What is a social marketing intervention?
Posted by TeamPC on 22 Jun 2017
Social marketing is a systematic approach used across different industries to bring about behaviour change in sustainable and cost effective ways. Benefiting individuals, communities and society as a whole, the ultimate goal of a social marketing intervention is to change (or maintain) the way people behave about an issue or problem.
The official definition by NSMC who represent the UK market is:
“Social marketing is an approach used to develop activities aimed at changing or maintaining people’s behaviour for the benefit of individuals and society as a whole.”
What does a social marketing approach do?
But how does a behavioural change approach work? It helps you to decide which people to work with, what behaviour to influence, how to go about it, and how to measure it. It’s a powerful framework for change – and perhaps one of the few marketing techniques that can bring about behavioural change on an unprecedented scale.
Once you have decided that social marketing campaigns fit with your requirements, the scope, delivery and implementation can commence, followed by review and follow-up.
The scope of your project, including definition of measurable goals, your overriding vision for change, targeting considerations, segmentation, definition of issues to be addressed etc, helps define the project’s strategy, and is hugely important to its success.
A social marketing intervention tackles real problems and improves lives, and has proven to be sustainable
For over a decade, the NHS in cooperation with various health partners has been using social marketing interventions to tackle underlying health behaviours (often deep rooted) as part of its preventive health regime.
Recognising that people need to be encouraged to change, the NHS has been using various health interventions to promote the benefits of healthy eating, medical screening, and to confront problems like obesity, drug taking, alcoholism, etc, leading to poor health in later life. These interventions (over periods of time) are designed to lead targets in the direction of change, so that they can be motivated to take a specific course of action that is better for their health, better for the NHS in terms of reducing pressures, and better for communities.
A social marketing intervention is an extremely powerful way of improving society – and changing lives. And there are many that believe it is the future of the marketing industry.
We’re Perfect Circle – an open and honest social marketing agency that delivers behavioural change for its customers. Visit us online at perfect-circle.co.uk
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