SOCIAL MARKETING

 What is social marketing?

 Who can do social marketing?
 Why is social marketing important?
 Basic principles of marketing: The "4 Ps"
 Stages of a successful social marketing effort

Community groups do many different things to solve the issues that interest them. A group
fighting child hunger might advocate free breakfasts at school, increased funding for WIC
(Women and Infant Children), and more child-oriented legislation from the state senate. And
to accomplish each of these goals, the group will again probably do many different things:
letter-writing campaigns, direct lobbying, and advertising in the media, to name just a few.
Thousands of details and hard work by many people are usually involved in a successful
initiative.

Looked at from a different perspective, however, it comes down to one thing. At the root of
all of the group's work is one basic principle: change people's behavior. This is true not only
for a child hunger campaign, but for almost any health or community development initiative.
A coalition against violence wants people to stop committing acts of violence. A teen
pregnancy initiative tries to put an end to children having children. And an organization for
peace looks for the day when world peace is more than a lovely thought on holiday greeting
cards.

This concept of changing people's behavior is the basis of this section, and of social
marketing as a whole. We will talk about what social marketing is, and why it can be of use
to you in your organization. Then, we'll go into more depth on marketing, and discuss what
are known as the "4 Ps"--the four elements around which all types of marketing, social or
profit-oriented, are centered. Finally, we'll finish with an overview of the stages someone will
go through if their effort is successful.

It's a lot of information, and much of it is more conceptual in nature than many other sections
of the Tool Box. The next three sections of this chapter, then, will try to ground these ideas
more thoroughly, so they can be used in your day-to-day work.

What is social marketing?

So what, exactly, is social marketing? In Social Marketing Report, it's defined as, "the
application of commercial marketing techniques to social problems." It means to take the
same principles used in selling goods--such as shoes, television shows, or pizza--to convince
people to change their behavior.

What does that mean? Well, instead of selling hamburgers, you're selling a life without heart
attacks. Instead of convincing teenagers to buy blue jeans, you're convincing them to buy the
advantages of postponing pregnancy.

Of course, if you are selling blue jeans, you're still trying to influence behavior--you're
convincing people they need to wear your jeans--either for comfort, or for style, or for value.
So then, what is the difference between social marketing and commercial marketing?
It's really summed up in one key point: commercial marketing tries to change people's
behavior for the benefit of the marketer; social marketing tries to change people's behavior
for the benefit of the consumer, or of society as a whole.

What is involved in social marketing? In a nutshell, when conducting a social

marketing campaign, you'll do the following:

 Identify what behavior you want to change (for example, increase prenatal
counseling among expectant mothers).
 Identify your audience: Whose behavior do you want to change? It may be that you
want to change the behavior of several different groups; in that case, you may want to
influence them in different ways to bring them closer to the desired behavior. Such
groups are often separated, or segmented, by age, gender, level of education, or race.
 Identify the barriers to change: through interviews, surveys, focus groups or other
methods, you'll want to find out what makes it difficult or unattractive for people to
make these changes. Do pregnant women feel uncomfortable at the area clinic, or are
they made to feel stupid when they talk to the doctor? Is the clinic too far away? Can
they not take the time away from their jobs?
 Reduce the barriers to change. Plan ways to make it easier, more accessible, and
more attractive. Can the clinic stay open longer hours? Can physicians and nurses be
better trained to discuss problems with women? This step might even be taken a step
farther. Your organization might provide incentives for making (and sustaining)
changes. Mothers who come to the clinic regularly through their pregnancy might
receive coupons for free baby food, for example.
 Pretest your ideas on a small number of people, then modify your plan according
to your results.
 Publicize both the benefits of change, and also your efforts to make change easier in
a way that will draw people to take advantage of your efforts. Let people know what
you're doing to help them--the best program in the world won't be used if people don't
know about it. And of course, people need to understand the benefits of the behavior
change. A pregnant woman will probably want to do what's best for her child, but
may not know that she needs extra iron during her pregnancy. It's up to your
organization to tell her.

And, although it's not technically a part of social marketing, you'll probably want to...

 Assess your results and see if you have created the change you wanted.

The above list represents just the bare bones of a social marketing effort. Each of these points
will be discussed in detail later in this section, and in Section Four of this chapter. For a full
example of a very successful nationwide social marketing plan, see the Examples section at
the end of the main text.

Social marketing and advertising

A lot of people confuse social marketing with one of its components, advertising. But leaves
are just one part of the tree--even when they're only part you can see. Likewise, advertising is
a very important part of social marketing, but it's still just a part.

Is that confusing? Well, look at the following messages:

  "This is your brain on drugs," said the Partnership for a Drug-Free America's
advertisement a few years ago, while picturing an egg frying on a skillet. That was a
memorable advertisement; but if that was all the Partnership had done, it wouldn't
qualify as social marketing.
 "Don't mess with Texas," was a well-known anti-litter campaign in that state. But if
the ad had been aired without additional trashcans placed around the state, or without
having been directed at specific group of people in Texas (such as youth, or
immigrants, or tourists); it would have been nothing more than a catchy slogan. It
wouldn't have been social marketing

On the other hand...

 Smokey Bear and his admonition, "Only you can prevent forest fires," when seen
alone on T.V., are again just an advertisement. But taken in context of all of the work
done by the U.S. Forestry Service, the result that emerges is a social marketing
campaign. Smokey is trying to change a particular behavior (being careless with fire);
his message is targeted at a specific audience (six to ten year olds), and information he
provides (on commercials, on the Internet and elsewhere) overcomes two major
barriers to children being careful with fire: ignorance and also the scientific, "it's no
fun" barrier. Further, the message is supported with information provided to parents at
the campsites, making it more likely they will provide reinforcement to the message.
That's social marketing. It uses targeted marketing, reinforcement, and it reduces
barriers--three key elements missing from the two examples above.

Who can do social marketing?

The bad news is, there is a definite art to it--it's not all something you're born with, and it's
not only common sense. After all, people get degrees in this stuff; and major corporations
such as Nike or Coca-Cola spend millions of dollars to ensure that their marketing campaigns
are state-of-the-art.

Now for the good news: first of all, it's learnable. You may not have been born with phrases
like market segmentation floating around in your head, but you can learn what they mean,
and how to use them.

Second, it's scalable. Some campaigns are quite large, such as the National High Blood
Pressure campaign discussed in the Examples at the end of this section. However, social
marketing campaigns can also be quite a bit smaller. That is, you can do it on a local level,
when you have limited resources. Just because your group doesn't run the Hyatt Regency, or
hasn't resources anywhere in the same ballpark, that doesn't mean you can't take the same
principles and put into effect the change that you want to see in your community.

Why is social marketing important?

So what makes the concept of social marketing particularly important? Perhaps you've been
doing your work quite effectively for years without ever even hearing the phrase. That's
actually pretty likely; the phrase was only coined about 25 years ago.
There are three major advantages, however, which suggest that social marketing is
worthy of your consideration:

 It helps you reach the target audiences you want to reach.

 It helps you customize your message to those targeted audiences; and by doing so,
 It helps you create greater and longer-lasting behavior change in those audiences.

Bottom line? Social marketing is a good idea because it works.

Basic principles of marketing: The "4 Ps"

Before we discuss social marketing further, however, it's important to have a grasp on the
principles of commercial marketing, since that is what it's based on. As community health
workers, or members of non-profit organizations, the idea might seem a bit odd. We're used
to a completely different mindset. Terms like "marketing" may conjure up images of big
business and corporate greed; they certainly don't make us think of programs to try to help
our neighbors.

Even so, your neighbors may not be open to your ideas and programs right off the bat, and
you may find yourself having to persuade them. This is what social marketing excels at. The
idea may be new for you, or a complete change in how your perceive things. That change,
however, may end up being the breath of air your organization needs to become even more
effective in changing behavior.

Does that make sense to you? Then let's go on to some of the basic principles
of marketing.

The essence of all marketing can be summed up in what has been termed the "4 Ps."
They are product, price, place, and promotion. Let's look at each in turn.

 Product -- The product is what you are marketing. For social marketing, the
"product" is a certain behavior you are trying to change. It might be ending child
abuse and neglect, or stopping people from committing suicide, or convincing people
to not throw trash on the ground--or any other behavior that members of your
community want to modify.
 Price -- How much will it cost a person to stop (or take on) a certain behavior? In
social marketing, price isn't just a question of dollars and cents. It can also be a
question of time (i.e., how long will it take me to find a trash can?), or how much of
an effort a behavior change will take. A life-long smoker may be the first person to
admit that smoking is an extremely expensive habit, but may still say the costs--in
terms of effort, or possible weight gain, or nicotine withdrawal--are too high. He just
can't quit.

A good social marketing plan, then will try to reduce these costs. An anti-litter campaign will
try to place more trash cans around the city; a smoking cessation group might offer support
groups to help with the effort, nutrition counseling to counteract weight gain, and nicotine
patches to reduce the pangs of withdrawal.
  Place -- How difficult is it to change the behavior? What barriers are preventing it? If
you are selling blue jeans, you want to have them in stores across the country, not just
in one small boutique in Snellville, Georgia. Otherwise, people in Oregon won't be
able to get them, even if they want to.

Likewise, if you are "selling" teen pregnancy prevention, what barriers make it difficult to
prevent those pregnancies? Can teenagers easily obtain birth control, or is it difficult for them
to get hold of? Maybe there isn't a good teen clinic in town. Or if there is a clinic available,
maybe it's all the way across town, and it's only open on weekdays until 4:00, making it
difficult to get to without missing school.

Social marketing efforts make it easier to change behavior by making sure the necessary
supports are not only available, but also easily accessible to the most people possible. The
less people need to go out of their way to make a change, the more likely they are to make it.

 Promotion -- Promotion is the last of the "4 Ps," and the one most easily associated
with social marketing. Promotion is the advertising you do; be it in television
commercials, letters to the editor, or red ribbons tied to car antennas.

Promoting your cause doesn't need to take a lot of money. It can also take place through less
costly methods, such as good old-fashioned word of mouth. Convincing people through a
one-on-one conversation can be just as effective at changing someone's point of view as the
best made commercial, or even more so. (Think about it. Which would make you get a
tetanus booster: a television commercial or a suggestion from your doctor?) Word of mouth is
a highly desirable part of social marketing.

Remember, though--advertising alone is not social marketing.

Stages of a successful social marketing effort

With that understanding of marketing in mind, let's turn now to the focal point of an effective
campaign--the consumer. People will have different ideas and beliefs at different times. For
example, among smokers, some may not believe smoking is that bad for them, others might
understand the risks but not care, still others may not want to take the effort to stop smoking,
and a final group of smokers may be actively trying to quit. A social marketing campaign will
see all of these beliefs (and their related actions) as part of a continuum, and try to move
people along to the next step.

The idea is that these changes won't happen overnight. Most people won't go immediately
from believing smoking is "cool" and not really understanding the health risks to quitting
right away. Instead, a social marketing campaign might start them thinking that it's not the
best thing to do--and after that idea has had time to turn around in their head for a while,
another part of the campaign will help them quit, and yet another part will help them remain
smoke free.

How are these beliefs shaped and decisions made? Well, generally speaking, the
following activities need to occur:

 Create awareness and interest

  Change attitudes and conditions
 Motivate people to want to change their behavior
 Empower people to act
 Prevent backsliding

To clarify each, let's look at a step-by-step example.

In much of Africa, women have traditionally had many, many children; in such countries as
Nigeria, the average woman might bear as many as 12 children during her lifetime. A social
marketing message that has been widely disseminated, then, is have fewer children. This
message has been geared towards the goals of increasing women's health, and decreasing
overpopulation and famine.

 Create awareness and interest. The recipient must get the message, literally. You
have to get the recipient's attention. The message needs to be brought to women all
over the country, including village women who are generally illiterate, speak only a
local dialect, and who often don't have access to television or radios. Also, the
recipient must understand the message. Not only does the message need to be
conveyed to the women in a language they understand; it needs to make sense for the
their lives as well. For women in Africa, wealth and status have traditionally been tied
up in how many children they bear. The idea of having fewer children hasn't made
sense because doing so would have hurt their standing in the community, even if it
would improve their health.
 Change attitudes and conditions. The recipient has to develop a positive attitude or
positive frame of mind about the behavior in question. With effective social
marketing, African women might come to think, "Maybe it is better to have fewer
children."
 Motivate people to want to change their behavior. The recipient has to form an
intention to act on the basis of that attitude. It's not enough to just convince people
that something is a good idea. A leap needs to be made from thinking something is a
"good idea" to the stage of "I will do that." Think about it--how many of us think it
would be a really good idea to cut down on our fat intake, or get up at 5:00 a.m. to
exercise? Social marketing helps people move from attitude to intention, and beyond.
For African women, this might mean taking the leap to find out about birth control or
planning to postpone intercourse.
 Empowering people to act. The recipient has to act, i.e., convert that intention into
action. A woman or her partner needs to go to the clinic and get the birth control, and
use it.
 Prevent backsliding. Often, the recipient's action must be followed by reinforcement,
by the provision of some benefit for having acted, so that the desired action will be
repeated. How is her life better in a meaningful way for having fewer children? Will
her friends and family improve? Will she have more money? Can she go to school? Is
she healthier than her neighbors?

As we mentioned above, not every person will be at the same place on the continuum. It's like
they are at different points on a bridge, spanning from attention to action. The tasks of the
marketer are first to know who stands where on the bridge, and then to design messages to
move each targeted person or group one or more stages further along that bridge, in the
direction of desired action.
In Summary
Social marketing is a concept that's fairly new to the health and development field.
Nonetheless, it's an idea that shows immense promise, and can give you an excellent
framework through which your organization can do what you have set out to do: help
individuals and society as a whole live better lives. Is this something that can be used to
further the goals of your program or coalition? The next section of this chapter, will help you
decide the answer to just this question.

Print Resources

Andreasen, A. (1995). Marketing social change: Changing behavior to promote health,

social development, and the environment. San Francisco, CA: Jossey -Bass.

Goldberg, M., Fishbein, M., Middlestat, S. (Eds.). (1997). Social marketing : Theoretical and
practical perspectives. Washington, D.C.: The Academy for Educational Development.

Herron, D. (1997). Marketing nonprofit programs and services: Proven and practical
strategies to get more customers, members, and donors. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Kotler, P., & Roberto, W. (1989). Social marketing: Strategies for changing public behavior.
New York, NY: The Free Press.

Manoff, R. (1985). Social marketing: New imperative for public health. New York, NY:
Praeger.

Ogden, L., Shepherd, M., Smith, W. (1996). Applying prevention marketing. Atlanta, GA:
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Public Health Service. Order a free copy by
calling the National AIDS Clearinghouse at (800) 458-5231. Request publication D905.

DEVELOPING A SOCIAL MARKETING CAMPAIGN:

STEP BY STEP
1
In
Social Marketing: Influencing Behaviors for Good
, Kotler and Lee (2008) divided
the development of a typical social marketing campaign into 10 steps
and illustrated each in great detail. Here, we adopt these steps and present them concisely
Step 1: Define the Problem, Purpose, and Focus
Any social marketing campaign for public health needs a clearly
determined public
health
problem
, which might be a severe epidemic (like SARS), an evolving issue
(like the increases in teen smoking), or a justifiable need (like public
education on
the prevention of hepatitis B). The problem could be precipitated by an
unusual
happening such as tsunami or may be simply triggered by an
organization’s man-
date or mission such as “contributing to society through health care.”
Adequate
background information is provided at this step to put the public health
problem
in perspective. When defining the public health problem, it is critical to
identify the
campaign’s sponsor(s) and summarize the factors that led to the
rationale and de-
cision for developing such a campaign. The rationale and decision are
based on
sufficient research data, epidemiological or scientific, in order to
substantiate and
quantify the problem defined.
Once the public health problem is defined, a
purpose statement
is needed to
make it clear what impact and benefits that the social marketing
campaign, when
successful, would generate.
A
focus
is determined to narrow down the scope of the social marketing cam-
paign to best use the resources available, maximize the campaign
impact, and en-
sure the campaign feasibility. The campaign focus is selected from a
number of
options that have some potential to help achieve the campaign purpose.
Step 2: Conduct a Situation Analysis
Typically, a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats)
analysis is
conducted at this step to provide a quick audit of
organizational
strengths and
weaknesses and
environmental
opportunities and threats. Strengths to maximize
and weaknesses to minimize include internal factors such as levels of
funding,
management support, current partners, delivery system capabilities, and
the spon-
sor’s reputation. Opportunities to take advantage of and threats to
prepare for in-
clude major trends and events outside your influence—those often
associated with
demographic, psychographic, geographic, economic, cultural, political,
legal, and
technological forces. At this step, you will also conduct a literature
review and envi-
ronmental scan of current and prior campaigns, especially those with
similar ef-
forts, and summarize their major activities conducted, major effects
achieved, and
major lessons learned.

Step 3: Select Target Audiences

A
target audience
is quite like the bull’s-eye; it is selected through
segmentation
,a
process to divide a broad audience (population) into homogeneous
subaudiences
(groups), called
audience segments
. An audience segment is identified and aggre-
gated by the shared characteristics and needs of the people in a broad
audience, in-
cluding similar demographics, psychographics, geographics, behaviors,
social
networks, community assets, and stage of change.
It is ideal that a social marketing campaign focuses on one primary
target au-
dience, but secondary audiences are often identified, based on the
marketing prob-
lem, purpose, and focus of the campaign defined earlier. An estimated
size and
informative description of the target audience(s) is needed at this step.
An ideal de-
scription of the target audience will make you believe that if a member
of the audi-
ence walked into the room, you would “recognize” her or him.
Step 4: Set Marketing Objectives and Goals
A social marketing campaign needs clear marke
ting objectives and goals. Specifying
desired behaviors and changes in knowledge, attitudes, and/or beliefs,
marketing ob-
jectives
always includes a
behavior objective
—something you want the target audi-
ence to do as a result of the campaign (e.g., to choose healthy foods
and/or
beverages available at vending machines). Marketing objectives also
often include a
knowledge objective
, which makes clear the information or facts that the target audi-
ence needs to be aware of through the campaign (e.g., to know what a
healthy
lifestyle is and what advantages it has), and a
belief objective
, which relates to the
things the target audience needs to believe in order to “change its mind”
(e.g., to be-
lieve that a healthy lifestyle can be achieved through simple everyday
actions).
A social marketing campaign also needs to establish quantifiable
measures,
called
marketing goals
, relevant to the marketing objectives. Marketing goals, re-
sponding to behavior objectives, knowledge objectives, and belief
objectives should
be ideally SMART—specific, measurable,
achievable, relevant, and time-bound
(Haughey, n.d.) in terms of knowledge, attitudes, and behavior changes.
What is
determined here will have strong implications for budgets, will guide
marketing
mix strategies, and will direct evaluation measures in the later planning
process in
a social marketing campaign.
Step 5: Identify Factors Influencing Behavior Adoption
Before positioning your social marketing campaign and establishing the
mar-
keting mix strategies for the campaign, the social marketer needs to take
the
time, effort, and resources needed to understand what the target
audience is do-
ing or prefers to do and what is affecting its behaviors and preferences.
Specifically, barriers, benefits, competitors,
and the influencers need to be iden-
tified at this step.
Barriers
refer to reasons, real or perceived, the target audience may not want
the behavior to be promoted, or may not think it can be adopted.
Benefits
are the
“gains” that the target audience could see through adopting the targeted
behavior,
or that the social marketing program may promise the target market.
Competitors
refer to any related behaviors (or organizations promoting them) that the
target
audience is currently engaged in, or prefers to have, rather than the ones
to be pro-
moted.
Influencers
include any “important others” who could have some bearing
on the target audience, such as family members, social networks, the
entertainment
industry, and religious leaders.
Step 6: Craft a Positioning Statement
A
positioning statement
describes what the target audience is supposed to feel and
think about the targeted behavior and its related benefits. A positioning
statement,
together with brand identity, is inspired by the description of the target
audience
and its barriers, competitors, and influencers. It differentiates the
targeted behavior
from alternative or preferred ones. Effective positioning will guide the
develop-
ment of the marketing mix strategies in the next step, helping ensure
that the offer
in a social marketing campaign will land on and occupy a distinctive
place in the
minds of the target audience.
Step 7: Develop Marketing Mix Strategies: The 4Ps
The traditional marketing toolbox contains four major devices: product,
price,
place, and promotion. Like their counterparts in commercial sectors,
social mar-
keters resort to these tools to create, communicate, and deliver values
for their tar-
geted behaviors. The 4Ps can be thought of as independent, though not
isolated,
variables used as determinants to influence the dependent variables—the
behaviors
of the target market.
The 4Ps should be developed and presented in the following order, with
the
product strategy at the beginning of the sequence and the promotion
strategy at
the end. Promotion is at the end because it ensures that the target
markets become
aware of the targeted product, its price, and its accessibility, which need
to be de-
veloped prior to the promotion strategy. Great attention is called for the
“mix” of
the 4Ps, which should not be developed in isolation—it is the synergy of
the 4Ps
that makes a truly successful social marketing campaign possible.

Product Strategy
It is essential to have a clear description of the product in a social
marketing cam-
paign, at core, actual, and augmented levels. A
core product
comprises the benefits
that the target audience will experience or expect in exchange for
performing the
targeted behavior, or that will be highlighted in a social marketing
campaign (e.g., a
healthier life and the reduction in the risk of becoming obese or
overweight). An
ac-
tual product
is the desired behavior, often embodied by its major features and de-
scribed in specific terms (such as healthy foods or beverages available at
vending
machines). An
augmented product
refers to any additional tangible objects and/or
services that will be included in the offer and promoted to the target
market. An
augmented product helps perform the targeted behavior or increase its
appeal (e.g.,
information on healthy products available in vending machines).
Price Strategy
A price strategy sums up the costs that the target audience will “pay” for
adopting
the desired behavior that leads to the promised benefits. These costs
could be mon-
etary in the real sense, such as those for tangible goods and services.
Most of the
time, however, social marketers sell behaviors that require something
else in ex-
change: time, effort, energy, psychological costs, and/or physical
discomfort. A sen-
sible price strategy is aimed at minimizing these costs by maximizing
incentives
(monetary and nonmonetary alike) to reward desired behaviors (again,
monetary
or nonmonetary) or to discourage competing, undesirable behaviors.
(The other
three Ps are also needed in the effort to reduce these costs.)
Place Strategy
Place is largely where and when the target audience will be encouraged
to perform
the desired behavior and/or to obtain tangible products or services
associated
with the campaign. As in commercial marketing, place can be regarded
as the de-
livery system or a distribution channel for a social marketing campaign.
Strategies
related to the system or channel management need to be provided here
to ensure
that they will be as convenient and pleasant as possible for the customer
to engage
in the targeted behavior and access related products and services.
Promotion Strategy
Information on product benefits and features, fair price, and easy
accessibility
needs effective and efficient communications to bring to the target
audience
and inspire action. Promotion strategy is needed to maximize the
success of the
communications. The development of these communications is a
process that begins with the determination of key messages, continues
with the selection of
messengers and communication formats and channels, moves on to the
creation
of communication elements, and ends up with the implementation of
those
communications.
The determination of key
messages
needs to be aligned with marketing objec-
tives, because they determine what a social marketing campaign wants
its target
audience to know, to believe, and to do. Information on barriers,
benefits, com-
petitors, and influencers will help shape message choices.
Messengers
are those who
deliver the messages. Credibility, expertise, and likability are some key
considera-
tions for selecting messengers.
Messages are delivered through various
communication channels
(including
media channels), such as advertising (including PSA), public relations,
events,
sponsorships, and personal selling and word of mouth. As far as media
channels
are concerned, they can be online or offline, or both. Online media
range from
e-mail, Web sites, and “smart” mobile phones to blogs, podcasts, and
tweets, but by
no means are limited to these options. Offline media include
newspapers, maga-
zines, radio, and television, as well as direct mail, billboards, transit
(e.g., buses,
taxes, and subways), and kiosks.
As we all know, thanks to the ongoing technology revolution, the line
between
online and offline media has become increasingly blurred. For example,
radio and
television can be both online and offline, while more and more
newspapers and
magazines are going online. The fast-changing media landscape is both
a blessing
and a “curse” for marketers; social marketers are no exception. As a
blessing, social
marketers have more and more media choices to target their audiences
more pre-
cisely and effectively. As a “curse,” the increasingly perplexing media
landscape re-
quires social marketers to think “out of the box”—not only considering
those
traditional media or the media they are familiar with, but also thinking
about
those nontraditional and emerging media that their target audiences
often tend to
use or be exposed to. At the same time, in the media selection and
planning, social
marketers need to make sure the selected media will complement each
other;
communications via various media must be consistent over time. Social
mar-
keters should also consider making their communications with their
target audi-
ences more interactive.
Because different communication channels have different
characteristics, it
could be more effective and efficient to ha
ve a good idea of the media budget and
media options that a social marketing campaign could have before
communication
elements are created.
Creative elements
translate the content of intended, desired
messages into specific communication elements, which include copy,
graphic im-
ages, and typeface for traditional print media, and interactive features
and audio
and/or video streams for online media.
Step 8: Outline a Plan for Monitoring and Evaluation
A plan for monitoring and evaluating a social marketing campaign is
needed be-
fore final budget and implementation plans are made. It needs to be
referred back
to the goals established for the campaign.
Monitoring
is a measurement conducted
sometime after the launch of a new campaign, but before its completion.
Monitoring is executed to determine if midcourse corrections are needed
to en-
sure that marketing goals of the program will be reached. An
evaluation
refers to a
measurement and a final report on what happened through the
campaign. It
needs to address questions like: Were the marketing goals reached?
What compo-
nents of the campaign can be linked with outcomes? Was the program
on time
and within budget? What worked well and what did not? What should
be done
differently next time?
Measures fall into three categories—
output
measures for program activities;
outcome
measures for target audience responses and changes in knowledge, be-
liefs, and behavior; and
impact
measures for contributions to the plan purposes
(e.g., reductions in obesity as a result of many more people buying
healthy
foods and/or beverages due to a social marketing campaign).
In the development of a monitoring and
evaluation plan, five basic questions
need to be taken into account:
• Why will this measurement be conducted? For whom?
• What inputs, processes, and outcomes/impacts will be measured?
• What methods (such as interview, focus group, survey, and/or online
tracking) will be used for these measurements?
• When will these measurements be conducted?
• How much will these measurements cost?
Step 9: Establish Budgets and Find Funding Sources
The budgets for a social marketing campaign reflect the costs for
developing and
implementing it, which include those associated with marketing mix
strategies
(the 4Ps) and additional costs anticipated for monitoring and evaluation.
In
ideal objective-and-task budgeting, these anticipated costs become a
preliminary
budget, based on what is needed to achieve the established marketing
goals.
When the preliminary budget exceeds available funds, however, options
for addi-
tional funding and the potential for ad
justing campaign phases (such as spread-
ing out costs over a longer period of time), revising strategies, and/or
reducing
behavior change goals need to be considered. Additional funding
sources may in-
clude government grants and appropriations, nonprofit organization and
foun-
dation supports, advertising and media partnerships and coalitions, and
corporation donations. Only a final budget
is presented in this section, which de-
lineates secured funding sources and reflects contributions from
partners.
Step 10: Complete the Plan for Campaign Implementation
and Management
At this last step, the planning for a social marketing campaign is
wrapped up with
specifics on
who
will do
what
, with
how much
, and
when
. In a nutshell, an implemen-
tation and management plan is aimed at transforming marketing
strategies into spe-
cific actions for those who are involved in the campaign. It functions
like a concise
working document to share and track planned efforts. So, to some, this
section of the
planning is the “real” social marketing plan or even a “stand-alone”
piece that they will
share internally. More often than not, a social marketing plan is for a
minimum of one
year of activities; ideally, it can be designed for a two- or three-year
time span.