How does a social marketing approach to HMIS differ from commercial marketing?

Tentative Answer

 

Similarities:

Like commercial marketing, social marketing has a strong client orientation; it assumes that the client is an active participant in the process of change. Furthermore, social marketing shares commercial marketing’s key mechanism, exchange. Exchange is defined as an exchange of resources or values between two or more parties with the expectation of some benefits. The motivation to become involved in an exchange is to satisfy needs. For this, social marketers must have a clear understanding of what people want; they must identify the benefits associated with a particular behaviour change and find ways to highlight them. Finally, both social marketing and commercial marketing require a long-term strategic planning approach, involving client-oriented research, marketing analysis, market segmentation, objective setting and the identification of strategies and tactics.

Differences:

Although social marketing draws on commercial marketing methods, there are several important differences, particularly in relation to the content and objectives. In social marketing of health micro-insurance:

1. the products are complex
The concept of insurance as a risk management tool is often unfamiliar to the target population and can be confused with microfinance. And while health insurance is in principle a tangible product (the insurance policy), for which you get something tangible in return (money or paid hospital bills), for those who are insured but who have not had a claim, it remains intangible. Furthermore, insurance policy documents are often too complicated for the members, many of whom are illiterate. These complexities make insurance products difficult to conceptualise and thus more difficult to generate demand for.

2. target groups are often those hardest to reach
Those sectors of the population targeted by micro-insurance are often those ignored by commercial marketers. They are often the least accessible and the hardest to reach. At the same time, they are also the groups with highest risk of poor health and most needs.

3. Products require greater client involvement
Marketing traditionally divides products into high and low involvement categories, with the former comprising products which are expensive, riskier, and require ‘active consumption,’ often in terms of changes in personal behaviour. As a result, they require careful consideration by the consumer and demand detailed factual information from the marketer.

4. Competition is more varied
While many micro-insurance markets are new and offer relatively little competition, in social marketing, the strongest source of competition is the client's tendency to continue in his or her current behavioural patterns.

Adapted from:MacFayden, L., Stead, M. and Hastings, G. (1999).A Synopsis of Social Marketing.