Marketing is the business function that identifies customer needs and wants, determines which

target markets the organization can serve best and designs appropriate products, services, and
programs to serve these markets. It guides the entire organization. Social Marketing is the
systematic application of marketing, along with other concepts and techniques, to achieve specific
behavioral goals for a social good. Social marketing can be applied to promote merit goods, or to
make a society avoid demerit goods and thus to promote society’s wellbeing as a whole. Social
marketing was “born” as a discipline in the 1970s, when Philip Kotler and Gerald Zaltman realized
that the same marketing principles that were being used to sell products to consumers could be
used to “sell” ideas, attitudes and behaviors. Social marketing began as a formal discipline in 1971,
with the publication of “Social Marketing: An approach to Planned Social Change” in the Journal of
Marketing by marketing experts Philip Kotler and Gerald Zaltman. Craig Lefebvre and June Flora
introduced social marketing to public health community in 1988 where it has been most widely used
and explored. They noted that there was a need for ‘large scale, broad based, behavior change
focused programs’ to improve public health (the community wide prevention of cardiovascular
diseases in their respective projects), and outlined seven essential components of social marketing
that still hold today.

The Essential Components Of Social Marketing Are:

1. A consumer orientation to realize organizational (social) goals.

2. An emphasis on the voluntary exchanges of goal and services between providers and
consumers.
3. Research in audience analysis and segmentation strategies.
4. The use of formative research in product and message design and the pretesting of these
materials.
5. An analysis of distribution (or communication) channels.
6. Use of the marketing mix-utilization and blending product, price, place and promotion
characteristics in intervention planning and implementation.
7. A process tracking system with both integrative and control functions.

The National Social Marketing Centre defines Social Marketing as: ‘The systematic application of
marketing, alongside other concepts and techniques to achieve specific behavioural goals, to
improve health and reduce inequalities’.
Health-Related Social Marketing is: “The systematic application of marketing, alongside other
concepts and techniques, to achieve specific behavioral goals, to improve health and reduce
inequalities”. Marketing involves discovering the wants of a target audience and then creating the
goods and services to satisfy them. This distinction highlights the fundamental ethos of social
marketing
 To start with the target audience
 Understand their beliefs, motivations and behaviors
 Understand their environment
 Build a solution that responds to their real-life wants and needs

What Are Its Key Features?

The following six features and concepts are key to understand social marketing:
Customer or consumer orientation: A strong ’customer’ orientation with import; attached
to understanding where the customer is starting from their knowledge and beliefs, along with the
social context in which they live and work.
 Behavior and behavioral goals: Clear focus on understanding existing behavioural key
influences upon it, alongside developing clear behavioral goals. These can be actionable and
measurable steps or stages, phased overtime.
’Intervention mix’ and ’marketing mix’: Using a mix of different interventions on to achieve
a particular behavioural goal. When used at the strategic level this is commonly referred to as the
’Intervention Mix’, and when used operationally it is described as ’marketing mix’.
Audience segmentation: Clarity of audience focus using audience segmentation effectively.
’Exchange’ Use of the ’exchange’ concept understanding what is being expected from people and
the real cost to them.
Competition: Use of the ’competition’ concept. This means understanding factors impact on
people and that compete for their attention and time.

Like commercial marketing, the primary focus is on the consumer-on learning what the people want
and need rather than trying to persuade them to buy what we happen to be producing. Marketing
talks to the customer, not about the product. The process takes the consumer focus into account by
addressing the elements of the “marketing mix”.
Social media is quickly becoming one of the most important aspects of digital marketing, which
provides incredible benefits that help reach millions of customers worldwide.

Improved brand awareness

Social media is one of the most stress-free and profitable digital marketing platforms that can be
used to increase your business visibility. To get started, create social media profiles for business and
start networking with others. By applying a social media strategy, it will help to significantly increase
brand recognition. By spending only a few hours per week, over 91% marketers claimed that their
social marketing efforts greatly increased their brand visibility and heightened user experience.
Undoubtedly, having a social media page for a brand will benefit the business and with a regular use,
it can also produce a wide audience for the business in no time.

Cost-effective
For an advertising strategy, social media marketing is possibly the most cost-effective way. Creating
an account and signing up is free for almost all social networking platforms. Being cost-effective is
important as it helps to attain a greater return on investment and hold a bigger budget for other
marketing and business payments. Just by investing a little money and time, one can significantly
increase conversion rates and ultimately get a return on investment on the money that have
primarily been invested.

Engage with customers

Social media is a good way for engaging and interacting customers. The more communication with
the audience, the more chances of conversion. Set up a two-way communication with target
audience so that their wishes are known and their interest is catered with ease. Moreover,
communication and engagement with customers is one the ways to win their attention and convey
them the brand message. Thus, the brand will reach more audience in real terms and gets itself
established without any hassle.

Improved brand loyalty

By connecting with customers through social media, it is more probable to upsurge customer
retention and customer loyalty. Since developing a loyal customer base is one of the main goals of
almost any business. Customer satisfaction and brand loyalty typically go hand in hand. It is essential
to often engage with customers and start developing a bond with them. Social media is not just
limited to introducing product, it is also a leading platform for promotional campaigns. A customer
sees these platforms as service channels where they can directly communicate with the business.

Healthier customer satisfaction

Social media plays a vital role in networking and communication platform. With the help of these
platforms, creating a voice for a company is important in improving the overall brand image.
Customers appreciate the fact that when they post comments on a page, they receive a modified
reply rather than a computerized message. A brand that values its customers, takes the time to
compose a personal message, which is perceived naturally in a positive light.

Marketplace awareness
One of the best ways to find the needs and wants of customers instead of directly communicating
with them is Marketplace awareness. It is also considered as the most valuable advantage of social
media. By observing the activities on company profile, one can see customers’ interest and opinions
that one might not know otherwise, if they didn’t have a social media presence. As a complementary
research tool, social media can help a brand to get information and a better understanding of the
industry. Once there is a large following, the brand/company can then use additional tools to
examine other demographics of the consumers.

More brand authority

For making business more powerful, brand loyalty and customer satisfaction both play a major role,
but it all comes down to communication. When customers see company posting on social media,
especially replying to their queries and posting original content, it helps them build a positive image
in their minds. Regularly interacting with customers proves that the business/company/brand cares
about them. Once getting a few satisfied customers, who are vocal about their positive purchase
experience, the company can let the advertising be done for the brand by genuine customers who
appreciated the product or service.

Increased traffic
One of the other benefits of Social Media is that it also helps increase the website traffic. By sharing
contents on social media, giving users a reason to click-through to the website. On the social
account, the more quality content is shared, the more inbound traffic will be generated while
making conversion opportunities.
How Social Marketing Differs from Commercial Marketing
Commercial marketing and social marketing differ fundamentally in their purpose. Commercial
marketers seek to influence purchasing decisions – most often for financial gain. Social marketers
seek to influence behavior usually for the good of community or society.

Differing Approaches to Timing, Target Audiences and Metrics

Commercial and social marketing also differ in the way they approach their audiences. Commercial
marketers target consumers while social marketers focus on people likely to make, influence, or
encourage behavior change. Often the people who most need to change are the least likely to want
to do it, as in the case of an anti-smoking campaigns. For this reason, social marketing’s intended
audiences are typically broader, more diverse, and harder to reach.

Commercial and social marketers also have different priorities. Commercial marketers prioritize
efficiency and time-to-impact measured by leads, sales or cost per acquisition. Social marketers must
account for the often slower pace of behavior change and plan for social equity. A socially just
campaign must work equally well for multi ethnic, multilingual, low-income, or otherwise
underserved audiences and success is often measured months or years later using metrics such as
mortality rates, increased transit access and family-level economic impact to understand whether
actual and sustainable change has occurred.

Another important difference relates to funding and the sharing of information. Commercial
marketing campaigns are privately funded. Their strategies and results are proprietary. Most social
marketing campaigns, however, are publicly funded, which leads to sharing of best practices and
published results. Social marketers can benefit from this access to in-depth research but are also
compelled to publicly share results of both their successes and failures.

Finally, although social marketing targets specific individuals, its highest aim is to effect a level of
social change that transcends any single contribution. Achieving this goal often requires patience
and the application of more marketing tools including community education, public advocacy,
influencer engagement, and partnership building. Their success is often highly dependent upon
cultural and political circumstances making it crucial for social marketing campaigns to have a
realistic timeline, a multifaceted approach, political momentum, and the right partners to make
lasting change.

These distinctions may seem subtle or abstract and we are in no way suggesting one is more
valuable than the other. Social marketing is the work that gets us the most fired up and our specific
focus continues to attract like-minded people.