Social Marketing

Execution
The Marketing Process
Marketing Plans
In the marketer’s perfect world – that is, one where the marketer gets to make all of the decisions
– you would start the marketing process at the very beginning. You would only be given
a goal. Your assignment would be the bottom line – the social benefit your agency is targeting.
For example, in this pie in the sky scenario, you would be asked to get people to use less
energy. How? That would be up to you. You could determine which behaviors – buying CFLs,
using different appliances, changing the way energy is priced – would make the biggest difference
and are the easiest to change. Then, you would determine which perceptions motivate
those behaviors and what marketing mix might drive a change in behavior.
Unfortunately, that is not the way it typically works. Often, marketing assignments come with
strings attached. We are told what audience to reach, what action to target or, at times, what
type of intervention to pursue. We may not have the freedom to say, “Hey, this doesn’t make
sense. Maybe we would save more energy if we targeted a different group or focused on a
different action.” In reality, those decisions may have already been made.
Yet, you should still start in the same place – at the beginning of the marketing process. You
should not develop a product before you understand how the product might help you reach
your ultimate goal: behavior change. The
A marketing plan should be
your manifesto. The plan also
should tell you where you are
and where you hope to go.
marketing process outlined in this chapter
will help you understand why, or if, certain
products, or service will be effective. That is
why you need to go through each step of the
marketing process, even if some of the decision
process has already been completed.
An early and critical step in this process – perhaps the most critical – is creating the marketing
plan, the outline you create to describe how you plan to change a behavior. A marketing plan
should be your manifesto. The plan also should tell you where you are and where you hope to
go. It should lay out a strategy for changing a specific behavior, hopefully a strategy based on
research. It should include the theory behind your approach and your tactics for making it happen.
In short, a marketing plan outlines how you expect your intervention to make a difference
and shows what steps you plan to take to get there. It is a map for you to follow – and adjust
– as you develop and implement a marketing campaign. It is where you begin – and what you
refer to along the way. As soon as you are asked to design, lead or even help on a marketing
campaign, you should begin creating a marketing plan (or familiarize yourself with one, if one
already exists).
This chapter will take you, step by step, through the marketing process, from the creation of the
marketing plan to the final program evaluation.