Getting started on a social marketing program can be challenging - especially if your budget is limited. Much of our work at Atlas is for the public sector and there is always a need to demonstrate value for money. Based on our experience, I developed a poster titled Social Marketing on a Shoestring for the recent World Social Marketing Conference - its content is reproduced below and can be used to guide social marketing programs of all sizes and all budgets!
What are you trying to change?
Define the problem. Be very clear about what exact behaviour change you are looking for and why?
Who is your target audience(s)?
What causes the behaviour?
As you go deeper into the problem definition area, other related behaviors will come to the fore and it’s easy to get diverted. BUT resist the temptation to change the world all at once. Aim to change it one behaviour, one audience segment at a time.
Resources
Know and work within your budget and timeframes. If your project has a fixed amount of funding and a clear end date, ensure you get some results – perhaps with a pilot project - within that timeframe.
Extensive formative research may be useful if you get additional funding and are able to extend the project. It won’t be very helpful if results are expected in the current time period.
Familiarise yourself with the resources of organisations such as the National Social Marketing Centre (UK) and others. Tap into existing resources and tools which may be useful for your project.
There are lots of great resources and tools available – it’s very important to stay focused on your behaviour change goal and your audience.
What is social marketing?
- Build understanding and knowledge amongst stakeholders about social marketing.
- Ensure key decision makers are clear about its potentials, benefits and limitations.
- Circulate case-studies and articles which are interesting and relevant on a regular basis.
- Remember many people are time-poor and have many priorities. Focus on quality information rather than circulating everything which may be interesting.
- Build organisational capability and understanding of the benefits and role of social marketing.
- Be aware of perceptions and barriers against adopting a social marketing framework.
- Develop responses and resources to overcome these barriers.
- Resources and information should be appropriate to the level of the person you are aiming to inform and educate.
Have a social marketing champion within your project or organisation who understands the concepts and can work with planners, funders, policy-makers and the target audience.
Ensure your champion has empathy and respect for your target audience.
Research 1
Effective research is key in the development of all effective social marketing interventions. This does not need to be primary research. The first research step should be to conduct desk research encompassing the following:
- An extensive literature review (both academic and non-academic)
- Theoretical frameworks - a good tip is to look at the identified causes of the behaviour and the research appropriate theoretical models
- Identification of existing social marketing resources
- Existing research with the target group and/or about the behaviour
Beware of information overload.
Try and retain information which is useful and relevant for your behaviour goal. Reference and file material which may be useful and summarise these findings into a research report. This can be incorporated into the scoping report and used as a reference as you move through the various stages of the programme.
Research 2
Identify opinion leaders who can provide insight into your target audience either through knowledge or via informal focus-groups.
Some baseline research is vital.
Choose surveys over focus-groups if your research budget is tight. Online surveys such as Survey Monkey and Survey Gold can be very useful and cost-effective. However ensure this is an effective way of engaging with your target audience.
Students can be used for clearly-defined tasks such as gathering quantitative research data. However, take care to ensure they understand the context the data will be used in and they have the appropriate inter-personal communication skills.
Build insight
Get to know your audience – get into the communities, engage with them on their home-ground, ask open-ended questions and learn about why they behave the way they do.
This takes time but the benefits are multiple; you have a greater insight and understanding,
you are able to develop mutual respect and build important relationships with opinion leaders. Capture the insight gained from this stage into a research report so that others can benefit from this knowledge.
Keep up-to-date with the developments of the discipline.
- Ensure you read newly published text books and case-studies
- Build networks and join online communities and listservs
- Use these networks to find out how other practitioners have overcome challenges
Plan
Have a planning model and process which you adopt. This will give you a framework to work through and ensure you move through the planning process into implementation. Retain an open mind regarding interventions until the scoping stage is complete.
There are many planning models and frameworks available. Choose one that sits well with your project and stick to it. The planning will get complicated and at some points, the temptation is to jump in and get started.
RESIST. FOCUS.
A small-scale intervention with a clearly defined group will be more effective than a wide range of interventions with a number of groups. Use the research and planning stage to identify where you will get value for money. Ensure you are not tackling the most entrenched segment of the audience.
Implementation
- Effective implementation is key to achieving behaviour change.
- Ensure there are clearly defined roles and responsibilities for implementation.
- Ensure there are regular project and check-up meetings.
- Celebrate successes and avoid blame when things don’t go as planned.
- Ensure your program is flexible and able to continually change and respond to feedback.
Finally, remember – change takes time – it will not happen overnight.
