Social Marketing Principles
Fundamental principles of social marketing:
1. Know Your Audience: Know exactly who your audience is and look at everything from that group’s point of view. Social marketing is a consumer-oriented and audience-focused approach to program planning. Marketers recognize that they are probably very different from the population they are seeking to recruit, and they seek to understand the world from their audience’s point of view. Understanding the specific internal and external factors of the target audience is the key to success.
2. Clear Objectives: Be clear about the actions you want your audience to take. Marketing plans are designed with the end goal—behavior change—in mind. Often this end goal involves a series of steps, decisions, or actions. Commercial purchase decisions, for example, involve the following stages:
• awareness,
• evaluation and assessment of elements
Promotion—activities should include:
• Community networking
• Radio and newspaper advertising
• Media placements in magazines or direct mail
• Public relations efforts, such as making community presentations
Conclusion
Social marketing principles can help meet marketing goals, thereby helping to ensure success of the business
Adapted from : Using a Social Marketing
Framework to Improve Alzheimer’s
Disease Clinical Trial Recruitment,
Schechter, C., et. al., Academy for
Education Development (in press).