Social Marketing: Friend or Foe?
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This language has been thrown around a lot lately, and, probably like some of you, I ignored it or then tried to guess what it was. I just knew it was ‘hot’. And since I’m not, I decided I could let someone else take care of it. That is, until a recent retreat where a Social Marketing expert provided us with excellent training and introduced a website that is available to anyone. The website guides you through a process where you can create your own social marketing plan, using the templates and information provided on the website. Check it out!
Social marketing is aimed at behavior change. i.e. wearing seatbelts or quitting smoking. While most of us think of ‘marketing’ as strategies to make you buy something, social marketing seeks to identify strategies that will affect your behavior. The introduction to the online course notes that ‘marketing recognizes that communication, advertising and education can lead to awareness and knowledge, but they aren’t the only factors that affect behavior change. Social marketing looks for interaction between the factors. Social marketing depends on a deep understanding of the consumer.’
The program stresses the importance of thorough market research as a means of getting to know your customer and what really motivates them. Much of the program walks you through the process for identifying barriers to behavior change, for determining potential benefits for changing behavior, for recognizing the competition from alternatives, for isolating the factors that really influence behavior, and for understanding the exchange between choosing one alternative over another.
Other chapters deal with the traditional ‘4 p’s of marketing’—product, price, place and promotion. The goal of this model is to identify the intersection of these factors to target specifically the message that will reach the desired audience, will create behavior change, and that will succeed over time.
The stories and anecdotes in the material are primarily based on health issues, but the material applies to any effort to change behavior. Since the program was developed with federal fund through the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the materials are available to anyone interested in using them. If the link above does not work, go to the website and enter Social Marketing in the search box. You will get there eventually!
Anne Schink is a featured blogger and Program Manager for Project INVEST at the Maine Commission for Community Service.