The best way to describe Philip Kotler and Nancy Lee’s Up and Out of Poverty is that it’s a nonprofit lesson in how to use social marketing by illustrating the steps through the very real and pervasive issue of poverty. This terrific social marketing case study of sorts spells out social marketing, common misunderstandings, differences between social and commercial marketing, and the main principles of social marketing.

Kotler and Lee offer a thoughtful and concise 10-step model for developing a social marketing plan that reflects a systematic process and examines the power of “social marketing methodology” to reduce the suffering of the poor. The authors describe with actual cases the major steps for developing a social marketing plan – from conducting a SWOT analysis of your organization and targeting and segmenting your audience to creating a position statement and planning for monitoring and evaluation.

One of the best ways to understand what something is or how it works is by first addressing what it’s not. Kotler and Lee tackle four primary misconceptions about social marketing:

1. Social marketing is not social advertising. Social marketing goes much further than just promoting a cause. In fact, promoting the cause is the last step in developing a full social marketing campaign.

2. Social marketing does not involve manipulation and hard-selling. In fact, it is rarely successful without a customer-driven, customer-sensitive approach.

3. Social marketing is not the same as “social networking” or “social media” – although these are both promotional tactics that social marketers may use.

4. Social marketing does not mean providing subsidies for products such as mosquito nets and HIV drugs – but may include providing such subsidies.

Nonprofits who think they are engaging a community of followers by simply “spraying and praying” readers or broadcasting newsy tidbits about their organizations’ activities are not engaging in social marketing. Social marketing is about a strategic methodology to change behavior in support of an issue or cause.

CausePlanet asked Kotler and Lee “What is social marketing, and how does it differ from traditional marketing approaches?” The authors responded by explaining that “social marketing is a process that applies traditional marketing principles and techniques to create, communicate and deliver value in order to influence target audience behaviors that benefit society as well as the target audience.”  They went on to say:

There are several important differences between social and commercial marketing:

• In the case of commercial marketing, the marketing process aims to sell goods and services. In the case of social marketing, the marketing process is used to sell a desired behavior.
• In the commercial sector, the primary aim is financial gain. In social marketing, the primary aim is individual or societal gain. 
• Competitors are different. The commercial marketer sees competitors as other organizations offering similar goods and services, or ones that satisfy similar needs. Social marketers see the competition as the current or preferred behavior of the target audience and the perceived benefits and costs of that behavior. This includes any organizations that sell or promote competing behaviors (such as the tobacco industry). 

Kotler and Lee also explore the important similarities between social and commercial marketing. Find out these similarities and more about strategic social marketing in Up and Out of Poverty by subscribing to Page to Practice™ book summaries. Or, purchase this or one of our other Page to Practice™ executive summaries by visiting the CausePlanet store. We welcome your comments on this book and others on our blog.  Follow us on Twitter for more best practices in nonprofit leadership.