1. Planning and Research in
Social Marketing
Marco Bardus, MA
Università della Svizzera italiana
28/9/2011- Fall 2011, Week 2
Lugano, 28/09/2011 Social Marketing Fall 2011 1

2. OVERVIEW
• Let’s recap: the social marketing process
• Today’s focus: planning & strategy
• 10 steps in strategic Marketing planning process
(Chapter 2 Kotler & Lee, 2008: 34-45)
• Research in Social Marketing
– Marketing research
– Formative research
Lugano, 28/09/2011 2Social Marketing Fall 2011

3. Lugano, 23/09/2010 Social Marketing Fall 2010 3
SOCIAL MARKETING
PROCESS

4. Planning & Strategy

5. STEP 1: PLANNING & STRATEGY
Before planning, ask yourself:
What are your organization’s goals, financial resources,
staffing availability?
What is the behavior in need of change (the economics,
significance and predictions)?
How big is the market - size, geography, characteristics?
What does your target market look like (demographics,
knowledge, beliefs, stage of change, barriers, benefits, literacy)
Lugano, 28/09/2011 5Social Marketing Fall 2011

6. STEP 1: PLANNING & STRATEGY
Before planning, ask yourself:
What are the appropriate distribution channels?
– What media channels does your TM use? (Web, TV, radio,
print)
What resources do you have?
What are the competitors doing?
Lugano, 28/09/2011 6Social Marketing Fall 2011

7. Strategic planning

8. STRATEGIC PLANNING
Involves answering 4 important questions
1. Where are we? / Why are we doing this? (mission)
2. Where do we want to go? (vision)
3. How will we get there?
4. How will we stay on course?
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9. ASK YOURSELVES…
• Why this? Why now? Why them? Why you?
• Who do you need to convince? Of what?
• Why would they do it (benefits)? Why not (barriers)? Who
has an influence on them (influencers)?
• How and where can you reach them?
• Can you segment groups based on demographics,
readiness, efficacy, social and economic considerations,
etc.?
• What are your strengths, opportunities and challenges?
• With what and/or whom are you competing?
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10. AND ALSO ASK YOURSELVES …
• How can you design/alter what you are offering or what
can you do to make behaviours more attractive (product),
less costly (price), easy, and convenient (time, price and
place)?
• Based on your audience analysis, which media, networks
of key influencers, events and settings will enable you to
reach your audience?
• How should you frame and pre-test your messages?
• Which partners should you consider in order to leverage
their influence and credibility, gain access to the audience
or create supportive environments?
• How will you know if you are successful?
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11. 10-step to develop a
social Marketing plan
See chapter 2 (Kotler & Lee, 2008: 34-45)

12. Kotler & Lee, 2008: 45
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13. Lugano, 23/09/2010 Social Marketing Fall 2010 13
10 STEP MARKETING PLAN
1. Describe the Plan
Background, Purpose, and
Focus
2. Conduct a Situation
Analysis
3. Select Target Markets
4. Set Objectives and Goals
5. Identify the Competition
and Target Market
Barriers and Motivators
6. Craft a Desired Positioning
7. Develop a Strategic
Marketing Mix (4Ps)
8. Outline a Plan for
Monitoring and Evaluation
9. Establish Budgets and Find
Funding Sources
10. Complete an
Implementation Plan

14. 1) DESCRIBE THE PLAN BACKGROUND,
PURPOSE, AND FOCUS
• Background:
– What social issue (problem) will you address?
– Why is this issue important?
• Purpose statement:
– The purpose of this social marketing plan is to…
• Should include the benefit of it
• Focus of initiative:
– What is the goal? What are you really trying to do?
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15. 2) CONDUCT A SITUATION ANALYSIS
• SWOT:
– Strengths, Opportunities, Weaknesses & Threats
– Look at both internal and external factors
• Past or similar efforts
– activities, results & lessons learned
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16. SWOT ANALYSIS
• SWOT
– Internal
•Strengths
•Weaknesses
– External
•Opportunities
•Threats (Challenges)
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17. CONTEXT ANALYSIS - INTERNAL
Strength Weakness So What?
Mission, vision, plans
Human resources
Financial resources
(specify if pre-determined)
Decision-making process
Partnerships
Access to audiences
Credibility
Others
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18. CONTEXT ANALYSIS - EXTERNAL
Opportunity Challenge So What?
Competition (for attention,
within the field, other
behaviours, other causes,
etc.)
Community readiness
Ethical issues
Others (legal, political,
social, economic,
demographic,
technological, etc.)
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19. 19

20. 20

21. 3) SELECT TARGET AUDIENCE
• Who will the initiative target?
• What do we know about them?
– Demographics, buying patterns, beliefs, size, behaviors, etc.
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22. 4) SET GOALS AND OBJECTIVES
• Goals: overarching statements
• Objectives: Specific & measurable
– Behavior: what do we want them to do
– Knowledge: what they should know
– Belief: what attitudes we influence
• SMART: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, &
Time sensitive
!! For Kotler & Lee goals are ojectives and viceversa
Lugano, 28/09/2011 22Social Marketing Fall 2011

23. 5) IDENTIFY THE COMPETITION, BARRIERS
AND MOTIVATORS
• What is your TA doing now?
• What do you want them to do?
• What is getting in the way? (beliefs, attitudes,
experiences, etc.)
• What things help facilitate them doing what you
want?
Lugano, 28/09/2011 23Social Marketing Fall 2011

24. 6) CRAFT A DESIRED POSITIONING
• Develop a statement that sets you a part from the
crowd (USP)
• This is your BRAND.
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25. 7) DEVELOP THE MARKETING MIX
• Product
– Actual (desired behavior), Core (values benefits associated),
Augmented (tangible benefits, incentives, services)
• Price (monetary & nonmonetary)
• Place
– where the behavior will be preformed & get campaign
related items or services
• Promotion
– your communication strategies (messages, messengers) &
channels
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26. 8) MONITORING & EVALUATION
• How will you know if it worked?
• To what extent the objectives were achieved?
• Think about the
– output (campaign activities),
– outcome (changes in TA behavior or attitudes) &
– impact (on your topic)
Process evaluation vs. program evaluation
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27. 9) ESTABLISH BUDGETS
• How much does it cost?
• How are you paying for it?
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28. 10) IMPLEMENTATION PLAN
• Who must do what
• When must they do it
• How much time & money does it take
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29. Be sistematic!

30. BE SYSTEMATIC!
• Successful social marketing campaigns take time to be
strategic.
• Why?
– How can you design an ad or decide on a channel if you do
not yet know what the message should be or what channels
your TA uses?
– Must decide on your product before knowing how to sell it
– It all starts by getting to know your TA
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31. RESEARCH IN SOCIAL
MARKETING

32. MARKETING RESEARCH
Kotler & Lee, 2008: 45
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33. Lugano, 23/09/2010 Social Marketing Fall 2010 33
FORMATIVE RESEARCH
• Which key decisions are
to be made?
– Priority segments and
objectives
– Positioning
– Product, price and place
strategies
– Promotional strategies
(messages, channels and
messengers)
– Partnerships
– Benchmarking and
evaluation
• What information will
help you make the best
decisions?
– Best practices?
– Why?
– How many?
– How much?
– Context and competition?

34. FORMATIVE RESEARCH METHODS
• Qualitative: If you need answers to “Why?” questions
• Focus groups
• Interviews
• Observational
• Quantitative: If you need answers to “How many?”
and “How much?” questions
• Primary research
– Surveys
– Controlled experiments
• Secondary research
– Literature reviews, examine data from prior surveys/polls and existing
data sets (e.g., incidence data; RFM + Recency Frequency and
Monetary Value, Swiss General Health Survey, Eurobarometer)
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35. QUALITATIVE METHODS
• Use when:
• You want to gain a deeper understanding of
– What people think
– How they act
– Why
• Allows you to see behavior
• Allows participants to tell you in their own words
• Allows for context, exploration, hypothetical
• You really get to know it, feel it, experience it

36. OBSERVATION
• The researcher watches the target audience in action,
in the natural setting (sometimes simulated)
• Puts behavior in context

37. TYPES OF OBSERVATION
• Complete observation
– Watch TA choose a behavior or product
– TA does not know you are researching them
– EX: helmet use, stairs or escalator, product choice, others?
• Participation and observation
– Some of the TA knows you are researching
– EX: Addiction treatment experience, others?
• Covert/complete participation
– Fully emerged in TA behavior
– TA does not know you are researching them
– EX: hand washing, homelessness, e-mail list studies

38. INTERVIEWING
• The researcher has an n depth conversation with
individuals from the TA
• Goal is to develop comprehensive picture & gain
understanding of a topic
• Active engagement w/ TA
• It’s a conversation
• Planned topics are addressed
• Open ended questions w/ probes

39. FOCUS GROUPS
• Used to collect information about a specific topic that
can’t quite be captured on a survey
• The TA is a group of people with something in
common - like gender, interest in weight loss,
experience with a product
• Captures, attitudes, beliefs, preferences, evaluation of
programs, development of communication messages,
promotional strategies

40. SURVEY QUESTIONS
• Pros and cons
• Designing surveys
– Finding existing surveys
– Refine and test them
– Stay focused
– Order Qs appropriately

41. ORGANIZING SURVEYS
• Self administered - paper
– Layout
– Set expectations
• Self administered - online
– # of Qs
– Set expectations
• Telephone

42. WRITING GOOD QUESTIONS (1)
• No double barreled Qs
It is one that has more than one question embedded
within it. Participants may answer one but not both, or
may disagree with part or all of the question.
– Double-barreled question:
– Would you like to be rich and famous?
– Do you agree that the washrooms at USI are a problem and
that the administration should be working diligently on a
solution?
• Revised question: Are the washrooms at USI a problem?
– (If the participant responds yes): Should the administration be
responsible for solving this problem?

43. WRITING GOOD QUESTIONS (2)
• No biased questions: questions that encourage your
participants to respond to the question in a certain
way. They can lead your participants to agree or
respond in a certain way
– Biased question: Don't you agree that campus WCs are
disgusting?
– Revised question: Are USI WCs disgusting?
– Biased question: There are many people who believe that
USI washrooms are disgusting. Are you one of them?
– Revised question: Do you agree or disagree that campus
WCs are disgusting?