Social marketing is essential in the improvement of consumer perceptions on healthcare. For example, it changes the community’s perceptions of the effectiveness of certain healthcare issues such as immunization and health checks. As a result of this, social marketing increases awareness of health matters and the number of healthcare services consumers. Additionally, it changes the attitudes of patients towards particular health issues, which is vital in improving healthcare outcomes. Patient safety is also dependent on social marketing where healthcare providers find it easier to handle patients who are aware of the treatment process ( French, 2017) . Additionally, social marketing can improve a patient’s quality of life and safety by eliminating stigmatization associated with certain diseases. For instance, the stigmatization associated with STIs may hinder patients from visiting healthcare facilities or even fail to follow medication instructions if they live in communities that have not been enlightened on STIs.
According to Evans & McCormack (2018), principles of social marketing include planning and strategy, selecting materials, developing and implementing, and assessing. Planning and strategy are critical in choosing the target groups that need to be enlightened on health issues. Planning goes hand in hand with strategy, which is crucial in determining the outcomes of patient quality and safety through formulation of effective approaches for the social marketing campaign. The selection of materials needed for social marketing determines the effectiveness the process ( French, 2017) . For example, the media chosen to communicate healthcare campaigns determine the success of the campaigns. For instance, the use of posters could be effective for certain health campaigns, but not effective in others settings, and the same could be said about mass and social media. After planning and selecting materials for social marketing of healthcare, actual development, implementation, and assessment are heavily dependent on the social marketing team. The skills and efforts of the marketing team play a significant role in the outcomes of the campaign.
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References
Evans WD, & McCormack L. (2018). Applying social marketing in health care: communicating evidence to change consumer behavior. Medical Decision Making , 28(5), 781–792.
French, J. (2017). Social marketing and public health: Theory and practice . Oxford: Oxford University Press.
