The concept of social marketing
A community is defined as an organized group that works together or meets periodically because of common interests, beliefs, or profession. Marketing is defined as the act or action of promoting and selling products or services.
So from these two definitions we conclude that social marketing is the use of commercial marketing principles and techniques to improve the well-being of people and the physical, social and economic environment in which they live. It is a carefully planned, long-term approach to changing human behavior.
In commercial marketing, the product is usually what you are marketing, and the price is the cost, while in social marketing, the product is a change in behavior or a shift in attitude, and the price is the cost of changing behaviors.
Social marketing is commonly used for reasons such as:
Health and safety, such as campaigns encouraging exercise and healthy eating, or highlighting the dangers of the environment and climate change, campaigns to combat deforestation, etc.
Social marketing research is usually more comprehensive than business research because facilitating lasting individual and social behavior change is complex.
Social marketing is a tool that has proven its ability to influence behavior in a sustainable and cost-effective way. It helps you determine which group you prefer to work with, how to influence their behavior, and know how to measure that influence.
What are the benefits of relying on the social marketing approach?
- Develops creative ideas
- Promotes positive social change
- Stimulates change with limited resources
- It facilitates change in human behavior over a period of time
- Understand your target audience and see things from their perspective
- Use a set of activities and procedures to encourage the audience to achieve the desired goal
The following are specified:
methodology
Social marketing is a systematic and planned process that goes through six main stages: inception, scope, development, implementation, evaluation, and follow-up.
the behavior
The goal of social marketing is always to change or maintain people's behavior and not what they think or how aware they are about an issue. If your goal is only to increase awareness or knowledge, or change attitudes, then you are not doing social marketing.
It benefits people and society
This is the perceived or actual value as determined by the people targeted through the use of social marketing. Social marketing helps understand people's lives, making policy goals realistic and achievable.
The importance of social marketing:
- Social marketing enables you to develop products, services, and communications that fit people's needs and motivations.
- Social marketing enables you to target your resources in a cost-effective way, choosing the right inputs that have the best impact over time.
- Increase awareness of a specific issue and solve problems facing society.
- Creating a tangible positive change in the audience over time.
Social marketing elements:
Social marketing has four main elements to any marketing campaign, also known as the “marketing mix.” These elements are product, price, place, and promotion.
1- Product
In social marketing, the “product” is the desired social action and the benefits that action provides. This may include viewing the opposite behavior as negative. You must ensure that your audience is able to understand your “product” and its benefits quickly and easily.
2- Price
The issue here is not about cash payments, but rather about reducing the difficulties, time and psychological costs that people will incur. So when designing a social marketing campaign you'll need to research and think about the obstacles that are holding your audience back from performing the behavior, and then discover intuitive and practical ways to combat these obstacles.
3- Place
It is the place that connects you with your target audience, taking into account the costs and time of delivering the product to the audience.
4- Promotion
Using appropriate tools and channels that will facilitate reaching the target audience and attract their attention, from social media, television channels, radio broadcasts, installing advertising banners, or through holding exhibitions.
Social marketing is often confused with other types of marketing. Marketing via social media is not social marketing, but sometimes social media is used to spread social marketing campaigns and attract attention to them.
Likewise, marketing environmentally friendly products and charitable products is not considered social marketing. The primary focus is on selling a product and not on changing behavior
Social marketing is not always successful. If the attitudes and behavioral changes you encourage are still not useful, acceptable and achievable by the population and are not a priority, it may not be feasible to develop a social marketing campaign at this time. In this case it is better to make a recommendation to change behavior by developing relationships with the community and agreeing on a unified goal before planning a social marketing campaign.
So social marketing is marketing specifically directed to encourage social behavioral change. Instead of selling a specific product, it is selling a behavior that benefits society; To solve a problem or highlight a specific issue to raise awareness about it.
