Social Marketing

Social marketing is the application of marketing strategies to achieve specific behavior for a social good. It is important not to confuse social marketing with commercial marketing. A commercial marketer selling a product may only seek to influence a buyer to make a product purchase while social marketers, dealing with goals such as reducing cigarette smoking or encouraging condom use, have more difficult goals: to make potentially difficult and long-term behavioral change in target populations.

Social marketing often applies a "customer oriented" approach and uses the ideas and tools used by commercial marketers in pursuit of social goals like Anti-Smoking-Campaigns. Therefore, the primary aim of "social marketing" is "social good", while in "commercial marketing" the aim is primarily "financial". However, this does not mean that commercial marketers can not contribute to achievement of social good. Marketers believe that using the benefits of doing 'social good' will secure and maintain customer engagement.