Social marketing is the application of commercial marketing principles and techniques to promote socially beneficial behaviors. It aims to influence voluntary behavior change in target audiences to improve personal and public welfare. Formative research is conducted to understand the target audience and factors influencing their behaviors. A strategy is then developed and interventions are designed, implemented, and evaluated to promote acceptance and adoption of the socially beneficial behavior. Challenges to social marketing include a heterogeneous consumer base, expensive media costs, poor execution, and policy decisions that can limit product strategy flexibility. Social marketing in healthcare can influence consumer decision making through reinforcement of messages by trusted healthcare practitioners.

1. SOCIAL MARKETING
Marketing
Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating,
communicating, delivering , and exchanging offerings that have value for customers,
clients, partners, and society at large.
American Marketing Association
Social Marketing
In 1971, Kotler and Zaltman
“the design, implementation and control of programs calculated to influence the
acceptability of social ideas and involving considerations of product planning, pricing,
communications, distribution and marketing research.”
Andreasen, 1995
“the application of commercial marketing technologies to the analysis, planning,
execution, and evaluation of programs designed to influence voluntary behavior of
target audiences in order to improve their personal welfare and that of society.”
Why Is Social Marketing Needed?
 Methods traditionally used to deliver health products and services in
developing countries often do not reach a large portion of the population,
especially those at the low end of the cash economy.
 Commercial entities sell products at high prices affordable only to a small
portion of the population, usually with little or no promotion.

2.  Over-burdened public health systems generally do not have enough outlets,
and provide a free, generic product or service that often is not valued by the
consumer.
 Government ministries are limited in the type and nature of motivational
campaigns they can undertake.
Objective Of Social Marketing Program
 To promote the acceptability and adoption of socially beneficial,voluntary
health behavior.
 To improve access to, and availability of a wide range of quality health
information, affordable products and services for the rural, under-served, low-
income and vulnerable populations.
 To adequately research the segmented market for contraceptives and other
products and services for basic and essential health care, as well as consumer
preferences in respect of product attributes.
 To decentralize the social marketing program
 To mainstream the coalition envisaged for private-NGO-publicpartnership
 To ensure the strengthening of logistics at state levels to enable an
uninterrupted flow of products and services
Social Marketing Ethics
 Select marketing tactics that fit marketing philosophy.
 Evaluate ethicality if policy before agreeing to develop strategy.
 Seek permission to enter and address targeted social issues.
 Be certain to understand culture, values and norms.
 Ensure there will be responsible participation who can be held accountable for
changes.
 Be truthful, fair and balanced
 Protect privacy

3.  Don’t model inappropriate behavior
 Don’t be offensive
 Do more good than harm
 Favor free choice
 Evaluate marketing within a broader context of behavior management
Problem Description
o Summary of any existing data about the problem, audience, and behavior
o Models of behavior change that may apply
o Previous efforts to address the problem
o Best practices or lessons learned from other programs that may be similar
o List of your strategy team members and summary of how decisions will be
made
o SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis
Formative Research
o Also called formative assessment, market research, consumer research, or
audience research
o Research conducted during the development of program to
 Choose and describe a target audience
 Understand the factors which influence their behavior, and
 Determine best ways to reach them
Strategy Development
o Be creative
o Consider policy and environment-level changes when appropriate
o Keep your audience’s perspective
Intervention Design
In this phase,

4. o Assemble your planning team and assign roles
o Plan your interventions in detail
o Test and revise your interventions know the details about
o Partnerships or agreements with organizations or people.
o New or modified services that will be offered (including staff, training).
o Lesson plans or curricula for training, skill-building, or courses.
o Messages or materials needed to communicate with the audience.
o Incentives for the target audience to participate.
Evaluation
Evaluation activities should be:
o Useful (i.e., responsive to stakeholder information needs)
o Feasible given time, resources, and available expertise
o Accurate enough to inform the kinds of decisions to be made
o Proper/ethical
Evaluate to know whether you are doing:
o The right things
o The right things right
Enough of the right things to make a difference in outcomes in this phase you will:
o Determine which program components should be monitored and/or
evaluated
o Decide how to gather the information
o Decide how to analyze and report the data
Implementation
In this phase, implement both intervention plan and monitoring and evaluation plan
o Execute intervention plans

5. o Initiate monitoring and evaluation activities
o Modify program components based on feedback
o Share evaluation findings and lessons learned
Barriers In Social Marketing
 Potential of social marketing unappreciated
 The consumer base is very heterogeneous, customization of products for so
many segments and mini segments is virtually impossible
 Media is privately owned; airtime is expensive
 Social marketing is often done poorly
 Policy decisions at local, national and international levels often guide the
product strategy and hence the product cannot be easily changed
Global Social Marketing Challenges
 Increase in health issues competing for public attention (tobacco, obesity, drug
abuse, HIV/AIDS)
 Busy lifestyles, people’s time limitations, technology
 Cluttered media environment for health information
 Increase in the number and type of communication channel, including the
internet
 Consumers & practitioners: demands on time, multiple education/information
sources, changing practice guidelines
Implications Of Social Marketing For Health Care Practice
 Social marketing can be useful in health care practice
 Evidence on social marketing suggests underlying principles can influence
health care consumer decision making through multiple strategies
 Health care setting provides a unique opportunity to reinforce messages
aimed to consumers through brief counseling

6.  As a trusted source, practitioners’ reinforcement of social marketing
messages adds value beyond the effects of mass communication