CHAPTER TWO

PLANNING SOCIAL MARKETING PROGRAMS

 Chapter Objectives
After the completion of this chapter, students will be able to:

 Define social marketing objectives and

strategies,
 Trace the way How to build an
effective social marketing strategy
 Discuss The Social Marketing Mix,
 Identify the steps in social marketing
planning,
 Explain the Planning a Social
Marketing Program
 Introduction
•Developing a marketing plan explicitly, and implicitly, captures many
of the core assumptions and understandings of social marketing.
•In its essence, a social marketing plan is a translation document that
distills, Understanding of the epidemiology of the disease, the context
in which the intervention is being planned, organizational strengths
and competencies, Partners' capabilities, behavioral determinants,
and audience insights into strategies and tactics that lead to positive
impacts in health behaviors among priority audiences.
•What is included and excluded in it, how terms are defined, its
implications for research and evaluation, how interventions are
designed and resourced, and what it says as a statement for 'what is
social marketing' are taken quite seriously.
 Designing Social Marketing Objectives and Strategies

Social Marketing Objectives

 Social marketing is the systematic application of marketing
along with other concepts and techniques to achieve specific
behavioral goals for a social good. The primary objective of
Social Marketing is "social good".
 Social marketing can be applied to promote merit goods, make
the society avoid demerit goods and thus to promote society's
well-being as a whole.

 This may include asking people not to smoke in public areas, ask
them to use seat belts, prompting to make them follow speed
limits.
 How to Build an Effective Social Marketing Strategy?

• Strategic planning is the process of clarifying what the organization is about;

deciding what is and is not a priority for the use of resources; analyzing the
internal and external environment; considering how best to deal with upcoming
changes and transitions; setting out a clear direction; and setting concrete goals
for the future.
• It involves looking at the organization as a complete entity and is concerned
with its long term development and usually reviewed on a 3 or 5 year basis.
• Strategy development will help guide your selection of a target audience, and
the specific behavioral objective for each audience segment. Be sure to design
an intervention that addresses all of those behavioral determinates.

Major questions in strategic Social Marketing Plan

• Who should be involved
Where are we now?
Where do we want to go?
How will we get there?
How will we stay on track?
 Cont’d
Who Should be involved: determining who needs to be involved in the planning process. It
decided by the management committee. Generally, it should involve as appropriate:
• Those who will be implementing the plan (e.g. management, staff, volunteers)
• Those who will be affected (e.g. Members, users, etc.)
• Those who will be monitor its implementation (e.g. Management committee)
• Others who can contribute to its development (e.g. community activist, funding bodies,
etc.)
Where are we now?
This starts with reviewing the present circumstances and characteristics of the
organization. In order to plan for the future, you first need to reach the common
understanding of the present circumstances. To answer this question you will need to focus
discussions on two key areas:
1. Analyzing the external and internal environment: organization need to have information
about the challenges, opportunities and future trends, inside and outside and focus on
SWOT analysis.
2. Reviewing the organizations vision , mission and values.
Where are we going
• Having reviewing your current situation and the challenges which will affect your future
development, the next step will be come up with a common agreement regarding what
the future should look like. The strategic aims also should be long term, help to achieve
your mission, limited scope, show clear direction, and be measurable.
 Clarifying the Mission

•Content strategy has become a popular specialty in marketing lately. The problem
is that very few content strategists actually know what they’re talking about. They
tend to approach content as if it was just a longer version of an ad and therefore
double the usual amount of psychobabble about the “consumer mindset.”
•In truth, a publisher’s first loyalty is not to the consumer, but to the editorial
mission. That doesn’t mean you should ignore consumers, trends or anything else
that’s going on. What it does mean is that great publications stand for something.
•Apple stands for design. Harley Davidson stands for friendship and camaraderie.
Red Bull stands for an extreme lifestyle. These brands successfully engage
consumers because the brand’s mission supersedes whatever they happen to be
selling at any given time.
•So the first thing you need to do to create a successful social strategy is figure out
what you stand for.
 Identifying Analogues

•There is probably no greater peril in marketing than the misplaced compulsion to

be original.
•Originality, after all, is not a virtue in and of itself, but only has value if it’s
meaningful. Try to be different for difference’s sake and you’ll accomplish nothing
more than being weird. That might thrill the guys in the office, but it will fail in the
marketplace.
•So the best way to start formulating a social strategy is to identify others who
share your mission. What are they doing? What succeeds and what doesn’t? What
can we add? What can we subtract? There’s no reason to try to reinvent the wheel.
•When I was a professional publisher, we would insist on 3-5 analogues for any
development or editorial brief and we found that practice absolutely essential. It
not only helped us adopt best practices and avoid poor ones, it also helped
everyone visualize exactly what we were trying to accomplish.
 Focusing on Structure

•Law and Order was one of the most successful TV shows in history. Running for 20 seasons, it not
only ruled the ratings, but was a critical success as well.
•Regular viewers of the show became familiar with its strict structure. First, a crime, then an
investigation is leading to an arrest and prosecution. Somewhere along the way a snag would be hit,
creating tension that would drive the story. You could almost set your watch by it.
•Every successful content product has a clearly defined structure. TV shows have plot formulas, radio
stations have clocks, magazines have brand bibles and web sites have usability rules. These are
strictly followed.
•While this may seem boring in concept, creating a clear structure is absolutely crucial in practice.
Any cognitive energy your audience uses up trying to navigate your content lessens the amount of
energy they can spend on what you’re trying to tell them. A standard format is also helpful in setting
the constraints under which creativity thrives.
•A legendary editor once told that a great content product delivers two things: consistency and
surprise. the same is true with social marketing. You should set expectations, but also feel free to
break the rules now and then. However, without consistency, there can be no surprise, you just make
a mess.
 Create a Community (Not an Audience)

•Up till now, I’ve focused mainly on content. That’s deliberate,

because without compelling content that informs, excites and
inspires, social marketing doesn’t have a chance. It simply will not
be effective. However, the mark of a great social marketing program
is that it builds more than an audience-it builds a community.
•This is where things often go wildly, wildly wrong because social
marketers
mistakenly equate the strength of their community with the size of t
heir following.
They establish fans on Face book, Twitter and other social
networks as key performance indicators and then blast them with
brand messages.
 Types of marketing control
Type of Prime Purpose of Approach
Control Responsibili Control
ty
1.Annual- Top  • To examine o Sales analysis
plan control management; whether the o Market-share analysis
middle planned results o Sales-to-expense ratios
management are being achieved o Financial analysis
o Market-based scorecard
analysis

2.Profitabili Marketing  • To examine Profitability by:

ty control controller where the  Product
company is  Territory
making and  Customer
losing money
 To evaluate and  Segment
improve the  Trade channel
spending  Order size
 Cont’d
Type of Prime Purpose of Approach
Control Responsibili Control
ty

3.Efficiency Line and staff  Efficiency and Efficiency of:

control management; impact of  Sales force
marketing marketing  Advertising
controller expenditures
 Sales promotion
 Distribution

4.Strategic Top o To examine

control management; whether the
 Marketing effectiveness
marketing company is
rating instrument
auditor pursuing its best
 Marketing audit
opportunities with
 Marketing excellence review
respect to
 Company ethical and social
markets, products,
responsibility review
and channels
 The Social Marketing Mix
The marketing mix is the core framework of marketing
management that has been adopted across all areas of
marketing practice. The mix represents those elements of
marketing management that are able to be controlled and
manipulated by marketing managers to ensure the maximum
appeal of their campaign. The difficulty for social marketing is
that it involves intangible products, often supported by other
institutions, which differ significantly from the services or
physical goods of commercial marketing. Consequently, it is not
possible to simply transfer the commercial marketing mix to the
social sector without making conceptual modifications to the
strategies, and practical modifications to the tactics of the mix.
 SOCIAL PRODUCT
• In social marketing, the term product refers to the desired behavior and "bundle of
benefits“ or all of the benefits (including services, quality, features, options, style,
brand name, packaging, sizes, warranties, and returns), that forms the basis of the
campaign, and which marketers are hoping that their target markets will adopt it.
• Examples: the product is physical activity and all the benefits that teens truly want:
having fun, being with friends, being cool, and trying new skills.
• The ultimate product of any social marketing campaign is a change in behavior.
However, in order to achieve this change, a series of facilitating products are usually
involved which can include physical goods or services. It should be of high quality,
tailored to fit the target audience needs.
• Social product 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).
 Cont’d
• In order to have a viable product, people must first perceive
that they have a genuine problem, and that the product
offering is a good solution for that problem.
• The role of research here is to discover the consumers'
perceptions of the problem and the product, and to
determine how important they feel it is to take action against
the problem.
• The product must be defined in terms of your target
audiences’ beliefs, practices, and values.
• The product must be a solution to a problem, for example,
promoting the benefits to adopting a healthier behavior. It
also has to be unique and cognizant of the competition.
• Social marketing product can consist of ideas, practices and
in some cases, tangible objects, or a combination of all three.
• The following diagram outlines the key elements of the total
social marketing product: Components of the Social Product
Components (Elements) of the Social Product
 Cont’d
Ideas
The first step in a social change campaign is convincing the targeted
individual that the behavioral change being recommended is worth adopting.
To do this, existing ideas about the issue need to be addressed so that the
person moves from being either having no fixed attitude (apathy) or a
negative attitude (active opposition) to the proposed change to being
persuaded that it is a good idea (positive support).
Behavioral change is the ultimate bottom line of any social marketing
campaign. However attitudinal change is often a pre-requisite to behavioral
change.
In the early stages of a social marketing program the emphasis may be on the
idea product even though the ultimate product is behavior.
Ideas management is both a pre-condition and a product of social marketing.
To effectively manage ideas, however, it is necessary to understand and target
the right element of the idea product which itself is divided into three
elements: Belief, Attitude, and Value.
 Cont’d

 Belief:- refers to what the target market believes to be true about an

issue. Where beliefs amongst the target market are inaccurate, it is
not unusual to set the initial focus of the campaign around an
education campaign designed to modify beliefs as a pre-requisite
for behavior change.
 Attitude:- refers to what the target market feels towards an issue
irrespective of what they know to be true.
o Attitudes are therefore more emotionally based than beliefs.
 Value:- values are more deep seated than either beliefs or attitudes
and refer to overall ideas as to what is right and what is wrong.
o Consequently they are the hardest element of the ideas product
to change.
 Cont’d

Practice
Behavioral change is the ultimate goal of any social marketing
campaign and is therefore the true product of the campaign. It
consists of two types of practice:
Act: which is a social product that requires a single act to achieve
the social outcomes being promoted, for example, presenting a
child for immunization.
Behaviors: refers to ongoing and sustained changes to an
individual’s activities such as modifying diet to include 5 servings
of fruit and vegetables a day or taking 30 minutes exercise three
times a week, consistently over a sustained time period.
o Behaviors are more difficult to 'sell' than acts in that they require
ongoing reinforcement and motivation as well as a change in lifestyle.
 Cont’d

Tangible products
The primary product of any social marketing is never a physical product. However, to achieve the
behavioral outcomes of a campaign, physical goods are sometimes required as facilitating products.
For example: sunscreen is one physical product which facilitates sun safe practices. However, the
central product of the campaign is the behavior of minimizing skin damage through sun exposure
where the sunscreen is one of many methods of achieving the desire outcome.

Major issues that social marketing product can benefit include:

 Health: tobacco use, binge drinking, obesity, physical activity, immunizations, nutrition, sexually
transmitted diseases, blood pressure, oral health, high cholesterol, and skin, breast, prostate and
colon cancer
 Injury Prevention: traffic safety, drowning, safe gun storage, falls, household fires, suicide, sexual
assault, domestic violence, disaster preparedness, and seatbelt, car seat and booster seat usage
 Environmental Protection: waste reduction, water conservation, water quality, energy
conservation, air pollution, litter, wildlife habitat protection, forest preservation, disposal of
hazardous waste
 Community Involvement: organ donation, blood donation, volunteering, voting, crime
prevention, animal rights.
 SOCIAL PRICE
Price is the second element of the marketing mix which requires
significant modification on a conceptual and practical level to fit into the
social marketing framework. Many proponents of social marketing
campaigns take a narrow view of pricing as consisting of only financial
considerations and consequently believe that their products are free. For
example, there are a number of health screening services available to
specific target markets which do not attract a direct financial fee.
From the adopters’ perspective, however, price however consists of more
than the financial elements involved in the purchase and use of the
product in social marketing.
Broader marketing theory defines price as "what a person gives up to use
or own a product". Social price is the sum of all the different costs that a
person incurs to adopt a new behavior.
 Cont’d
 Price: the cost that target adopters have to bear (including the list price, discounts,
allowances, payment period, and credit terms, as well as the non-monetary costs of
time, effort, and stress)

 "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. If
the costs outweigh the benefits for an individual, the perceived value of the offering
will be low and it will be unlikely to be adopted. However, if the benefits are
perceived as greater than their costs, chances of trial and adoption of the product is
much greater.

 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.
 Cont’d
 Price refers to the cost of adopting the product. Sometimes this is actual
money, but more often in public health, price is time or loss of pleasure or self-
esteem or embarrassment.
 In trying to promote mammography services to women, when in many cases it
is a free service, money is not the issue as much as price. It is the time to get
away to make the appointment, the concern for the pain that might be
involved, and the worry for the possible diagnosis.
 Price cost or barriers associated with the behavior change: Money, time, Effort,
Psychological, discomfort, loss of peers’ respect.
Social marketing attempts to :
1. Minimize cost or barriers':
 Price discount to certain groups; seniors, students
 It takes 5 minutes or less
 We will teach you how to do it.
2. Increasing the cost of the competing behavior by making it more difficult or
less appealing.
 Cont’d
This may include a financial element however the main focus is usually
more related to psychological and lifestyle issues. Joyce and Morris (in
Fine,1990) outline three basic types of social price:

 Psychic costs: the mental cost of having to change an attitude or

behavior. The more a person is involved in the previous behavior (e.g.
cultural belief in the appropriateness of the activity), the higher the
psychic cost to change that attitude or behavior.
 Time Costs: the amount of time required undertaking behavior.
 For example, travelling by public transport has a relatively high
time cost compared to driving a private car.
 Energy costs: the amount of effort required to undertake the
behavior.
 For example, whilst regular exercise is seen as having a high energy cost
(it requires considerable sustained effort), sorting recyclable and non-
recyclable garbage into two bins is seen as low energy cost.
 Cont’d
•The role of social marketing with respect to price is to
minimize perceived costs of the positive behavior
(thereby decreasing the price) while increasing the
perceived costs of not changing.
• Cost to the target audience of changing behavior
• Barriers to behavior change Can be financial, or
more often related to other “costs”
– time
– effort
– lifestyle
– psychological cost
 Cont’d

 Price is the cost that the target market associates

with adopting the desired behavior. Pricing
related strategies to reduce costs and increase
benefits include these 6:
1. Increase monetary benefits for the desired behavior.
2. Decrease monetary costs for the desired behavior.
3. Increase nonmonetary benefits for the desired behavior.
4. Decrease nonmonetary costs for the desired behavior.
5. Increase monetary costs for the competing behavior.
6. Increase nonmonetary costs for the competing behavior.
 PROMOTION
•Promotion: the means by which the social product is promoted to the target-adopters.
Because of its visibility, this element is often mistakenly thought of as comprising the whole
of social marketing.
•Promotion refers to any communication that occurs between the originator of the program
and the public. Communications can be conducted either on a mass scale, reaching a large
audience with a single message or on a personal, one to one basis.
•It is only one element of an integrated marketing strategy despite being the most visible
element of the marketing mix.

•For a campaign to be considered social marketing, rather than social advertising, the
program needs to adopt the client centered focus of marketing along with the full marketing
mix, and other strategic marketing tools.
•For example, a health promotion program with extensive advertising and other
communications is not necessarily a social marketing program, unless it addresses the other
areas of the marketing mix and adopts the client focused marketing philosophy, as opposed
to an expert driven, top down approach “telling” the market what it “should” do.
 It has 3 objectives:
1. To inform consumers about existence of service, its
location, accessibility(prenatal nutrition counseling)
2. To remind former users of continuing existence
3. To persuade prospective users that the product is worth
using(benefiting on improving health)
 Cont’d

•Just as there is a marketing mix, there is also a

promotional mix which includes the following
elements:
• Advertising
• Publicity
• Personal selling
• Internet
• Direct mail
• Points of sale
• Help lines
 Cont’d

Advertising
•Advertising is the best known of the marketing communications methods. It is
characterized by its ability to reach large numbers of people with a single message,
either through electronic or print media. It is a paid form of communication, giving
the marketer total control over the message and placement of the advertisement. By
virtue of being a paid statement, it has less credibility in the market place and also
has the disadvantage of incurring significant upfront costs. Despite these financial
costs, advertising is generally the most cost effective method on per person reached
basis and is therefore very suitable for whole of population campaigns.

Publicity
•Publicity defined as a single message, mass method of communication. Unlike
advertising, however, it is not paid for by the marketer. This can and does reduces
control over both the content and placement of the message. The trade off between
publicity and the control of advertising is that publicity is considered a more
credible form of communication as it is distributed through a third party, usually the
media.
 Cont’d

Personal selling
•Personal selling is a one on few communication methods whereby a marketer or sales
person directly speaks with target market members. Personal selling has the
advantage of being a two way communication process which allows the marketer to
modify the message to suit the audience and to field questions on the spot if
something is not clear.
•Personal selling is more expensive on a per person reached basis however, when
using volunteers and partners for personal selling, it can be an effective way of
spreading social messages. It is used, for example, in presentations to schools and
community groups and is particularly suited to complex messages which require
detailed explanations or demonstrations.

Web based promotion

•The internet provides marketers with a unique ability to simultaneously engage in
the mass communication of a single message with the option of creating a unique
personal interaction. Each visitor to a website will read different levels of information
according to their needs, thereby customizing the message and, if necessary, make
personal contact via email for further information not otherwise available.
 Cont’d
Direct Marketing, Brochures and Pamphlets:
•Where an issue has a clearly defined target market which is known and relatively
easy to access, direct marketing whether by email or traditional mail, is an effective
way of getting information to potential adopters. Direct marketing is usually
accompanied by some form of print material such as pamphlets or brochures
which add to persuasive or reminder messages. For example, the National Pap
Smear Register provides a database from which reminder letters can be sent to
women throughout Australia when they are due for routine screening for cervical
cancer.
Point of 'Sale'
•Doctors’ surgeries, sports clubs and other venues where social marketing
campaigns are implemented provide a common meeting ground for the
distribution of "point of sale" materials. Again the most common materials
distributed this way are brochures, posters and information booklets although
messages have been distributed via less traditional media such as on printed beer
mats.
 Cont’d

Help Lines
• Many campaigns now include a help line facility which is
promoted via mass communication methods such as advertising
but which allow for personalized one on one communications.
Examples of this approach include the Kids Help Line, the QUIT
Help Line and the Domestic Violence Help Line.
• The incorporation of a help line as part of a campaign provides
potential adopters with a low risk initial act to help start them
on the process of behavioral change.
 Cont’d

 Major social marketing communication channels include:

 Advertising
 Public Relations
 Special Events
 Printed Materials
 Special Promotional Items
 Signage and Displays
 Personal Selling
 Social Media
 Popular/Entertainment Media
 PLACE
•Because social products are intangible and often conceptual, the role of place – or distribution
– is problematic.
•The distribution of ideas is often merged with promotion, and regarded as an aspect of the
promotional mix. However, where the main social product is an idea, the movement of that
idea to the market has to be examined in the marketing mix.
•In social marketing, place is traditionally the most neglected element of the marketing mix. Yet
without an effective distribution channel to facilitate behavioral change, campaigns are
unlikely to succeed.
•The distribution of the facilitating tangible products needed to effectively adopt a new
behavior is fundamentally the same as any form of commercial product distribution. Subtle
differences arise primarily in the type of outlet where the product can be purchased, or
obtained.
•Social campaigns usually have a stronger emphasis on supply through government agencies,
schools, pharmacies and health clinics. For example, with the advent of HIV/AIDS the
distribution channels for condoms were rapidly expanded to include vending machines,
supermarkets and service stations so that access and availability were significantly increased.
 Cont’d

• For idea products, distribution channels such as the media are often the same as
used in promotion. One of the convenient aspects of an ideas based campaign is
that the idea can be spread in a promotional campaign without requiring a
separate distribution concept. Also, ideas are socially communicated, and can
easily be passed on by word of mouth with no direct funding on the part of the
sponsoring agency. In addition to traditional communications media, there is a
strong emphasis in social marketing distribution on the 'selling' role of
professionals and volunteers, particularly in the health sector.

• The role of distribution channels in social marketing focuses on facilitating

behavioral change. Typically social marketers do not own the channels of
distribution - instead the role of social marketing is to maximize the use of
existing channels to assist in the delivery of different elements of the social
marketing product. Effective social marketing therefore relies on quality
relationships with partners and intermediaries both in the public and private
sectors.
 Cont’d
• We might want to promote our health service or health behavior
in bus stops or stations.
• We need to ask if that is where our audience typically reads the
ads, or if they are in a hurry to get to work and ignore the signs.
• If we are going to use billboards and a telephone number, does our
target audience typically have a way of recording the number
when they are driving on the highway and passing the billboard.
• Place can also refer to where people actually carry out the health
behavior.
• In promoting condom use among teens, we need to think of where
teens will get the message or be reminded about condom use.
• Bar coasters have been an extremely successful method for
promoting family planning.
 Cont’d
 Market will perform the desired behavior, acquire any related
tangible objects, and receive any associated services.
 Options include:
o Physical locations
o Phone
o Mail
o Fax
o Internet
o Mobile Unit
o Drive-troughs
o Home Delivery/House Calls
o Kiosks
o Vending Machines
 Place Where Decisions Are Made
• There are a number of places where health decisions are made.
• Health decisions are made in prenatal care settings. These might be
good places to promote the idea of breast feeding.
• Decisions about health behavior change are often made when people
are at home with family and friends.
• If we are going to promote through television, our formative
research lets us know the times and types of programs they watch.
• Health care decisions occur while in a hospital. In the case of breast
feeding, these decisions are often made during pregnancy but
sometimes not until the baby is actually born.
• The decision might even be made when they are getting discharge
instructions or at home during the postpartum period.
 People
 People: refers to the people who sell and deliver the social
product to the target adopters.
 Process: the steps through which target adopters go to
acquire the social product.
 Physical evidence: the visible sensory elements of the
setting in which the target adopters acquire or use the
social product.
 Publics
 Publics--Social marketers often have many different audiences that their
program has to address in order to be successful. To be most effective when
planning and managing a social marketing campaign, think about all of the
people who can affect the success of the program.
 "Publics" refers to both the external and internal groups involved in the
program. External publics include the target audience, secondary audiences,
groups that influence the target audience, policymakers, gatekeepers, the
media, and others outside the organization.
 while the internal publics are those who are involved in some way with either
approval or implementation of the program. Just as importantly, nonprofit
social marketers must involve their internal publics in the development and
preparation for the program implementation.
 These are the people within your organization everyone from your Board
members and management staff who must approve your plans, down to the
receptionist who answers the phones and needs to know what to do when
someone calls in response to the campaign.
 Partnership
• 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.
• Potential partners include organizations (other
nonprofits, government agencies and businesses) that
have one or more of the following attributes: similar
goals to yours, access to the target audience, credibility
with the target audience, interest in sponsorship of your
program, or resources that fill gaps in your
organization's capabilities.
 Politics
 Politics Stimulate policy that influences voluntary behavior change (system and
environmental change).
 It is always important to consider secondary and tertiary audiences. While you might
have fully understood your target audience, very rarely do groups of peoples or
individuals operate in a vacuum.
 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.

• Governmental or organizational policies can act as a catalyst for social change on a large
scale.
• When policies are put into place that provide an environment of support for a particular
behavior, individuals are much more likely to sustain that behavior change.
• For example, workplace nonsmoking policies make it easier for smokers to quit by
ensuring that they do not see others lighting up around them and removing those social
cues to smoking.
 Purse Strings
• Purse Strings: Most organizations that develop social marketing
programs operate through funds provided by sources such as
corporate partners, foundations, governmental grants or
donations.
• When working with nonprofits, social marketers must be
creative and proactive in seeking funding for their campaigns.
• This adds another dimension to the strategy development-
namely, where will you get the money to create your program?
• “How will we pay for this?” is the $1,000,000 (more or less)
question.
 Example of a Marketing Mix Strategy
 As an example, the marketing mix strategy for a breast cancer
screening campaign for older women might include the following
elements:

 The product could be any of these three behaviors: getting an annual

mammogram, seeing a physician each year for a breast exam and
performing monthly breast self-exams.
 The price of engaging in these behaviors includes the monetary costs
of the mammogram and exam, potential discomfort and/or
embarrassment, time and even the possibility of actually finding a
lump.
 The place that these medical and educational services are offered
might be a mobile van, local hospitals, clinics and worksites, depending
upon the needs of the target audience.
 Promotion could be done through public service announcements,
billboards, mass mailings, media events and community outreach.
 Cont’d
 The "publics" you might need to address include your target audience
(let's say low-income women age 40 to 65), the people who influence
their decisions like their husbands or physicians, policymakers, public
service directors at local radio stations, as well as your board of
directors and office staff.
 Partnerships could be cultivated with local or national women's
groups, corporate sponsors, medical organizations, and service clubs
or media outlets.
 The policy aspects of the campaign might focus on increasing access to
mammograms through lower costs, requiring insurance and Medicaid
coverage of mammograms or increasing federal funding for breast
cancer research.
 The purse strings, or where the funding will come from, may be
governmental grants, such as from the National Cancer Institute or the
local health department, foundation grants or an organization like the
American Cancer Society.
 Cont’d
 The important point is that the social-marketing mix consists of many specific tools,
regardless of their overall classification. The considerable number of tools gives rise to
many possible marketing strategies. Social marketing tools vary in their degree of
adjustability. Social marketers can quickly adjust the prices, assignment of
“salespeople”, and frequency and reach of communication.
 However, many other tools take longer to adjust, such as the number of trained
“salespeople”, the number of distribution outlets, and the physical products.
 An added complexity is that social marketing tools are interdependent, rather than
independent, in their impact on the target market. Some tools may turn out to be
incompatible even when previous work has established that they are effective.
 The next step is to allocate the budget to the various elements of the social-marketing
mix.
 How much should go to direct non-personal versus direct personal communication?,
To promotion incentives versus better service delivery? If social marketers knew how
adoption of the product would be affected by each possible allocation, then the
answers would be readily apparent. If social marketers could anticipate the acceptance
levels of the target adopter groups, then the allocation problem would be rationally
solvable.
TEN STEPS IN THE PLANNING PROCESS
1. BACKGROUND, PURPOSE, FOCUS

2. SITUATION ANALYSIS

3. TARGET AUDIENCE

4. MARKETING OBJECTIVES & GOALS

5. BARRIERS, BENEFITS, COMPETITION

6. POSITIONING STATEMENT

7. STRATEGIC MARKETING MIX (THE 4PS)

8. EVALUATION PLAN

9. BUDGET

10. IMPLEMENTATION PLAN

 Planning process step descriptions
1. BACKGROUND, PURPOSE, FOCUS

 Summarize key background information leading to the

development of this plan (e.g., loss of native vegetation on
shores).
 What is the campaign purpose, the intended impact (benefit)
of a successful effort (e.g., increased natural habitats for
migratory birds and butterflies)?
 What is the campaign focus, stated in terms of populations
(e.g., residential properties), or solutions (e.g., native plants)?
 2. SITUATION ANALYSIS

 Relative to the purpose and focus of the plan, describe the factors
and forces in the internal and external environment that are
anticipated to have some impact on planning decisions.
 Factors and Forces Influencing Your Target Market and Your Effort.

Organizational Factors
(Strengths & Weaknesses) Environmental Forces
• Organizational Resources (Opportunities & Threats)
• Past Performance • External Publics
• Expertise • Political/Legal Forces
• Current Alliances and Partners • Economic Forces
• Service Delivery • Natural Forces
• Internal Publics • Demographic Forces
• Management Support • Cultural Forces
• Distribution Channel
 3. SELECTING TARGET AUDIENCE

 The bull’s-eye target audience for your marketing efforts is selected

and described.
 A marketing plan ideally focuses on a primary target audience,
although additional secondary audiences are often identified and
strategies are developed for them as well.
 This is a 3 step process:
1. Segment the market.
2. Evaluate segments.
3. Choose one or more as a focal point
 4. MARKETING OBJECTIVES & GOALS

Objectives
 Behavior Objective:
o What, very specifically, do you want to influence your target audience
to do as a result of this campaign or project (e.g., plant native plants
 Knowledge Objective:
o Knowledge objectives include information or facts you want the
market to be aware of ones that might make them more likely to
perform the desired behavior.
o Is there anything you need them to know, in order to act (e.g., how to
identify native plants at the nursery?)
 Belief Objective:
o Belief objectives relate more to feelings and attitudes.
o Is there anything you need them to believe, in order to act (e.g., native
plants can be beautiful and easier to maintain)?
Goals
 What quantifiable, measurable goals are you targeting? Ideally, these are
stated in terms of behavior change (e.g., % increase in sales of native
plants).
 5. BARRIERS, BENEFITS, COMPETITION

 Barriers are reasons your target audience cannot (easily) or does

not want to adopt the behavior.
 Benefits are reasons your target audience might be interested in
adopting the behavior or what might motivate them to do so.
 Competitors are behaviors your target audience prefers or
organizations that support or promote “undesirable” behaviors.

Desired Behavior Competing Behavior

Barriers/Costs
Benefits
 Cont’d
Barriers
 Make a list of barriers your audience has to adopting the desired behavior
(e.g., not knowing what plants are native, and that they aren't beautiful.).
These may be related to something physical, psychological, economical,
skills, knowledge, awareness, or attitudes.
Benefits
 What are the key benefits for performing the behavior that your target
audience wants in exchange for performing the behavior (e.g., easier to
maintain, landscape is more beautiful and increased wildlife on property)?
This answers the question "What's in it for me?"
Competition
 What are the major competing alternative behaviors (e.g., planting
nonnative plants)?
 What benefits do your audiences associate with this behavior (e.g., easier
to find)?
 What costs do your audiences associate with this behavior (e.g., requires
more fertilizing and watering)?
 6. CRAFT A POSITIONING STATEMENT

• Positioning is the act of designing the organization’s actual

and perceived offering in such a way that it lands on and
occupies a distinctive place in the mind of the target market –
where you want it to be. Fill in the blanks to :
• “We want (TARGET AUDIENCE) to see (DESIRED
BEHAVIOR) as (DESCRIPTIVE PHRASE) and as more
beneficial than (COMPETITION).
• E.g. ("We want Eastern Shore property owners to see planting
native plants on their properties as a beautiful option, one that
enhances habitat for wildlife, as well as property value.")
 7. STRATEGIC MARKETING MIX (THE 4PS)

PRODUCT
A product is anything that can be offered to a market to satisfy a want or need. In social marketing, major
product elements include:
 Core benefit of behavior -(e.g., landscape is more beautiful)?
 Goods or services you promote for adoption
 Additional product elements to assist in behavior adoption
PRICE
• Price is the cost that the target market associates with adopting the desired behavior.
PLACE
• Place is where and when the target market will perform the desired behavior, acquire any related
tangible objects, and receive any associated services.
• Options include: Physical locations , Phone/Mobile devices , Mail , Fax , Internet , Mobile Unit ,
Where people shop , Where people hang out , Drive through ,Home Delivery/House Calls , Kiosks ,
Vending Machines
PROMOTIONS
Promotion are persuasive communications designed and delivered to inspire your target audience to
action. At this step you determine messages, messengers, creative strategies, and communication
channels.
 8. EVALUATION PLAN

• An evaluation plan outlines why you will be evaluating, what will be measured,
how and when. What is measured often falls into one of the categories below:

Inputs Outputs Outcomes Impact Return on

Investment
Resources Program Audience Indicators Improvement
allocated to activities response to that show in social
the campaign conducted to outputs levels of condition
or program influence impact
effort audiences to
perform a
desired
behavior
 Evaluation methods
1. Formative evaluation-testing and assessing certain elements of a
program before it is fully implemented→ maximize chance for
success.
2. Process evaluation: periodic surveys to assess client satisfaction,
and barriers to successful program.
 Focus on program activities rather than on outcomes:
1. Nature of attracted target population(Sociodemographic criteria)
2. Extent of their participation
3. The program’s staffing, funding, activities,(sessions, visits, etc)
4. Its location and timing.
 Cont’d
3. Impact evaluation: to what extent the program achieved
its objectives as regards desired immediate changes:
1. Change in knowledge
2. Change in attitude
3. Decision making skills
4. Outcome=Summative evaluation: to what extent the
program achieved its objectives as regards long term
changes:
4. Behavior change
5. Change to the physical environment
6. Change in health status, morbidity, mortality
 9. BUDGET

 In this step you must be determine budgets and find funding

sources.
 The major activity in this step are identify price tags for
strategies and activities with cost-related implications.
Product-related costs
Price-related costs
Place-related costs
Promotion-related costs
Evaluation-related costs
 If costs exceed currently available funds, what potential
additional funding sources can be explored?
 10. IMPLEMENTATION PLAN

 The implementation plan functions as a concise working

document to share and track planned efforts. Most commonly,
plans represent a minimum of 1-year activities, and ideally 2
or 3 years.

WHAT WHO WHEN HOW MUCH

End of
Chapter
two