Cause marketing is one of the successfully developing types of marketing, which consists in applying the general marketing process to some kind of problems, where the main task of a specialist is to influence the behavior of a person in society, first of all, in order to benefit the society.
Cause Marketing Definition
Social marketing is the promotion of certain values of society, the implementation of the marketing process in a social environment. This is an element of research and improvement of the process of perception of cause principles in certain groups of society. If to talk about social advertising, it means the absence of stories about a product or service. It is a marketing tool that is engaged in improving the life of society in general and every individual in particular. Also, the definition has a second meaning - it is the activities of organizations that are focused on selling products in conjunction with the social values of society. This helps to remember the promoted brand better. At the same time, cause marketing is not aimed only at promotion. Its main activity is the formation of programs that can influence the behavior of people in society.
Benefit from Cause Marketing
Usually, marketing elements were used to demonstrate products or services to a society. In the seventies of the last century, the idea of using marketing to influence people's behavior and to create useful habits in their way of life, which will have a fruitful impact on the culture of society as a whole, has appeared. This use of marketing was called cause or cause marketing. The most important task of cause marketing is helping people to improve their way of life. For example, the rejection of such a bad habit, like smoking, will help improve the health of the smoker and help save a decent portion of the financial resources of his personal budget. The cause marketing program focuses on moral satisfaction from the process of committing useful to the public affairs.
The Principles of Cause Marketing
- Orientation to the audience. Specialists engaged in social marketing, explore the society as a group of people who make independent decisions, rather than as students who need to deal with education or disobedient personalities who need constant monitoring from the outside. The basic steps to set up a cause marketing partnership is to understand what people need and give them the proper help in implementing this need.
- Segmentation. In order to improve the effectiveness and increase the final result of creation strong cause marketing partnership, in the role of goals, certain segments of the population are selected and investigated. These groups are part of a society that is most likely to respond to the innovation developed or one that is most important for the company's main goal. Even among difficult sections of the population, groups that are able to act are selected.
- The focus of behavior. Behavior is an indicator, like the action or inaction of a potential audience, which is subjected to research and analysis. Social marketing has its own interest in the behavior of the audience, the result of which is the help delivered to society. Almost all methods of marketing track the intermediate results of their activities, but absolute success can be measured only in those cause marketing examples where the desired behavior is achieved.
- Evaluation. The work of cause marketing programs can be assessed using periodic measurements of subtotals and the desired impact on the welfare of society. Social marketing is an uninterrupted process that consists of evaluating and analyzing information about the preferences of the society and the changes in the environment necessary to implement and develop the impact of cause marketing programs.
- Address to the target audience of the upper and middle layers. The process of influencing people from low strata of the population, as a rule, is accompanied by a simultaneous process of influence on people from the upper (high-ranking officials) or the middle strata (relatives, acquaintances, etc.).
- Exchange of values. Social marketing is a unique process in its own right because the innovation that it tries to realize is formed on the understanding of the desired benefits, which plays the role of an incentive for the performance of the expected behavior in the chosen audience. The methodology for exchanging vital values states that the client will choose his own model of behavior if as a result; he will receive some significant benefit for himself. Exchange can also be carried out if a cause marketing specialist has implemented such a program, which has the benefit for each exchange participant.
- Recognition of competition. In a democratic society, there is always the possibility of choice. Methods of social marketing create the opportunity for a unique exchange, which is understood in society as the most profitable in comparison with other existing options. The goods, location, cost, and mode of implementation are the main elements of cause marketing. They are used to eliminate obstacles that prevent individuals from acting the way they want and increase their benefits. Specialists, who are engaged in social marketing, analyze, build the needs of society in these 4 elements and apply them to get the most positive result.
Types of Cause Marketing Campaigns
The essence of the main strategy of cause-related marketing is that the plan is implemented using a complex of four elements:
- the product is non-commercial, it is a product or service for the needs of society;
- the cost of the product, which includes: measures to attract consumers, costs incurred for development, and so on;
- distribution of the product in a particular niche;
- activities to promote the brand, goods and promote the idea or program to the masses.