Social marketing according to Gillian Govan
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This week, Gillian Govan, CMO, Scottish Government Strategic Marketing delivered a Social Marketing Masterclass in Edinburgh.
Can you define social marketing for those new to the discipline in a few sentences?
SG Social marketing is about delivering results that profit the people of Scotland. We generally focus on two strands – public information (advising on legislation change, signposting services eg flu activity, organ donation, smoking legislation) and behaviour change (health behaviours, greener behaviours, road safety, knife crime.) For both of these we develop a Marketing brief to achieve our Policy objectives, and then use ROSMI techniques to evaluate the results. Social marketing utilises all the skill sets of the traditional marketer – advertising, PR, media, DM, digital, events- but for policy objectives.
Why should all marketers know about social marketing?
Several things – but fundamentally – don’t think sm is just social advertising: know your target audience: build partnerships to help you reach your target audience: remember it’s not enough to aim for ‘the social good’ – we must deliver cost effective results. Social marketing is often at the forefront of cutting edge skills and new approaches – I’m thinking insight gathering and evaluation, using psychological modelling and social norms. All are useful for today’s marketer.
What advice would you offer to marketers looking to embark on social marketing? Be clear on the objectives – are they realistic? Can marketing deliver these objectives? Remember in terms of behaviour change that there is rarely a eureka moment and change takes time. It is useful to break behaviour change down into stages for evaluation, and models such as Stages of Change can be useful.
You’ve been involved in the field of social marketing for some time. What is the most valuable learning you’ve had during your time working in this area?
For a long time the holy grail was to be able to evaluate results. We’re getting better at this and evaluation/research techniques are increasingly more sophisticated. If I had to pick one valuable learning it would be about the importance of recognising the need to empower and enable behaviour change – this means being realistic with small step changes and supporting the target audience through services or bespoke resources – creating social marketing ‘product’ – that supports change.
Can marketers change the world?
We can help people to self help. That could mean a better world.
Posted: September 29th, 2010 | Author: elen.lewis | Filed under: Green, Growth Drivers, Uncategorized, leadership | Tags: gillian govan, scotland | Leave a Comment »
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