fill in for yourself, and create a separate page with the text of this agreement on the tab Pages>>>Create new.

After publishing this page, you need to specify it in the field: " Terms and Agreements". In addition, create a menu item with User agreement so that it can be accessed from the pages of the site.

On the same tab, do not forget about SSL, if it is not there, then the check in the “SSL certificate” item must be removed.

Save.

Changing accounts

Accounts tab. Here, for example, I turn everything on by selecting all the check boxes. Endpoints We don't change my account. Save.

Viewing the Emal settings

Email tab. You can change nothing in the Email settings. If you wish, you can turn off all letters to customers that are not related to account and password recovery. We will see the form of the letter that customers receive a little lower.

Settings Products downloaded

Products tab. Here we leave everything by default, just go to the “Downloadable goods” tab.

Item "File upload method". Here there are problems because of hosting. The system offers three download options:

• Forced;
• X-Accel-Redirect. You need to enable the X-Accel-Redirect/X Send file module on your server. This is a module of the so-called controlled download, which allows the server to decide on its own what to do: let it download or do something else. It is difficult to advise anything, you have to try;
• Redirect only.

In point " Access limitation» It is reasonable to allow downloading after registration, and since the product is free, we do not select the checkbox “Give access ... after payment”.

Save.

In principle, all general settings for creating a store for downloading free files, in the example download WordPress themes, are set. The weak point in these settings is the "File upload method" item. More about him below. It's time to add TSA products.

Adding a Virtual Downloadable Product (VDT)

The easiest way is to add a VST product, for downloading from a third-party server (for example, Yandex disk), through the “External / Partner product” product type.

In the "Product data" module, select two checks "Virtual" and "Downloadable", and set the product type to "External/Partner product".

add a product to download from a third-party server

If you are "selling" themes from the site server (WordPress library), then:

• set the product to "Simple",
• select two checks "Virtual" and "Downloadable",
• set the price to "0"
• in the "Downloadable files" field, select the template ZIP file from the library.
• We set the download limit (one client) and the download expiration date (date) as desired.

Do not forget to completely fill out the product card, with a description, photo (template screenshots), etc.

Also, don't forget about . If necessary, specify the downloaded products.

WooCommerce Virtual Goods Store - Conditional Purchase

Let's see how by visiting the store of virtual goods on WooCommerce you can download, after the settings set earlier and the qualitative addition of "products" for download, you can download it. I remind you that we are making an online store of virtual goods on WooCommerce.

In this case:

• The client sees a product card with a template (VST file);
• Adds a template to the cart;
• Goes to the cart immediately or after several items;
• From the basket goes to the "Product clearance";
• Here fills in the registration form, presses "Confirm order";
• And in the table "Information about the product" seeing the link "Download" downloads the product without payment.

Addition

It is reasonable to show download themes on the showcase by category. To do this, in the general settings on the Products>>>Display tab, specify " Shop page» show "Categories", and in the paragraph " On the category page» show «Category products».

conclusions

I showed you how to make a free store with a virtual download. In my opinion, it is easier to make access to files from third-party services: Ya.Disk, Box, Dropbox, than to load your server with heavy files. However, if you are trading pictures, then this is fine.

V next article, I'll show you how to create a paid "rocking chair" on WooCommerce, that is, an online store for the sale of virtual downloadable goods, such as photos or disks.

How to shorten the product registration registration form

When trading VST, at least for a fee, at least for free, the form for the buyer with personal data seems unnecessarily large: address, phone number, full name, are not needed for downloading. Hence the question: how to reduce it?

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Currently selling virtual goods is one of the most common ways to participate in eCommerce. To sell ordinary goods, you must have warehouses or pay money for their rent, arrange for the delivery of goods and pay for their transportation from the supplier to the warehouse, and so on. In addition to performing a large number hard work and investing huge amounts of money, you will also spend a lot of time on all related business operations. But in today's market, business opportunities change along with conditions. To become an online entrepreneur, you can sell not only physical, but also so-called virtual goods, which we will talk about today in the WooCommerce virtual goods review.

When you hear the word “virtual goods,” you must have immediately thought of e-books and music. In fact, despite all the obviousness, such goods include any goods that cannot be used in physical form. Here are just a few of them:
- software products;
- photographs and graphic works;
– web templates, plugins, scripts and so on;
– films, music and other multimedia goods;
– e-books and manuals, subscriptions to magazines;
- services.

WooCommerce virtual products plugins and templates for selling them

The sale of virtual goods provides a large number of benefits, which include the following:
– savings on shipping costs;
– savings in rental costs;
– simplified management of the store and product range;
- reduced probability of returning the goods (a person immediately feels what he is paying for).

This is not the whole list of opportunities for selling electronic, virtual or digital goods. As an example of a site that sells virtual goods, I would like to present as many as seven sites of the Australian IT company Envato. On each of them, these guys sell various products, including templates (themes) for ready-made sites, plugins, videos, video effects, audio files, fonts, logos, icons, photographs, and even 3D models and textures of computer graphics. All these sites are organized so conveniently that it will not be difficult to find the right products. Simple search, sorting, categorization, a clear rating and rating system - all this allows buyers to enjoy the purchase of high-quality virtual goods.

In just 10 years (the company has existed since 2006), these guys were able to create a complex of sites with more than 1.5 million buyers and sellers. In June 2015, their top Themeforest site became one of the most popular resources on the Internet according to Alexa. Why am I doing this? And to the fact that selling WooCommerce virtual goods is profitable, and you can create a serious business on this. Stock photos, subscriptions, software and more - all of which you can sell on your site if you choose WooCommerce!

WooCommerce Virtual Products Plugins & Templates – Why WooCommerce

In our articles, we have repeatedly drawn the attention of our readers to the advantages of this system for e-commerce. These include ease of development and store operation, enhanced with support for third-party solutions, and support for a huge collection of WooCommerce templates. The last point is especially nice, because it means that you will have a huge choice when designing a site and creating your own design.

No other CMS will offer you this. In addition, WooCommerce initially runs on WordPress, which means it supports all of its features, including versatility. In simple words, this means that in addition to selling virtual goods on your site, you can blog, create a forum, social network, organize a newsletter, and even create a full-fledged corporate website with all these functions at the same time. You simply won’t find another such solution other than WooCommerce virtual goods!

WooCommerce Virtual Products Plugins & Templates – Collection of Premium Solutions

The specialists of our site have prepared the most top-end solutions for selling any kind of virtual goods. First of all, these are templates. It is logical that the choice fell on the aforementioned Themeforest as a platform. There you can choose from more different WooCommerce templates and more than 10 thousand WordPress templates for various purposes. But we will simplify the task for you so that you do not waste extra time.

WooCommerce Virtual Products - Best Templates

DGWork is a business theme for selling virtual goods

This is a flexible online store theme powered by the professional plugin Easy Digital Downloads. It implements all the functions for selling any digital goods: from software products and photos to e-books and subscriptions.

The package includes the Visual Composer page builder and several pre-designed layouts. If desired, the entire site can be installed in one click and further configured in the admin panel.

The theme has a very convenient user panel for easy management of purchases and orders. Responsive design will make your site look beautiful on all mobile devices, and the Revolution Slider plugin will add a modern slider with support for mobile gestures.

Themebox is a unique WordPress digital goods theme

This is a complete theme of an entire platform for the sale of virtual goods, in which, in addition to a professional visual designer, there are three styles of header design and five homepage design options to choose from. To organize a customer support forum, you can use the bbPress plugin, with which this theme has 100% integration. Unlimited colors, hundreds of Google fonts, a contact form, a MailChimp newsletter, and tons of valuable documentation, Themebox theme has it all.

A special bonus for those who want to sell affiliate products is that you can directly add products from all Envato sites to your store.

SoundBox – Responsive Easy Digital Downloads WordPress Theme

Another theme for the EDD plugin, which is specially designed for selling music and videos. With this theme, the design of your virtual goods marketplace will be very clean, modern and filled with the brightest colors. Nothing extra!

With this theme, you can create a platform with several stores in one. Absolutely all design elements adapt to the screen size of the device from which the visitor will enter your site, so you can cover all categories of potential buyers.

The theme is powered by Bootstrap framework, supports Uber mega menu, slider and beautiful Font Awesome icons. Choose this theme if you want to start selling any WooCommerce virtual goods profitably right now!

Digipress is a marketplace for digital EDD products

Dedicated EDD plugin for selling books, tutorials, audio and video files, plugins, snippets, templates, logos and many other virtual goods. You will get a clean and modern template with a focus on attracting the attention of visitors.

In addition to integration with the Easy Digital Downaloads plugin, you will have two versions home page, as well as a convenient constructor for building a site from scratch - King Composer. Live search, Google fonts, icon fonts and easy payment procedure are all included in the Digipress template price. This template is configured very easily and without any programming knowledge. Choose a simple solution to successfully sell digital goods.

The existence of this plugin is living evidence that buyers do not need to be scared away by unnecessary filling in information about themselves when buying products. With this plugin, you will be able to make the payment process for buying digital goods as simple as possible by asking them only for basic information when purchasing and the rest of the information after. This simple trick will allow you to increase sales and get a more effective product marketplace.

The main features of the YITH plugin:

– free customization of displayed fields during payment;
– providing a post-purchase download option only to those who have completed their profile;
– adding fields for payment directly on the product page (to speed up the purchase);
– a shortcode for processing the purchase of goods using the form;
– the ability to apply the plugin to certain products, categories and tags;
– simple translation using the WPML plugin;
– support for the most popular themes on ThemeForest: Avada (340 thousand buyers), (158 thousand) and Neighborhood (8.5 thousand).

If you need an additional solution to increase the efficiency of your eCommerce business, feel free to choose this plugin!

In general, this plugin is identical to the previous one and allows your buyer not to fill in unnecessary fields when purchasing virtual goods. Why complicate the entire checkout process by requiring the customer, for example, a physical address, if he needs to buy a virtual product that will not even be sent to him? This plugin will allow you to avoid unnecessary formalities to facilitate purchases on your commercial site. As a result, you can confidently increase your sales.

Key benefits of the WooCommerce Checkout for Digital Goods plugin:

- no settings;
– the ability to hide the fields with the address and phone number, if the buyer has only virtual goods in the cart;
– accelerated payment procedure and increased sales;
- Satisfied customers.

Think and decide which of these two plugins to choose to make the process of buying goods in your store as pleasant and convenient as possible for all customers.

With this set of plugins, you can easily start selling any digital goods on your site with a beautiful design, modern effects, user-friendly structure and clear payment procedure. Seven add-ons allow you to create beautiful page layouts and galleries for selling products, add sliders to draw attention to products, and use a filter with animation effects and sorting. Particular attention was paid to the design of product categories with SEO optimization and the possibility of adding products by a large number of sellers.

The add-ons support five designs for your site and are fully compatible with three cool themes for creating a virtual goods marketplace, including Marketify .

These were the most best plugins and WooCommerce templates virtual goods with which your commercial business has a real chance of our success. We also have an excellent overview on our website that will help you find alternative solutions for . We wish you grateful customers and high sales!

Artyom is the author of numerous reviews and articles on the website of the project website "Web Lab of Success", dedicated to templates, plugins, courses and other topics of the site. Expert in the selection of templates and plugins for the WordPress platform, etc. Hobbies: reading interesting literature and outdoor activities.

Recently, there has been a lot of discussion about the emergence of a new type of product, called virtual. These products (or services) can be created by the latest advances in information processing, organizational dynamics and development of production systems. The release of such products becomes available at any time, in any place and in countless variants of models and formats. An ideal virtual product is something that is produced instantly and targeted, at the request of the customer. The common feature of these products is that they are paid instantly by the consumer.

A virtual product (both a physical product and a service) exists even before it is produced. Its concept, design and production is preserved in the memory of workers, computer programs and flexible production lines. Another distinctive feature of virtual products - the growing role of the consumer as a co-producer of products - can be traced to examples of many industries. In each case, the customer can not only control the results, but also establish strong and long-term relationships with the supplier during the production process. In just two decades, the creation of integrated circuits has gone from new designs that took months to be developed by teams of specialists and then executed in expensive laboratories, to virtual products that are created in a few hours and "built" in a few minutes by an engineer who does not need to leave his office using the desktop "factory".

Virtual products are the result of a combination of numerous and varied advances in technology. For example, new printing processes involve the use of lasers, xerography, integrated circuits, microprocessors, high-speed communication processes, display technologies, and advances in software. One of the main principles of the production of virtual products is the integration of production processes with suppliers that produce absolutely interchangeable products.

Of great importance to consumers is not only virtual products, but also the emergence of a new type of corporations designed to produce such products. In order to create virtual products, a company must completely redesign its operations, be able to control increasingly complex types of information and master new organizational and production skills. Principles of education virtual organization are shown in Fig. 34.1.

The virtual corporation was born in the imagination of the futurists, turned into a possibility for management theorists, and has now become an economic necessity for society. This is a community of functional partners managing the design, production and sale of products and services using modern information technologies and a contract system, with independent working groups and structures. Distinctive features virtual organizations are:

The intermittent nature of functioning;

Implementation of communications and management actions based on integrated and local information systems and telecommunications;

Relationships with all partner and other interested organizations through a series of agreements, contracts and mutual ownership of property;

Rice. 34.1. Virtual organization: principles of education

Formation of temporary alliances of organizations in related fields of activity;

Partial integration with the parent company and maintaining joint ownership as long as it is considered beneficial;

Contractual relations of employees with the administration at all levels.

A virtual corporation is basically a joint ownership and strategic alliance that binds together the specific goals and coordinated efforts of all its member organizations. The basic goal of a virtual corporation is to combine key technologies and competencies in order to best meet the demand in the consumer market. Groups of workers united through computer networks are able to participate in a single manufacturing process, not only being in one place, but also simultaneously in different places scattered around the world.

New constructions of virtual character blur the formal lines of organizations, making it often difficult to tell where one organization ends and another begins. Individual organizations work together through computer programs and information technology, which makes the emergence of information supersystems inevitable and gives rise to confidence in the broad possibilities of alliances of partner organizations. Virtual organizations are increasingly subcontracting to external entities in order to take advantage of small organizations, their flexibility and adaptability. There are so many external contracts that they become the framework, the "umbrella" of the organization. This determines its main quality - a wide distribution in space and time.

It often happens that a virtual organization, thanks to information technology and telecommunications is spreading all over the world. This creates conditions for working in real time, allows you to hold meetings using computer networks. Pager systems, radio and television intercom systems, modern office equipment allows you to instantly overcome huge distances, establishing communication with the right workers at a given time, anywhere they are located. Virtual organizations provide serious competitive advantages due to a significant reduction in the cost of fixed and working capital.

The virtual corporation allows companies to move away from inefficient or unprofitable areas of work (by handing them over to other companies) and focus on what is in their core competencies, such as designing a product or selling it. Such competitive advantages can be used by combining the ability of working groups, the intellectual potential of certain teams. The virtual corporation encourages firms to focus their efforts on areas of activity in which they in the best way adapted. External contracts allow you to attract those organizations that excel in other areas and perform specific jobs better than everyone else.

This approach to organizing a case can be seen in the following example. The Nike company sells sports shoes and clothing. Nike's core business is product design, marketing and sales. Throughout its existence, the company has not been engaged in the production of its products. These products are produced more efficiently with the help of a large number of supplier companies located in Asia or other regions and specialized in certain models of footwear and clothing. All companies forming an alliance are bound by contractual relations. These relationships may include partial ownership of the parent company's property, but they only last as long as the parent company and supplier companies consider it profitable (profitable).

This business organization made it possible for Nike to focus a large amount of capital on investing in production equipment for other companies, while at the same time offloading the core company in order to ensure efficient sales. If any particular type of product loses its market, Nike may withdraw from the alliance with the manufacturer. The biggest advantage is that Nike can focus on the things it does best: designing, marketing, and selling products. As a result, Nike has perfected its product marketing operations.

The parent company may have temporary alliances in a variety of areas. The most important features of a virtual organization in this case are its temporary nature and partial integration with the parent company. The global coverage of workgroups, small and medium organizations allows you to vary capabilities, abandon inefficient production processes that are not performed well and transfer them to other partners. In different parts of the virtual corporation, there is a focus on those functions and phases of the production process that can be carried out in the best way there.

Virtual organizations require a new way of thinking for leaders: the rejection of all-round control, the transition from subordination to informal coordination, mutual trust, the prevalence of efficiency over career aspirations, overcoming the remnants of hierarchical management.

In structures of a virtual nature, it is important to support and promote the development of a new element - knowledge management. With its help, a two-pronged task is solved: 1) the acquisition of knowledge that raises the level of the organization's activities; 2) their storage, distribution and transformation into a form convenient for internal use. This can be achieved through a carefully designed concept of centralization, institutionalization and practical use of accumulated knowledge. In the practice of companies, there are known cases of introducing the position of a full-time expert (the so-called knowledge broker), who acts as a coordinator between the areas of supply and consumption of knowledge. In the interests of knowledge management, cross-functional project teams are formed, special computer systems are created. Activity on the use of already accumulated knowledge and ensuring the receipt of new information creates the prerequisites for the formation learning organization.

In a virtual organization, job responsibilities will constantly change, as will authority. Even the definition of an employee will change as customers and suppliers spend more time in a company than the company's employees themselves.

The markets for complex products of the 21st century will require a prompt and global solution to the issues of targeted delivery to consumers variety of options products. These products will differ not only in form and function, but also in the related services provided, including the ability of the customer to be present during the development of product design. The manufacturing company will not become an isolated site, but rather a point of intersection in a complex network of suppliers, customers, engineers, and other functional services.

The only way to provide the customer with virtual products that meet changing needs is to maintain an integrated and constantly changing database of customer, product, production, and design methodologies. This implies new, more sophisticated forms of market research and new product design features that are of interest to the customer. One of the main challenges for many companies is to develop systems and software that allow the customer to take on design responsibilities that used to fall on the manufacturing company.

In this regard, we can talk about a virtual corporation as a model of information and relationships. The creation of virtual products will require the use of a more advanced information network that collects data on markets and consumer demands, combining it with the latest design methods and integrated computerization of production processes. This system is powered by an integration network that includes not only highly skilled employees of the company, but also suppliers, distributors, retailers and even consumers. That is why there is a need for profound changes in both the distribution system of the company and its internal organization, requiring a stronger focus on the consumer. From the outside, the network of suppliers should be integrated precisely with those customers who have common equipment, projects, and trade secrets with these suppliers. Obviously, suppliers will be highly dependent on customers, but for this reason, customers will be equally dependent on their suppliers. Ultimately, unlike today's prototypes, virtual corporations of the future will act not so much as a separate enterprise, but as an ever-changing center of concentration of common activities in a huge structure of relationships.

Corporations that expect to remain competitive must quickly improve both the information they use and the system of relationships with partners. Technologies alone, without appropriate changes, will not bring success to the rest of the corporation. That is why the process of corporate modernization should be comprehensive, covering research and development, production, marketing, sales, service, distribution, information systems, and finance at the same time. The requirements for employees of a virtual corporation are changing significantly. These corporations will need a large staff of highly skilled, reliable and educated workers - people who understand and apply new forms of information, able to adapt to change and cooperate effectively with other market agents. Virtual corporations will only function successfully when they work together as a team in which employees, management, customers, suppliers and government agencies strive to achieve common goals.

Chapter 8. Virtual Goods

In VamShop, in addition to ordinary material goods, it is possible to sell virtual goods. Virtual goods are goods that can be downloaded from an online store in the form of files, such as various software, e-books, etc.

In this section, we will cover the entire process of creating and working with virtual goods in VamShop.

Creating virtual product attributes

As I already said, in VamShop, a virtual product differs from a physical product only in that you need to add a file to the virtual product (an archive with software, an e-book, or any other file that you want to sell).

Let's start creating a virtual product from the process of creating attributes for a future virtual product. Because in VamShop, it is with the help of attributes that a file is attached to a product.

We go to the Admin panel - Catalog - Attributes - Names - fig. one.

You will be taken to the attribute settings page - fig. 2.

Product attribute consists of two parts: Attribute Name and Attribute Value. Knowing that we want to sell a virtual product, we create an attribute, for example, Upload.

To do this, in the upper part in the section Attributes - Names in the text field, enter Load and click the Add button - fig. 3.

A small digression. In this section, we will not consider working with attributes and attribute values ​​in more detail; we have already considered working with product attributes in a separate section.

By clicking the Add button we can see that the Loading attribute has been added to the list - fig. 4.

Now let's add a value for the newly created Load attribute.

For example, we will sell an e-book in a zip archive.

Let's create the value of the zip archive attribute.

To do this, in the Admin panel - Catalog - Attributes - Values, select the Load attribute in the drop-down list, enter the zip archive in the text field and click the Add button - fig. 5.

By clicking the Add button, we can see that the value of the zip archive attribute has been added to the list - fig. 6.

Everything, with the creation of attributes for the future virtual product, we have finished. Next, we move on to creating the virtual product itself and adding a file to the product.

As an applied and dynamic discipline, PR is largely influenced by environmental changes - from global market changes to the emergence of local products. Hence, each next attempt to comprehend the theory and practice of public relations should be preceded by an indication of which angles are most relevant in the current period of time. We will also make such indications, while noting that each of the positions indicated in this paragraph will be concretized and illustrated with practical examples in subsequent chapters.

The first global perspective that I would like to draw attention to is the level of development of the international and Russian commodity markets that has been achieved, dictating the formula: "Virtual goods instead of rational ones."

What happened? By the beginning of the third millennium, so many goods with approximately the same price and quality parameters appeared on the markets of most countries that a real product with its rational characteristics (price / quality) became difficult to recognize and began to “disappear”, more and more replaced by a virtual product with emotional characteristics.

The logic of the ongoing changes can be represented as follows. On the first stage the development of the market in general, as well as a separate market industry, as well as the market for an individual product, physiological or technological satisfaction is carried out consumer demand, i.e. first, the market is saturated with new products and services, and after saturation it develops due to the fact that manufacturers improve these products and services qualitatively.

Second conditional stage due to the fact that the demand for previously absent goods is, in principle, satisfied. Then there is a need not only to inform about the qualities of a product or service, but also to formulate a unique selling proposition (USP) along with the invention of non-traditional ways to promote goods.

At the same time, in parallel third stage, when we realize more and more often: a trade offer, including the most unique one, significantly exceeds the ability of the human body to make a rational choice.

What should the manufacturer and seller do in this case? The first way - and, of course, cannot be ruled out - is to create an even more unique USP. Another way is when a brand (a set of virtual characteristics of a product designed to provide it with wide and positive recognition) begins to be positioned in relative or complete isolation from the “real” parameters, and the manufacturer and seller cease to use rational arguments to confirm the optimal combinations of price and quality.

What happens to the consumer in the specified context? Going from "I'm buying this phone because it's smaller and easier to use" to "I like this phone because it's cute", ie. from a formally conscious choice to a formally unconscious preference. The same with the choice of clothes, a bank where money is kept, a restaurant where they go with family or friends. In other words, there is a transformation of perception in the direction from “evaluate my good qualities to “love me with your heart”, “trust me”.

Pointing to a progressive trend - an increasing loss of significance for mass target audiences of rational product characteristics, we mean, first of all, economic goods.

At the same time, we note that authorities, other state organizations, their leaders and employees, programs, and ideas are also goods. Using the adjective “political” in relation to the proposed list, we can get such combinations as “political leader”, “political party”, “political program”, “political idea”, and proceed to consider political goods.

Such a commodity also exists as a rational category, but even at the initial stage, to a much lesser extent than an economic commodity. Indeed, if chocolate is an economic good that can be immediately consumed, and an apartment is an economic good where you can quickly arrange your life, then the head of any government agency is a political good that only promises chocolate or an apartment. However, he is able to implement his promise directly and immediately, but such cases are rare: in most situations, there is a long gap between the virtual promise and its materialization.

In connection with the “disappearance” of the economic good, this gap widens even more: if there is less and less real uniqueness in the economic field, then, accordingly, the political leader or party has less and less opportunity to promise something unique.

A further increase in the gap between the rational and the virtual is observed in the course of political campaigns, the most frequent and active of which are elections and referendums. The option of fulfilling promises (materialization of political goods) here - simply because of the short duration of the process - is very difficult.

Similarly with the personalities of the leaders involved in the campaign. If they were not recognizable (“promoted”) before the start of the campaign, then rising from zero to the winners (again, we are talking about the materialization of goods) is just as difficult, although there are exceptions, of course.

Finally, the gap is also widening because, in the context of a political campaign, many parties and leaders do not differ among themselves in the minds of the target groups and, as a result, are rejected at a rational level.

Thus, the task for the /^-specialist in the field of marketing communications - economic and political in general and the /^-specialist, first of all, is to create an emotionally rich image in the form of a complex of virtual characteristics that the mass consumer could love. Both in theory and in practice, there interesting thing: positioning (a coherent system of placing up-to-date information about a product in external and internal communication channels) of a product on the market is increasingly ceasing to be what the manufacturer does with the product itself, - positioning turns into what the manufacturer does with the consciousness of potential consumers, and acts as a complex of informational actions, with the help of which the image of this product is “placed” in the minds of people along with the theses that it was created specifically for them and corresponds to their ideals.

This means the “disappearance” of a rational product and the advent of the “virtualization era”: remaining unchanged at the level production cycle, it, depending on the virtual actions taken towards it, “improves” or “deteriorates”, “rises in price” or “cheapens”.

The second global perspective is a revolutionary increase in the amount of information intended for assimilation by society as a whole and by each individual in particular. The same thing happens as in the case of goods: the proposed amount of information, and not only complicated special, but simplified mass information, cannot be processed by rational consciousness. For the R/C specialist, the following formula arises here: "Meaning instead of fact."

A number of researchers of information and communication processes note: as the information flow increases, the level of effectiveness of the impact on the person and target groups of real (factually positioned) information and virtual information (positioned in meaning) changes in favor of the latter.

At the beginning of the XXI century. information flow grows even to a much greater extent than commodity. The consumer in most cases cannot independently synthesize a huge number of different information messages around the same fact and reach “rational conclusions after the fact”. He begins to look for simple and understandable clues, which become "virtual conclusions on the meaning."

Hence the task of a specialist working with information for the media (specialist of a departmental information unit, an independent R / S structure, a journalist) is to transform, during each news occasion / project, a “simple” (fixing facts) information flow into a “complex” flow (interpreting facts and producing meanings). It is semantic (rather than factual) positioning that forms the level of optimal behavior of the information consumer.

The third global perspective is the internetization of the country. If ten years ago we talked about it as a prospect, then in 2017 - as a fait accompli.

Internetization has many components and affects literally everything. In a separate position, we want to highlight what is most significant for the P / S specialist - there are (again revolutionary) changes in the mechanisms of action of the main communication strategies in business and politics. Many I/Stechnologies that were considered relevant ten years ago are becoming obsolete and ineffective.

What is it about? The fact that over the centuries of the existence of the market, it has used such traditional strategies for promoting goods as B2B (from English, business to business), when a business carries out market communication about the promoted product with another business, and B2C (from English, business to customer) business and consumer communication. In politics, it looked like G2G (from English, government to government) when one power structure communicates with another power structure about its political tasks, and G2C (from English, government to citizen communication between government and citizens.

Today they are beginning to be seriously squeezed by C2C communication schemes (from English, citizen to citizen) when people communicate directly with each other to discuss the products and services offered to them by government and business. C2C is a communication scheme in which the choice of the consumer is made not on the basis of advertising or other official information, but on the basis of the recommendations of like-minded people. Such a choice could have been made earlier, however, communication possibilities limited the number of interconnected participants in the dialogue to tens or hundreds of people. With the advent of Internetization, it has increased to tens and hundreds of thousands and even millions.

What is the action formula for the /^-specialist in such a situation? "Complex" dialogue instead of "simple" production and placement of messages.

The fourth global perspective, which we consider important to point out in anticipation of a detailed presentation and also closely related to the previous one, is the systematization of the information environment and the emergence of new opportunities for measuring the information context.

Local databases are gradually being replaced by global ones information systems. In relation to our subject, the essential point is the coverage of the main body of mass media by these systems. That is, if earlier some interested subject read a newspaper, a magazine, watched TV, listened to the radio and received an individual picture of what is happening, now this subject can turn to an electronic media system that gives him ready-made analytical solutions to a large extent. Working with these systems contains extended possibilities for measuring what is happening in the information field and its semantic interpretation.

Measurement systems of "new media" or, as they are also called, "social media" are being formed - the blogosphere and social networks, which are both mini-media and public audiences. In other words, traditional systems for measuring media (press clipping) and audiences (representative and expert polls) - cumbersome and costly in terms of time and material support - are being supplemented with new ones: mobile, fast, economical. They offer the /^-specialist an actual formula of behavior: "Measurements precede action" or even "Measurements instead of actions."

The above list of new communicative realities is not exhaustive, but it can serve as an indicator of the phenomena that are significant for the L-specialist and are taking place in Russia and the world in the second decade of the 21st century.

Control questions and tasks

• 1. Which of the definitions of public relations (RK) seems to you the most accurate and relevant?
• 2. What are the duties and professional competencies of a public relations specialist?
• 3. List the types of professional activities that a f-specialist should be engaged in. List the tasks to be performed.
• 4. Decipher the concepts of "virtual product", "brand", "positioning", "C2C communication scheme".