The Twenty

Strategic Social Marketing Questions©

To ask when developing a Social Marketing programme
Professor Jeff French
PhD, MBA, MSc, Dip HE, BA, Cert.Ed
Strategic Social Marketing Ltd
www.strategic-social-marketing.org
jeff.French@strategic-social –marketing.org

The following list of questions should be used in the scoping phase of a social
marketing programme. The questions aid an initial exploration many of the
fundamental intensions of the programme that will need to be clarified. They questions
can and should be revisited as the programme develops in response to learning and
evaluation. The answers to these questions will help develop a clear descriptor of the
project focus and purpose and will help to guide the development of specifications for
specific research, intervention and evaluation elements of the programme.

1. What is the social challenge to be addressed?

2. Why has this challenge been identified as a priority?

3. Who precisely is the target audience or audiences? (Primary , Secondary

and Tertiary audiences)

4. How will or could the target audience/s be segmented?

5. What is the specific behavioural objective/s? (SMART objective)

6. What will be the key benefit for each audience if they adopt the proposed
behaviour and / or what will be the cost (The exchange)

7. What are the causes, direct and indirect of the behaviour what is being
offered? (Competition, risk factors and risk conditions analysis)

8. What are the protective forces that encourage or enable the desired
behaviour?

9. What research evidence about effective interventions do you have or need

to be gathered?

10. What do you know about the knowledge, attitudes, beliefs and behaviour
of the target audience/s? Specifically: (See Annex 1 for supplementary
questions)

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11. What theory has been used or could be used to help understand the
challenge and develop the programme? (Theory informed)

12. What is known about the best time and place to reach the target
audience/s?

13. What conclusions and insights about how to intervene based on evidence,
market research and theory have been formulated?

14. What mix of interventions is indicated from the data, market research, and
evidence reviews?

15. What will be the process of developing and testing and selecting the
intervention mix?

16. Have community assets that could help with the programme been mapped
and secured

17. Has a budget been set or is it dependant on the development of a

business case?

18. Does the organisation have the resources, reach and authority to carry out
this strategy alone and if not, where could it find useful partners and
stakeholders?

19. Has an evaluation plan been developed capable of measuring: Short term
change (impact evaluation) the efficiency of interventions (process evaluation)
and the desired behavioural shifts (outcome evaluation)?

20. How could the learning from the programme been captured and shared?
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Annex one
 Is the current behaviour seen as a problem or a benefit by the target audience,
society?
 How rewarding is the undesirable behaviour?
 How costly is the current behaviour?
 How complex is the behaviour, does it involve several elements or actions?
 How frequently must the desired behaviour be performed. i.e. is it a one off action or
does it need to be maintained?
 How big a change is being sought, is it a major shift or a moderate change?
 How compatible is the desired behaviour with the target audience's behaviour?
 Are there major barriers to engaging with the desired behaviour?
 What information does the audience need to perform the behaviour?
 What skill does the audience need to perform the behaviour?
 What resources does the audience need to perform the behaviour?
 If the behaviour is desirable are there some members of the segment who already
doing the desired behaviour?
 What are the doer’s characteristics?

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 Recording Format

Name of Organisation

Key Staff

Contact details

Name of person completing the record

Date

1. What is the social challenge to be addressed?

2. Why has this challenge been identified as a priority?

3. Who precisely is the target audience or audiences? (Customer focus and

segmentation what data exists )

Primary audience

Secondary audience

Tertiary audience

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4. How will or could the target audience/s be segmented?

5. What is the specific behavioural objective/s? (SMART objective)

6. What will be the key benefit for each audience if they adopt the proposed
behaviour and what will be the cost (The Exchange?)

7. What are the causes, direct and / or indirect of the behaviour that is being
promoted ? (Competition, risk factors and risk conditions analysis)

8. What are the protective and or enabling factors or forces that encourage
the desired behaviour?

9. What research evidence about effective interventions do you have or need

to be gathered?

www.strategic-social-marketing.org
10. What do you know about the knowledge, attitudes, beliefs and behaviour
of the target audience/s? Specifically: (See Annex 1)

11. What theory has been used or could be used to help understand the
challenge and develop the programme? (Theory informed)

12. What is known about the best time and place to reach the target
audience/s? Is there evidence form customer journey analysis?

13. What conclusions and insights about how to intervene based on evidence,
market research and theory have been formulated?

14. What mix of interventions is indicated from the data, market research, and
evidence reviews?

15. What will be the process of developing and testing and selecting the
intervention mix?

16. Have community assets that could help with the programme been mapped
and secured

17. Has a budget been set or is it dependant on the development of a

business case?

www.strategic-social-marketing.org
18. Does the organisation have the resources, reach and authority to carry out
this strategy alone and if not, where could it find useful partners and
stakeholders?

19. Has an evaluation plan been developed capable of measuring: Short term
change (impact evaluation) the efficiency of interventions (process evaluation)
and the desired behavioural shifts (outcome evaluation)?

20. How could the learning from the programme been captured and shared?

Other issues / Notes

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