Social Marketing

What are the ten steps of the Strategic Marketing Plan?

1. Describe the social issue, background, purpose and focus. 2. Conduct a situation analysis. 3. Select a target audience. 4. Set behavior objectives and target goals. 5. Identify barriers, benefits, motivators, the competition, and influential others. 6. Craft a desired positioning. 7. Develop the strategic marketing mix (product, price, place, promotion). 8. Develop a plan for monitoring and evaluation. 9. Establish budgets and find funding. 10. Complete an implementation plan.

What is social marketing?

A process that uses marketing principles and techniques to influence target audience behaviors that will benefit society as well as the individual.

What activities happen in the second step of the strategic marketing plan?

Conducting a quick audit of factors and forces in the internal and external environment (SWOT), drafting a similar list of external forces in the marketplace that represent opportunities a plan should take advantage of or threats it should prepare for.

What activities happen in the sixth step of the strategic marketing plan?

Describing how the target audience should see the behavior that they should buy relative to competing behaviors. Guides the development of a strategic marketing mix. Branding is a strategy to help secure the desired position.

What activities happen in the seventh step of the strategic marketing plan?

Describing the product, price, place, and promotion strategies - the intervention tools used to influence the target audience to adopt the desired behaviors. Included here: pilot (implementing the strategy), partners (potential messengers, funding sources, distribution channels, implementation strategies), and policymakers (a target audience or influential others).

What activities happen in the fourth step of the strategic marketing plan?

Determine the behavior objective (what needs to be influenced) - from something that the target audience should accept, modify, abandon, switch, or continue. Establishing quantifiable goals relative to the objective - for behavior objects and any knowledge and belief objectives (any that are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound; SMART). What is determined here will guide your subsequent decisions regarding marketing mix strategies.

What activities happen in the ninth step of the strategic marketing plan?

Establishing budgets and funding based on draft product benefits and features, price incentives, distribution channels, proposed promotions, and the evaluation plan; summarizing funding requirements and comparing them with available and potential funding sources. Outcomes here may necessitate revisions of strategies, the audience targeted, and goals, or the need to secure additional funding sources.

What are the types of research?

Exploratory, descriptive, causal, formative, pretest, monitoring, evaluation, secondary, primary, qualitative, quantitative.

What are midstream audiences?

Family members, healthcare providers, teacher. Those individuals that are connected to the target market - those who could share more informative information about an issue to said market.

What entities engage in Social Marketing?

Nonprofit organizations and foundations, professional working in for-profit organizations, and organizations engaged in social marketing campaigns.

What activities happen in the first step of the strategic marketing plan?

Noting the social issue the project will be addressing and summarizing factors that led to the development of the plan. What's the problem? What happened?

What are some approaches to collecting primary data?

Key informant interviews, focus groups, surveys, crowdsourcing, experimental research, observational research, ethnographic research, mobile technology research, mystery shoppers, and Zaltman's metaphor elicitation technique (ZMET).

What activities happen in the eighth step of the strategic marketing plan?

Outlining what measures will be used to evaluate the success of effort and how these measurements will be taken - derived after first clarifying the purpose and audience for the evaluation and referring back to goals that have been established for the campaign (desired levels of changes in behavior, knowledge, and beliefs established in step four).

What activities happen in the tenth step of the strategic marketing plan?

Plan is wrapped up with a document that specifies who will do what, when, and for how much. Transforming the marketing strategies into specific actions. Things to consider here are "the real marketing plan" (provides a clear picture of marketing activities; outputs), responsibilities, time frames, and budgets.

What are upstream audiences?

Policymakers, corporations, media. Those individuals who have a more direct influence on the target market - leaders and policymakers who could make change a little easier or more likely.

What activities happen in the third step of the strategic marketing plan?

Selection of the bull's-eye for the marketing efforts, providing a rich description of the target audience using characteristics (stage o change, demographics, geographic, related behaviors, psychographics, social networks, community assets, and size of the market).

What's an example of a focus statement?

The position you are taking in regard to specific behaviors or attitudes that you want to change.

What kinds of issues does Social Marketing address?

There are 50 major social issues that Social Marketing can benefit; the five major arenas being: health promotion, injury prevention, environmental protection, community involvement, and financial well-being.

How is social marketing similar to other kinds of marketing/disciplines?

There is a focus on behaviors, a use of systematic planning process which applies traditional marketing principles and techniques, selection and influence of a target audience; the primary beneficiary is society. Customer orientation is critical (offer must appeal to the target), exchange theory is fundamental (perceived benefits must equal or exceed perceived costs), marketing research is used throughout the process, audiences are segmented, all 4Ps are considered, and the results are measured and used for improvement.

What is an example of a purpose statement?

This clarifies the benefit of a successful social marketing campaign. "In 2001, Ecology developed a three-year social marketing plan with the purpose of decreasing littering and a focus on intentional littering on roadways."

What is the purpose of social marketing?

To influence consumer behavior in order to enhance societal well-being.

What activities happen in the fifth step of the strategic marketing plan?

Understanding what the target audience is currently doing or prefers to do and what real/perceived barriers they have to this proposed behavior, what benefits they want in exchange, and what would motivate them to "buy" it. What do they think of the idea? What are some of the reasons they are not currently doing this or don't want to (barriers)? What do they come up with when asked "What can you imagine would be in it for you to do this behavior? (benefits)? Do they think any of your potential strategies would work for them, or do they have better ideas (motivators)?

Where is research needed in the 10 step Strategic Marketing Plan?

When determining your target audience, motivators, existing campaigns, and during monitoring. Step 3, 5, and 8.

How is social marketing different than other kinds of marketing/disciplines?

Where in the commercial sector the aim is financial gain, in social marketing the aim is influencing behaviors that contribute to societal and individual gain. Market segmentation is based on a set of criteria (prevalence of the social problem, ability to reach the audience, readiness to for change, etc.). Competition here is the current/preferred behavior of the target audience along with the desired benefits associated with that behavior (i.e. the status quo).