3 Ways to Use Strategic Social Marketing

1. Strategic Social Marketing

Strategic social marketing for charities goes beyond just fundraising. Social marketing techniques can improve program effectiveness and contribute to the core activities of any organization.

Social marketing relies on commercial marketing tools to create social benefit, with the ultimate goal to achieve behavioral change. This is different from the social marketing relating to social media . Rather, this form of social marketing dates back over 25 years and has been used to tackle public health issues like HIV/AIDS and family planning.

Social marketers take into consideration the same basic factors used by commercial marketers in developing a program strategy, but they also adjust this mix to fit the unique social goals of their campaign. For example, in social marketing the product is typically not a physical item, but rather a certain behavior.

2. Basics of Social Marketing Theory

Social marketing theory became recognized as a formal discipline in 1971, when Philip Kotler and Gerald Zaltman published the article “Social Marketing: An Approach to Planned Social Change” in an industry journal. Social marketing had been used in the field before this time, when it was used in India as a way to encourage birth control.

Social marketing became well-known in the US public health arena in 1988, when it began to be widely explored in large scale programs focused on public behavioral change. There are 8 critical elements to social marketing which are still used today, including a consumer orientation to achieve social goals, and an emphasis on exchanging services or products between the public and providers which must be of a voluntary nature. Social marketing programs are based in audience analysis research and segmentation techniques.

3. Social Marketing Quarterly Journal

Social Marketing Quarterly (SMQ) is an academic journal published internationally which is focused on social marketing theory and practice. You can use this resource to help you in your social marketing and cause marketing.

SMQ is the only academic journal dedicated to social marketing, and it is targeted to professional social marketers and those in the fields of social science and public health. SMQ features essays, research studies, editorials, conference announcements, book reviews and case studies which are relevant to professionals in related fields worldwide. The comprehensive journal has become a valuable resource for social marketing professionals who engage with its original work in different ways.

Some use the journal as a starting point for exploring new ideas and interdisciplinary approaches. The articles and other research published in SMQ are all subject to a rigorous academic review process, which means they undergo a double-blind peer-review.

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