Some people will get confused on what is really “social marketing”

This is NOT Social Marketing:

• Word of mouth marketing
• Viral marketing
• Public service announcements
• Cause marketing (companies adopting a cause to improve their image and get more sales)
• Focus groups
• Dating or matchmaking services

This is Social Marketing:

• A process that uses commercial marketing techniques to promote the adoption of positive health or social behaviors.
• An approach that benefits the people who are adopting the behaviors or society as a whole, rather than the organization doing the marketing.
• It may include some of the items in the “not” column above (okay, not the dating service) but those activities in and of themselves are not social marketing.

Internet Marketing Strategy

Social marketing was “born” as a discipline in the 1970s, when Philip Kotler and Gerald Zaltman realized that the same marketing principles that were being used to sell products to consumers could be used to “sell” ideas, attitudes and behaviors.

Similar to commercial marketing, the primary focus is on the consumer by learning what people want and need rather than trying to convince them to buy what your are producing. The key is marketing talks to the consumer, not about the product. The planning process takes this consumer focus by addressing the elements of the “marketing melting pot.”

This refers to decisions about 1) the conception of a Product, 2) Price, 3) distribution (Place), and 4) Promotion. These are often called the “Four Ps” of marketing. Social marketing also adds a few more “P’s.” At the end is an example of the marketing melting pot.

I like to figure out things before spending on a budget and take a sophisticated approach which draws from successful techniques.

As an example, the marketing mix strategy I did for the Fibroid Treatment Collective campaign for older women. I drafted the following ideas:

* The product could be any of these three behaviors: seeing a physician each year for a an exam.

* The price of engaging in these behaviors includes the monetary costs of the visit and exam, potential discomfort and/or embarrassment, time and even the possibility of actually finding a tumor.

* The place that these medical and educational services are offered might be a private practice, local hospitals and clinics depending upon the needs of the target audience.

* Promotion could be done through public service announcements, billboards, mass mailings, media events and community outreach.

* The “public” 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, service clubs or media outlets.

* The policy aspects of the campaign might focus on increasing access to uterine embolization through lower costs, requiring insurance and Medicaid coverage of mammograms or increasing federal funding for 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.

Each element of the marketing mix should be taken into consideration as the program is developed, for they are the core of the marketing effort. Research is used to elucidate and shape the final product, price, place, promotion and related decisions.