Social Marketing Basics

Nancy Hoddinott Manager, Social Marketing NS Health Promotion

Objectives

• Introduce social marketing concepts • Review steps in developing a social marketing plan • Apply social marketing concepts • Have fun

Agenda

• What is social marketing?

• Steps in social marketing plan • Lunch (12:15) • Applying the concepts • Wrap-up/Evaluation (3:30)

What is social marketing?

“Sounds like you’re running a dating service……” Dept. of Health employee

What is social marketing?

• Use of marketing principles and techniques to influence a target audience to

voluntarily

accept, reject, modify, or abandon a behaviour for the benefit of individuals, groups, or society as a whole.

Kotler et al., 2002

Framework

• Multidisciplinary and complementary strategies are required to change behaviour • Research based (audience-centered) • Long-term • Monitoring and evaluation

What is social marketing?

Uses traditional marketing principles and techniques: • Focuses on the consumer (audience-centered) • Marketing research • Segmentation • Defined objectives/goals • Exchange theory – perceived benefits  costs • Marketing mix –

promotion

• Evaluation

product, price, place,

What is different from commercial sector marketing?

• Product sold: goods and services vs. behaviour change • Goal: financial gain vs. individual/societal gain • Competition: other organisations offering similar goods vs. current or preferred behaviour

Social marketing is not…….

• just advertising • just communications • an image campaign • ‘expert’ driven • done in a vacuum • a quick process

Steps in Social Marketing Plan

Where are we?

Where do we want to go?

How will we get there?

How will we stay on track?

Steps in Social Marketing Plan

1. Define the problem 2. Select and analyse target audience 3. Set objectives, goals 4. Product, price, place, promotion 5. Evaluation plan 6. Implementation plan

Step 1 – Define the Problem

• Review data sources, literature • Determine campaign purpose – What actions/behaviour change could reduce the problem) – Who must act to solve the problem?

• SWOT analysis • Review current and past efforts

Step 2 – Select/Analyze target audience

• Formative research • Collect and analyze demographic, socioeconomic, cultural, behavioural data on target audience • Segment audience • Select target audience(s) - size, reachability, readiness

Step 2 – Select/Analyze target audience

• Competition – Current knowledge, beliefs and behaviours – Perceived benefits and barriers to action

Step 3 – Set goals and objectives

• What do you want audience to do – Will achieving this goal impact the problem?

• Behavioural objectives, quantifiable – Feasible?

Step 4 – Apply Marketing Principles

• Product – Behaviour, service being exchanged with audience for a price and benefit – Must compete successfully against benefit of current behaviour – Fun, easy, popular • Price – Cost to the target audience of changing (financial, time, effort, lifestyle, etc.) • Place – Channels where products, programs are available – Make accessible, move programs/products to places audience frequents • Promotion – Communication with audience about product/program, price and place – Advertising, media relations, events, direct mail, entertainment, personal selling

5 th ‘P’

• Politics – Stimulate policy that influences voluntary behaviour change (system and environmental change)

Step 6 – Evaluation Plan

• Based on goals and objectives • What will be measured – Process (assessment of campaign elements and execution) – Outcome (impact) • How it will be measured • When will it be measured • How results will be reported

Step 7 – Implementation Plan

• Who will do what, when, how (how much)

Elements of successful campaigns (Kotler et al., 2002)

• Use what has been done before • Start with target group most ready for action • Promote single, doable behaviour (clear, simple terms) • Promote a service to support the behaviour • Address perceived benefits and costs • Make access easy

Elements of successful campaigns

• Develop attention-getting, motivational messages • Use appropriate media (exploit audience participation) • Make it easy and convenient for action (fun, easy, popular) • Allocate resources for effective reach • Allocate resources for research • Track results, adjust

Change Objectives

• Think of your organisation, identify an issue you are trying to resolve/change.

– Develop a campaign purpose • Translate success over the next three years: – Key audiences (internal, external, partners) – Concrete behaviours, actions, decisions that each would adopt

Change Objectives

Target Audience What you want them to

do

F. Lagarde, 2004

Audience Analysis & Segmentation

• Choose most important audience • Analyse those who have adopted the behaviour and those who have not – Demographic data – Needs, benefits – Barriers – Influencers – Media habits – Membership – Segmentation

Implications (Product, Price, Place, Promotion)

• New or improved offering (behaviour, product, service) to make it more attractive (benefits) and easy (barriers) • Ways of making it less costly or time consuming • Ways to reduce barriers and improve access • Messages, channels, messengers F. Lagarde, 2004

References

• Kotler, P., Roberto, N, Lee, N. 2002.

Social Marketing: Improving the Quality of Life

. Thousand Oaks,CA:Sage Productions Inc. • Social Marketing National Excellence Collaborative.

The Manager’s Guide to Social Marketing

.

• Lagarde, F. 2004. Worksheets to Introduce Some Basic Concepts of Social Marketing Practices.

Social Marketing Quarterly

, 10(1).