Social Marketing

Social marketing is an approach used to develop activities aimed at changing or maintaining people’s behavior for the benefit of individuals and society as a whole. The goal of social marketing is always to change or maintain how people behave – 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, you are not doing social marketing. This is the value – perceived or actual – as it is defined by the people who are targeted by a social marketing intervention. It is not what is assumed to benefit them by the organization that is trying to encourage the behavior change. Social marketing is marketing designed to encourage social change; rather than selling a product, it sells a behavior that benefits society. Well-executed social marketing uses creativity and evokes emotions to motivate action, through visuals and catchy slogans.