Marketing Bisnis

First-time social marketers often feel overwhelmed by the rigorous market research processes they see in other large-scale programs. They may hesitate to incorporate social marketing activities into their own programs, unsure whether they have the resources and expertise to undertake such a project. The following ten tips are designed to help those new to the field to understand the basic principles of social marketing, with practical suggestions on how to implement these concepts in any type of program.
1. Talk to your customers.
The key to effective social marketing is talking (and listening!) to the people you are trying to reach. Social marketing is a customer-driven process. All aspects of your program must be developed with the wants and needs of the target audience as the central focus. In order to learn what your customers want, you must ask them!
2. Segment your audience.
Good marketers know that there is no such thing as selling to the general public. Men and women, adults and teenagers respond differently to particular approaches. To be most effective, you need to segment your target audiences into groups that are as similar to each other as possible and to create messages specifically for each segment. Typical attributes for segmentation include sex, age, geographical location and race/ethnicity.
3. Position your product.
In social marketing, our products are often hard to promote because of their high "price." Products like behaviors and attitudes require longÐterm commitments and do not sell as easily as a bar of soap or a car. The cost of a social marketing product often includes a person's time and effort (to attend a class or use services), giving up things he likes (high fat food), embarrassment or inconvenience (buying and using condoms), or social disapproval (resisting peer pressure to smoke). To counteract factors working against adoption of the product, we need to acknowledge these potential problems and address them.
think that breastfeeding doesn't fit into their lives, is difficult to do, and is painful. In this case, a program could either promote and reinforce the positive aspects of breastfeeding or provide ways to get around the barriers, by explaining how to work breastfeeding into a busy schedule and teaching the proper way to do it to avoid discomfort.

4. Know your competition.
In the commercial sector, successful companies watch every move their competitors make. They know their selling environment intimately and are ready to react as soon as conditions change. Social marketers also need to be aware of the competing messages pulling on their target audiences. Your product's competition may be another product, such as french fries versus fruit, or it may be nonperformance of the behavior you are promoting; inaction is nearly always easier than adopting a new behavior. Your product must be more attractive than the alternatives to be accepted.
5. Go to where your audience is.
People will not go out of their way to find your message. You will need to put your message in places your target audience will encounter. When you talk to your customers, ask them where they get their news, what radio stations they listen to, where they go in their free time.
6. Utilize a variety of approaches.
Social marketing involves much more than television advertising campaigns. The most effective programs use a combination of mass media, community, small group and individual activities. When a simple, clear message is repeated in many places and formats throughout the community, it is more likely to be seen and remembered.
7. Use models that work.
As with any field, social marketers design programs using the most effective and useful models available to them. In one model that incorporates elements of several well-established health behavior theories ("Stages of Change"), people move through several steps in a continuum before adopting a new behavior.
8. Test, test, test.
All of the products, promotional materials, and services you develop for your program should be tested with your target audience to gauge their potential effectiveness. Social marketing recognizes that the customers are the experts on what works best for them. Even the best minds on Madison Avenue test their ideas with their consumers (and consequently avoid spending lots of money on concepts that don't work).
9. Build partnerships with key allies.
Just as the power of a choir derives from its union of many voices, a powerful message requires groups throughout the community to come together in a coordinated effort. Organizations concerned with your issue can sing the melody along with you, while other groups--the media, schools, businesses, government agencies--can provide the harmony, complementing your efforts through their involvement. By pooling resources with other organizations working toward the same goal, you can have a greater impact as well as access to new audiences.
10. See what you can do better next time.
The cornerstone of social marketing is evaluation--determining what you accomplished so you can use that information to improve your program. Evaluation occurs throughout the social marketing process. As you develop your program, you need to test and refine your messages or products with members of the target audience. When the program is implemented, you need to monitor activities to assess whether they are occurring as planned. How many brochures were disseminated? How many media "hits," or mentions of your program, did you achieve? Are the people in your target audience the ones who are using your program? The answers to these questions will let you know whether you need to make adjustments while you have the opportunity to do so.
The big question, though, is: Did you make a difference? There are two ways this can be answered. One way is to see whether members of the target audience engaged in the desired behavior as a result of the program. This can be determined quantitatively through survey research with the people who participated in the program or who were exposed to the message.