You Can Create Social Change Through Marketing. Here’s How.

America's been on the social marketing and cause related marketing bandwagon for a couple years now. But can you use marketing to get a community to pass a bond millage when they've never passed one before? Yes, you can. In fact, we did – in the conservative state of Texas, no less.

The Yaffe Group was working to establish a position for our client, Houston Community College (HCC), for a number of strategic initiatives. One of the most important of those was an upcoming bond election. Passing the bond was critical to the on-going success of the college. We conducted research designed to  understand the performance, attitudes and value drivers of the voting public in the area. After reviewing the research and a strategic planning session with the client, we decided to position HCC as key to the success of the city of Houston and the surrounding districts.

One thing about social marketing, you usually have a big job to do and a limited budget.This was no exception. The good news is that you can usually get the media to give you more added-value bonus spots if it's for a good cause. I't a matter of positioning the client with the media reps, just as you have to with the general public. We managed to get tens of thousands of dollars worth of bonus spots and online adverting for the initiative.

Then we put together a campaign designed to influence the public awareness and attitudes towards HCC. Our main objective was to get people to vote yes on the bond issue. But, we had a number of secondary objectives. We wanted to foster public esteem as it related to HCC and their reputation. We wanted to talk about HCC's value to the community and as a valuable asset to Houston. And we wanted to attract more students and have communication efforts still be aimed at driving student registration.

While we did want to target the 18+ general public, which includes possible students, those looking to go back to school in this economy to find a second career and the 50+ adult population that has the heaviest voter turnout. However, we also targeted all the niches that were key to getting the bond passed. We targeted each niche with different media selection and different messaging. We targeted those in the 50+ segment since they represented a critical voting segment. We also targeted both students and prospective students, as both the end users and as important influencers. We had targeted marketing for the Hispanic, African American and Asian American population as well.  

We used TV, outdoor boards, posters, print, social media and online advertising to reach these targets. The results were terrific. there was a dramatic increase n regard for HCC which resulted in the first-ever passage of a $151-million bond initiative. It received overwhelming voter response and an 11% increase in recruitment of new student registrations, a new all time high.

So, it can be done. You can create significant changes in behavior using social marketing. How about you? What successes have you had? We'd love to hear them.

Mike McClure, Yaffe Exec Creative Director & Social Media Guy