Aims for this topic

Welcome to the second topic in The NSMC’s introduction to social marketing. This topic looks at the essence of a social marketing approach to change, or maintain, behaviours.

At the end of this topic, you will be able to:• Recognise the four key questions at the

core of a social marketing approach• Describe the key concepts of social

marketing

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The essence of social marketing

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Using a social marketing approach to change or maintain people’s behaviour can be complex. But even if you don’t take social marketing any further, just considering these four questions will add value to your projects and policies.

The audience’s perspective

So, to help us understand our audience and how they see things, a social marketing approach prompts us to:

•Ask them about what is really driving their

behaviour, and listen to what they say – this is called ‘building practical insight’

•Recognise that one size doesn’t fit all – this is called ‘segmentation’

We will now briefly look at these two concepts. They are covered in more detail in Module 5: Insight into action.

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The audience’s perspective: segmentation

Segmentation recognises that one size does not fit all. It is a key part of seeing things through the eyes of our audience.

It involves grouping people by common features or characteristics (needs, behaviours and attitudes) so that we can:

• Target our efforts on prioritised groups• Ensure our interventions meet specific

customer needs• Ensure efficient use of resources (better

results and less wastage)

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A focus on behaviour: using theory

Behavioural theory can help us understand our audiences and their behaviours better.

It helps us to:

• Take a step back and see behaviours in a broader context

• Explore the reasons why people do what they do

• Identify behaviours to focus our activity on

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Benefits and barriers: exchange

Ensuring that the benefits outweigh the barriers and costs is called ‘exchange’.

For our audience, benefits are the answer to the question, ‘what’s in it for me?’

The barriers and costs are the answer to the question, ‘what is stopping me from acting?’

Barriers could be to do with access to services or supply of goods.

Costs could be financial or non-financial (e.g. time, effort, standing among peers and psychological risks).

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Benefits and barriers: the competition

A social marketing approach recognises that we are not the only people trying to change behaviours. We need to understand what competes for our audience’s time, attention and inclination to act.

We compete against a variety of things:

• Those promoting behaviours we are trying to discourage (e.g. in terms of smoking, tobacco companies)

• The psychological benefits of the behaviour (e.g. ‘pleasure’ or ‘looking cool’)

• Personal influencers or peer groups (e.g. ‘All my friends smoke’)

• The ‘noise’ of other messages, including colleagues trying to promote other positive behaviours and targeting the same audience

• The pressures of ‘everyday life’ and other priorities

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Benefits and barriers: the competition

The competition tends to be very good at exchange. They offer benefits that are likely to be valued by their audience and they make it easy and normal for people to take action.

For example, if you want to encourage breastfeeding, consider the benefits offered by the formula option and how you can offer or counter them: • Fewer feeds, it’s less tiring• More freedom• Other family members can help and

bond with baby

• Easier to know how much baby is getting• Less embarrassing in public Click the next button to continue.

Topic summary

The NSMC’s benchmark criteria summarise the key concepts described above. The criteria have been identified as common elements in successful social marketing interventions.

They are available from the course menu.

We’ve now finished this topic which introduced the essence of social marketing.

In the next topic, we will look at the social marketing planning process, the key steps that ensure your project benefits from the concepts we have covered in this topic.

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