Social marketing is the planning and implementation of programs designed to bring about social change using concepts from commercial marketing.

Among the important marketing concepts are:

• The ultimate objective of marketing is to influence action;
• Action is undertaken whenever target audiences believe that the benefits they receive will be greater than the costs they incur;
• Programs to influence action will be more effective if they are based on an understanding of the target audience's own perceptions of the proposed exchange;
• Target audiences are seldom uniform in their perceptions and/or likely responses to marketing efforts and so should be partitioned into segments;
• Marketing efforts must incorporate all of the "4 Ps," i.e. click to read more...