Social Marketing

SOCIAL MARKETING: A BRIEF

OVERVIEW
Fasten your seat belt.
Eat more fruit.
Pull over to talk on your cell
phone.
Don’t litter.
Get a mammogram
All these actions require individuals or
groups to change behavior to improve
the quality of life for themselves, or the
community as a whole.

This is what social marketing is all about.

Social marketing uses marketing

principles to influence human behavior to
improve health or benefit society.
Some of the fundamental marketing
principles that are critical to the
success of social marketing
campaigns
Understanding your AUDIENCE, their
needs and wants, their barriers, and their
motivations
Being clear about what you want your
audience to DO
changes in knowledge and attitudes are
good if, and only if, they lead to ACTION
Understanding the concept of
EXCHANGE; you must offer your
audience something very
appealing in return for changing
behavior

Realizing that COMPETITION always

exists; your audience can always
choose to do something else
Being aware of the “4 P’s of Marketing”
(Product, Price, Place, Promotion) and how
they apply to your program

Understanding the role that policies, rules

and laws can play in efforts to affect social
or behavioral change
Social Marketing Begins and
Ends with Your Target
Audience

Social marketing provides a

framework for understanding your
target audience’s behavior and
where best to intervene for
positive behavior change
Social Marketing Provides an Effective
Way to Create Change with a Large or
a Small Budget
Successful social marketing campaigns are
often equated with big budgets

Slick TV ads and expensive print materials

are not necessarily required to make an
impression on your audience
Effective, low-budget campaigns have been
developed in a variety of communities
Community participation and empowerment
through community organizations
Government and community collaboration
System for financial mechanism including micro-
credit scheme and mobilization of local resources
 
 The Six Phases of the Social
Marketing Process
Phase I Describe the Problem
Develop a description of the problem to
be addressed and a compelling
rationale for the program.
Review of the available data, the current
literature on behavioral theory, and
best practices of programs addressing
similar problems
Through an analysis of Strengths /
Weaknesses / Opportunities / Threats
(SWOT), identify the factors that can
affect the program being developed.

Finally develop a strategy team —

probably comprised of staff,
partners, and stakeholders to help
develop and promote the program.
 What’s Different
Behavior change will be at the
center of your
program
The problem description should reflect
which behaviors are contributing to
the problem and which proposed
behaviors will be promoted as the
solution.
Consider factors that influence
behavior, or behavioral
determinants.

Sometimes, these may be

expressed in terms of benefits and
barriers.
Determine that the data presented
are complete and support the
problem analysis.

Review the proposed strategy team

for serious omissions or political
sensitivities.
 Phase II Conduct the Market
Research
Social marketing depends on a deep
understanding of the consumer

Research what makes your target

audience tick, and what makes
audience subgroups, or “segments,”
alike and different from one another
Aim to get inside your consumer’s
head, understanding what he or
she wants
in exchange
for what your program wants her or
him to do,
and what he or she struggles with in
order to engage in that behavior
The objective of the research is to
determine:
How to cluster your target audience
into useful segments
Which target audience segments are
most ready to change their
behavior
What they want or need most in
order to do that
 Phase III Creating the Marketing
Strategy
Articulate what you are setting out to achieve
and how you’ll do it.
Based on the research findings, begin by
selecting a target audience segment and
the desired behavior to be promoted.
Then, specify the benefits the target audience
will receive for doing that behavior
These must be benefits the target
audience really cares about and
that your program can actually
offer.

You may also specify key barriers

that the program will help the
target audience overcome in order
to perform the desired behavior.
Targeting some, not all.
Your strategy likely will focus on the
largest audience segments that are more
ready to change.
This focus enables you to tailor what you
are offering to the defined target
audience, which improves efficiency and
effectiveness.
But it means your program will not be
reaching everyone equally, an outcome
that sometimes presents political
difficulties.
 Phase IV Plan the
Intervention
Involves developing interventions and
tactics in four possible areas:
New or improved products or services
Staff training
Policy change
Communication
Develop a plan, timeline, and budget
Highlight where key partners and
stakeholders are needed and how to
engage them
Have a comprehensive work plan that
describes and ties together all the
pieces

Keep focused on the target

audience.
The program is for the audience, not the
implementers
 Review the overall work
plan
Are the respective objectives of each activity clear,
feasible, and on-strategy?
Are roles and responsibilities clear and feasible?
Do timelines and budgets appear reasonable
and fit your departmental schedules?
Are necessary review / clearance and procurement
mechanisms clear and in place?
Review rationale and technical content
for proposed modifications /
improvements:
Does each of the proposed activities
support the overall strategy?
Do they clearly offer the benefits sought
by the target audience?
Do they lower or remove key barriers?
Have the activities been pre-tested and
revised based on the findings?
 Phase V : Plan Program Monitoring &
Evaluation
Determine what information needs to
be collected
how the information will be gathered
how the data analysis and reporting
will take place
Social marketing is based on an
iterative design model
so monitoring data are used to both
ensure the program is being
implemented as planned
and to examine whether your
strategy and tactics are suitable or
need tweaking.
Consider if environmental factors such
as
policies
economic conditions
new programs
structural change or improvement have
changed in ways that affect your
program.
Design a research plan to evaluate the
effects or outcomes of the social
marketing program.
This will involve examining whether:
Desired effects were achieved
Observed effects can be attributed to
your program
The underlying logic of the intervention
and its relationship to desired effects
are sound
Gather data to understand
“How we are doing” so the
program can be adjusted and
improved.
Your target audience’s
exposure,
message recall
and opinion are primary concerns
here
 Phase VI Implement the
Intervention & Evaluation
After all the planning, you are ready to
implement the program and the evaluation.
This phase walks through steps for
launching the program
producing materials
Procuring needed services
sequencing, managing,
coordinating the respective interventions
Staying on strategy
Capturing and disseminating findings and
lessons learned
and modifying activities as warranted.

Monitoring data-driven, mid-course

corrections, as appropriate
Making necessary adjustments to the strategy
and tactics if something’s not working.
Establish an appropriate schedule of
project updates — both technical
and financial.
Monitor the perspectives and
concerns of partners and
stakeholders.
Are partners pleased with the program’s
direction and progress?
Are stakeholders apprised and
supportive of the project and its
accomplishments?
 Determining Budgets & Finding
Funding Sources

Your marketing plan should contain

budgets, including the costs of
creating, producing, printing and
distributing campaign materials.

All promotional tactics should be

quantified, by the cost per person
reached
The preferred method is the objective-and- task
method as the budget is determined by needs
outlined in your plan and what will be most
effective.
However, using this method you may find that
your plans are greater than your budget.
If this is the case, you may consider raising
funds or in-kind resources from like-minded
foundations, associations, corporations and/or
government agencies.
• The following list will help you draw
up a budget.
• Expenses:
• Management / consultations /
committees
• Research and evaluation
• Media activities
• Events
• Training of influencers
• Print or other material
• Mailing and distribution
• Other
• Contingencies (10% of the above)
• Applicable taxes
• Revenues:
• Your organization
• Governments
• Non-profit organizations
• Individual donations (employees,
members, others)
• Foundations / service clubs
• Private-sector companies
• Other
Finding & Working with a Great
Advertising or Public Relations
Agency
The very first step toward achieving
an effective advertising campaign is
to get a good agency and build a
strong partnership with them
 Qualities to Look for in
an Agency
An understanding of the strategic and
political realities of the issue
e.g. for a tobacco counter-marketing
campaign, the agency should understand
the history of tobacco control
who the players are and what they
contribute
what is happening at the local, state,
and national level

what smokers and nonsmokers

believe and think about tobacco
use and exposure to secondhand
smoke
The agency also should have the
ability to be responsive to, and
flexible within, the changing
tobacco environment.

If they do not have this knowledge or

expertise when you hire them, you
must take responsibility to help
them develop it.
An understanding of their
partnership with the state

Advertising and public relations

agency personnel will have a close
connection to media outlets, local
events, and local programs’ staff.
They must encourage state staff to be bold
and daring, even when bold and daring
ads seem less likely to be approved by
the more cautious executives who must
approve the campaign

Need to stay focused on the strategic goals

of the campaign
these agency personnel must be cognizant
of the bureaucratic realities
Superior creative expertise
Finding an advertising /public relations
team that can produce powerful,
effective ads and marketing tools that
will move the social norm in the right
direction,
while maintaining a positive partnership
with state program staff and local
programs, can be a challenge
An ongoing campaign requires more
than just one shot of brilliance
So an agency’s history
depth of client experience
and their ability to extend the reach
of messages to as wide an
audience as possible must all be
considered
Appropriate size and fiscal
history
The agency should be large enough
to staff the contract appropriately
and handle the fiscal
responsibilities
yet the agency must be small
enough to consider your contract a
high priority account
Leadership and “good chemistry”
It is essential to find out during the
bidding / proposal process just who
exactly will be assigned to the account
and their level of commitment and
experience
Do not award a contract to a great group
of advertising pitch professionals who
will disappear mysteriously when the
less glamorous work begins.
It also helps if agency personnel
have that intangible quality called
“good chemistry,” which makes for
clear communication, discussion
negotiations and trust
— rather than a tiring, tedious,
tangled web of distrust and
miscommunication.
No conflict of interest
The advertising team cannot serve
two masters, so they must be
required to disclose any potential
conflict of interest,
including agency staff’s business ties
and the
agency’s client base
Working Effectively with the Agency
You Hire
After the best agency is selected, their
expertise must be heard.
They were hired to give expert advice
from their unique professional
perspective.
Their advice must be combined with the
public health and issue knowledge on
the part of program staff
Marrying the power of advertising and the
principles of public health can sometimes
be a rocky marriage.
Copywriters and creative directors fall in
love with their advertising, and it is
necessary at times to take them back to
the foundation strategies and goals of the
program and /or the political realities of the
current situation without demotivating
them.
Placing and targeting the ads may become a
source of conflict between the advertising and
public health experts.
Public health groups may want a commercial
for every possible target population, but that
will scatter and dilute the messages, not to
mention the budget-breaking cost
The program must rely on strategically-
targeted placement of a few key messages
Lastly, be prepared for criticism.
No matter how strategic, attention-
getting, and effective your media
campaign is, someone is not going
to like it
Train yourself and your management
to stand firmly behind strong
strategic ads, and remember that
ads that are “politically correct” and
guaranteed to offend no one are
doomed to fail
 What is Social Marketing?

Social marketing was "born" as a

discipline in the 1970s, when Philip
Kotler and Gerald Zaltman realized
that the same marketing principles
that were being used to sell products
to consumers could be used to "sell"
ideas, attitudes and behaviors
Kotler and Andreasen define social
marketing as

"differing from other areas of marketing

only with respect to the objectives of the
marketer and his or her organization.
Social marketing seeks to influence social
behaviors not to benefit the marketer, but
to benefit the target audience and the
general society."
Social marketing is the application of
commercial marketing strategies and
tactics to bring about beneficial changes in
behavior among members of a select, and
narrowly defined, target audience.
Social marketing uses mass communication,
education, and behavioral science to tailor
behavior change interventions so members
of a target audience will more likely adopt
the desired health-related behavior(s).
Social marketing is deeply rooted in
methods of
consumer research
commercial marketing
formative evaluation
pre-testing
and behavioral theory.
Social marketing programs are
characterized by:
Their focus on beneficial behavior
change
The absence of profit or gain as a
motive of the sponsoring agency
Their reliance on empirical data for
decision making
 Product
The social marketing "product" is not
necessarily a physical offering.
A continuum of products exists, ranging
from tangible, physical products (e.g.,
condoms), to services (e.g., medical
exams), practices (e.g., breastfeeding,
ORT or eating a heart-healthy diet) and
finally, more intangible ideas (e.g.,
environmental protection).
 Price
"Price" refers to what the consumer
must do in order to obtain the social
marketing product.
This cost may be monetary, or it may
instead require the consumer to give
up intangibles, such as time or effort,
or to risk embarrassment and
disapproval
In setting the price, particularly for a
physical product, such as
contraceptives, there are many
issues to consider.
If the product is priced too low, or
provided free of charge, the
consumer may perceive it as being
low in quality.
On the other hand, if the price is too
high, some will not be able to afford
it.
Social marketers must balance these
considerations, and often end up
charging at least a nominal fee to
increase perceptions of quality and
to confer a sense of "dignity" to the
transaction.
These perceptions of costs and
benefits can be determined through
research, and used in positioning
the product.
 Place
Place" describes the way that the
product reaches the consumer.
For a tangible product, this refers to
the distribution system--including the
warehouse, trucks, sales force, retail
outlets where it is sold, or places
where it is given out for free.
For an intangible product, place is less clear-
cut, but refers to decisions about the
channels through which consumers are
reached with information or training
This may include doctors' offices, shopping
malls, mass media vehicles or in-home
demonstrations.
Another element of place is deciding how to
ensure accessibility of the offering and
quality of the service delivery
 Promotion
Because of its visibility, this element is often
mistakenly thought of as comprising the
whole of social marketing
However it is only one piece.
Promotion consists of the integrated use of
advertising, public relations, promotions,
media advocacy, personal selling and
entertainment vehicles.
The focus is on creating and sustaining
demand for the product.
Public service announcements or paid ads
are one way, but there are other
methods such as coupons, media
events, editorials
Research is crucial to determine the most
effective and efficient vehicles to reach
the target audience and increase
demand
Additional Social Marketing
"P's"
Publics
Social marketers often have many
different audiences that their
program has to address in order to
be successful.
"Publics" refers to both the external
and internal groups involved in the
program.
External publics include the target
audience, secondary audiences,
policymakers, and gatekeepers

Internal publics are those who are

involved in some way with either
approval or implementation of the
program.
 Partnership
Social and health issues are often so complex that one
agency can't make a dent by itself.

You need to team up with other organizations in the

community to really be effective.
You need to figure out which organizations have similar
goals to yours--not necessarily the same goals--and
identify ways you can work together.
 Policy
Social marketing programs can do well in
motivating individual behavior change, but that
is difficult to sustain unless the environment
they're in supports that change for the long run.

Often, policy change is needed, and media

advocacy programs can be an effective
complement to a social marketing program.
 Purse Strings
Most organizations that develop social
marketing programs operate through
funds provided by sources such as
foundations, governmental grants or
donations.
This adds another dimension to the strategy
development-namely, where will you get
the money to create your program?
Each element of the marketing mix
should be taken into consideration
as the program is developed, for
they are the core of the marketing
effort.
That’s All