The Missing Links in Social Marketing

This paper discusses the missing links in social marketing that add value to customers and aid in achieving its full potential for contribution to positive social change. It is noted that the importance of social marketing in terms of the health of populations and costs of health care has long been recognized and is growing. Its specific purpose has been to influence the voluntary behavior of target audiences in order to improve their personal welfare and that of society. In practice social marketing involves three primary functions: 1) research function 2) development function and 3) communications functions. However in order to increase the impact of social marketing efforts three other functions must be added. These include: 1) the monitoring function which checks to see if the intended and communicated value has actually been delivered to and perceived by converts; 2) the confirmation function which reminds or otherwise reinforces converts awareness and appreciation of the value they have gained from converting promoting their attribution of that value to their conversion and to the sponsor of the effort to bring about that conversion; and 3) the solicitation function which encourages and enables converts to support the sponsors continuing efforts to convert more people to the new behavior. Further explanation of the concepts of these functions and how they make social marketing more effective are discussed.