'see me' Social Marketing Planning Tool
The term Social Marketing is now being used more and more frequently, particularly within the public sector arena. However it is not a new term, it has actually been around for quite some time. Several definitions of social marketing exist but one of the most comprehensive is Andreasen’s (1995) which describes social marketing as follows:
Social marketing is the application of commercial marketing technologies to the analysis, planning, execution and evaluation of programs designed to influence the voluntary behaviour of target audiences in order to improve their personal welfare and that of society.
The end goal of social marketing is to improve individual welfare or society, not to benefit the organisation doing the social marketing. It applies equally to the behaviour of professionals, organisations and policymakers as it does to the behaviour of individuals.“see me” takes a social marketing approach to achieve it’s aims and objectives for example in changing public behaviours so that stigma and discrimination associated with mental ill-health is eliminated.
It’s important to remember that social marketing is not just social advertising – although advertising may form part of an overall social marketing programme or campaign. In recent times a significant amount of academic work has gone into social marketing. This work has helped define a number of key characteristics of social marketing, and these help us to understand what social marketing is.
Key Characteristics of good social marketing
- Sets behavioural goals
- Uses consumer research and pre-testing
- Makes judicious use of theory
- Is insight driven
- Applies the principles of segmentation and targeting
- Thinks beyond communications
- Creates attractive motivational exchanges with the target group
- Pays careful attention to the competition faced by the desired behaviour
Source: www.nsms.org.uk
Systematic Planning Process
Adopting a systematic planning process is important in developing a social marketing campaign. To do this some key questions need to be considered.
| A tool to help in developing social marketing activity |
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| If you are proposing to implement a social marketing campaign There are a number of questions that you need to consider in your planning process. |
| What is the problem? |
| What is the behaviour change we are trying to bring about? |
| What existing research do I have, what gaps are there and what research might I need to commission? |
| Who are the other stakeholders I need to consider? |
| What is the "competition" to the change we want to bring about? |
| Who is the consumer and what do we know about them? |
| Who should be targeted |
| What are our precise objectives |
| What benefits can we offer the consumer in return for making the behaviour change? |
| What external influencers are there on the behaviours we are trying to change? |
| Have we considered produce, price, promotion and place in developing our offer? |
| What is the best "marketing mix" for helping the target consumer to change? |
| How will you manage the campaign as it progresses? |
| How will we measure and evaluate the campaign? |