Social marketing: The 'good' marketing

Social marketing uses marketing techniques to achieve a change of behaviour on a specific cause. The main goal of social marketing is reaching social good and this differs from the prime objective of commercial marketing which is financial.  

Social marketing was recognised as a formal discipline in 1971, after Philip Kotler and Gerald Zaltman published "Social Marketing: An Approach to Planned Social Change" in the Journal of Marketing. They arrived to the conclusion that the principles used in marketing with the intention to sell products could also be used to "sell" ideas and change attitudes and behaviour. 

The objectives of social marketing are long-term behavioural changes and they normally are related to health and environmental issues. Thus, its main clients are non-profit organisations, health services and government. 

When intending a behavioural change it is essential to target the right audiences and segment them into different groups. Depending on the group we are looking at, we will approach them in one or another way. 

Having realistic expectations and testing the tactics is also very important. As the results of a social marketing campaign will just be seen in the long-term, sometimes even as long as 5 years, knowing that the tactics used are the right ones for the audience we pretend to target becomes critical.        

Of course, monitoring throughout the campaign is also very important in order to react properly if there is a hint that some of our tactics may not have the result we are expecting.   

If you want to know more about social marketing, do visit the following link:

http://www.social-marketing.org/sm.html