Evaluation of approaches in political marketing for political parties and effects on electoral behavior

Today's electoral bodies tend to decide not only with their ideological opinions but also considering the economic and social facts. For this reason, political parties strive to explain their politics and their projects to the electoral bodies and to be in a constant contact with them.Within these efforts of the political parties, the political marketing activities provide important gains in terms of establishing their politics and building their communication with the electoral bodies.The political marketing is defined as the process to manage the ideas that are developed in order to satisfy the needs of the electoral bodies and get their support.In the first part of this work, from the idea of applying the political marketing activities not only during the election periods but also during the whole lifetime of the political parties, the definition and the applications of the political marketing activities are discussed. In the second part the political parties, which are the main actors of the political marketing, and the process of election campaigns, where the strongest collaboration is experienced, are explained with the reference to the concept of the electoral body. Moreover, in this part the strategical political marketing process which helps the political parties to conduct their marketing activities is described.In the third part of this work, it is envisaged to manifest the applications of political marketing in Turkey by using the grounded theory method. In this respect, in order to prove how the political marketing activities are being perceived by the electoral bodies, previously conducted public opinion surveys are examined and furthermore, their applications in the context of parliamentary elections are analyzed. In light of the results of this research, political marketing models for the political parties in Turkey are suggested.