National Social Marketing Centre

Social marketing is an approach used to achieve and sustain behaviour goals on a range of social issues.

While definitions vary, three key elements commonly appear:

1. Its primary aim is to achieve 'social good' (rather than commercial benefit), with clearly defined behavioural goals.
2. It is a systematic process phased to address short, medium and long-term issues.
3. It uses a range of marketing techniques and approaches (a marketing mix). In the case of health-related social marketing, the ‘social good’ can be articulated in terms of achieving specific, achievable and manageable behaviour goals for improving health and reducing health inequalities.