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Developing a Social Marketing Campaign: Step by Step 19

each in great detail. Here, we adopt these steps and present them concisely. In the
next 15 chapters of this book, you will notice that all the cases examined by our
contributors contain many, if not all, of these steps.

Step 1: Define the Problem, Purpose, and Focus
Any social marketing campaign for public health needs a clearly determined public
health problem, which might be a severe epidemic (like SARS), an evolving issue
(like the increases in teen smoking), or a justifiable need (like public education on
the prevention of hepatitis B). The problem could be precipitated by an unusual
happening such as tsunami or may be simply triggered by an organization’s man-
date or mission such as “contributing to society through health care.” Adequate
background information is provided at this step to put the public health problem
in perspective. When defining the public health problem, it is critical to identify the
campaign’s sponsor(s) and summarize the factors that led to the rationale and de-
cision for developing such a campaign. The rationale and decision are based on
sufficient research data, epidemiological or scientific, in order to substantiate and
quantify the problem defined.
Once the public health problem is defined, a purpose statement is needed to
make it clear what impact and benefits that the social marketing campaign, when
successful, would generate.
A focus is determined to narrow down the scope of the social marketing cam-
paign to best use the resources available, maximize the campaign impact, and en-
sure the campaign feasibility. The campaign focus is selected from a number of
options that have some potential to help achieve the campaign purpose.

Step 2: Conduct a Situation Analysis

Typically, a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis is
conducted at this step to provide a quick audit of organizational strengths and
weaknesses and environmental opportunities and threats. Strengths to maximize
and weaknesses to minimize include internal factors such as levels of funding,
management support, current partners, delivery system capabilities, and the spon-
sor’s reputation. Opportunities to take advantage of and threats to prepare for in-
clude major trends and events outside your influence—those often associated with
demographic, psychographic, geographic, economic, cultural, political, legal, and
technological forces. At this step, you will also conduct a literature review and envi-
ronmental scan of current and prior campaigns, especially those with similar ef-
forts, and summarize their major activities conducted, major effects achieved, and
major lessons learned.