Social Marketing

What is Social Marketing?
Social Marketing is using the Four Ps of marketing plus a special 5th P — Partnerships — to change social behavior. Social marketing results are measured by outcomes, rather than sales or profits. Outcomes are the measured effect of the campaign on peoples’ lives. We count our profit in lives saved or enriched and behavior changed. These outcomes are what make our work rewarding every single day.

ProProse specializes in developing public-private partnerships that extend the budget and magnify the visibility of our campaigns. Partners include businesses, community-based organizations and other public agencies. For a list of partnership examples that ProProse has developed, click here.

Four Ps of Marketing

• Product – The benefit being offered to the public.
  
• Price – Cost to change behavior in terms of time, effort and money.
  
• Place – Where the product, service or benefit is being offered and where it can best be
  communicated to the target audience.
  
• Promotion – This includes all of the various ways the desired behavior can be promoted. <more>
  

What Social Marketing is NOT:

• Public Education: Social marketing campaigns often include public education or outreach as tactics. But the goal of a public education campaign is simply to educate. A social marketing campaign is designed to create measurable changes in behavior.
  
• Advertising: The goal is the key. Advertising campaigns are often used to increase sales increase awareness, or change attitudes. But without the focus on changing social behavior, they stop short of being a social marketing campaign. Like public education or outreach, advertising is frequently a tactic of effective social marketing campaigns. It’s one of many tools, but not a goal unto itself.
  
• Public Relations: The goal of public relations is typically to gain media coverage. That can be a useful tactic in a social marketing campaign, but without the goal of behavior change, it falls short.
  
• Cause Marketing: Most cause marketing campaigns are designed to either sway public opinion or raise funds for a cause. Again, it is the focus on measurable change in social behavior that is the key.
  
• Social Media: Social media is the collection of new Internet-based communication tools that allow users to easily communicate with each other, such as social networking sites (Face Book, etc.), blogging, podcasts, You Tube, etc. These may also be used in a social marketing campaign as a way to involve specific target audiences.
  
• Selling products at home parties. Believe it or not, some people think Social Marketing is selling products at home parties, such as Pampered Chef and PartyLight.