The application of social marketing principles in health care campaigns

Abstract

Social Marketing offers new insight into the design of health care programs that focus on the comprehensive vision of understanding the target audience. As there have been several confusions between the Health Care Social Marketing and education or preventive health care programs, the characteristics refer to the social good and behavior change on voluntary grounds. This paper aimed to elaborate some guidelines for Health Care Social Marketing campaigns to increase the chances of success and trigger the expected behavioral change in the target audience. To ensure the successful implementation of a Social Marketing campaign in health care, a plan that describes the necessary steps to respond in terms of efficiency and effectiveness to the public health campaign outcomes needs to be elaborated. The proposed model has three levels of intervention, as found in the scientific literature: Diagnosis of social problems, Benefits, and social change, and Social Marketing Mix.