Segmentation

Knowing who your clients are, and where they are, are key to your social marketing activity. But this doesn't just mean focusing on demographic or epidemiological factors such as age, sex, class, education, wealth, ethnicity, geography and disease patterns.

It also means looking at behavioural factors ... where is the audience now in terms of adopting the required behaviour? What stage are they at? For example, your smoking cessation clinic is more likely to gain success with smokers who have quit previously, than with individuals who have never even contemplated quitting.

Targeting

Targeting is governed by three main factors:

• - The target group needs to be big enough to create impact
• - The group needs to be accessible
• - The group must be responsive

Campaigns often fail because low income or disadvantaged groups are often unresponsive to social marketing initiatives. So what are the pressures stopping them from changing? Despite a universally free health service and a continuous stream of health promotion messages, the more highly educated and 'better off' continue to respond disproportionately to health initiatives, and make more use of preventative health services.

• - Using the information obtained through research such as focus groups, in-depth interviews, or patient data analysis
• - Embarking on long term, two-way relationships
• - Making offers which are interesting, valuable and life-changing

• Segmentation
• Targeting