Using Social Marketing for Public Emergency Preparedness
Less than half of the public in the United States have taken the three steps to prepare for emergencies that are recommended by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Red Cross: having a 3-day emergency kit, a family communication plan, and knowing where to get information during an emergency. Although emergency managers attempt to train the public, often they are only able to distribute brochures and make public notifications. For a variety of reasons, the public frequently ignores this guidance, leaving people more vulnerable during emergencies.
This book applies the process of social marketing, which has been used widely in public health and other disciplines, to the lack of public preparedness. Written for emergency managers in government and nonprofit agencies, students, and volunteers, the book provides enough background and resources to enable the user to carry out an effective emergency preparedness campaign in their community and maintain it over time. Unlike preparing one message for everyone, social marketing involves working with smaller communities to identify what and how people want to learn, training them, and then maintaining that relationship to ensure their preparedness. Because most emergency management agencies lack resources to take on such an initiative, the book provides readers with low cost methods to begin a social marketing program.
Nancy Meyer-Emerick is an Associate Professor of Public Administration at Cleveland State University (CSU). Prior to joining the CSU faculty in 1999, she worked in local government in Florida, primarily in public works and environmental health. Her research interests include organizational behavior, emergency preparedness, and environmental health.
How refreshing and encouraging to have an entire book focused on applying a social marketing approach to impact one major social issue. The book not only inspires; it also instructs. It doesnt just cover what to do to influence emergency preparedness in communities; it walks you through the steps to base unique and comprehensive strategies on unique priority audiences. In the end, readers will understand how to develop a strategic social marketing plan that will provide the highest return on investment of resources.
Nancy R. Lee, University of Washington and Social Marketing Services, Inc.
Nancy Meyer-Emerick provides an evidence-driven primer that outlines the core concepts and methodologies behind social marketing applications in emergency preparedness program management. From behavioral change models to social capital to program planning, this text outlines the fundamental components for leveraging modern messaging technologies to move the public from complacency to readiness. The content will be immediately applicable for any administrator interested in expanding their knowledge of the evolving and dynamic field of emergency management.
Lauren Ohl-Trlica, Arlington County Office of Emergency Management
Using Social Marketing for Public Emergency Preparedness tackles the real-world issues of blending the best of textbook social marketing with the practical realities of applying it in communities. It provides an excellent guide and case study for any social marketer who wants to understand how to transform theory and evidence-based research in social marketing into real-life, practical solutions.
Craig Lefebvre, RTI International
Using Social Marketing for Public Emergency Preparedness
Social Change for Community Resilience
Nancy Meyer-Emerick
First published 2016
by Routledge
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2016 Taylor & Francis
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A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN: 978-0-765-64577-7 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-765-64578-4 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-68822-0 (ebk)
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Contents
Clearly, compared with information dissemination (e.g., pamphlets distributed to mail boxes), engagement based approaches to public outreach are costly in terms of time, commitment, resources and expertise required to develop and sustain the process. However, the benefits of doing so are substantial, particularly with regard to increasing the likelihood of developing sustained community involvement in risk management.
(Paton and McClure 2013, 142)
This book is designed to provide methods and resources to increase the effectiveness of public emergency preparedness training. It includes perspectives on behavioral and social change from several disciplines but focuses on one method, social marketing, that incorporates many of those theories. Social marketing has been used in public health training and other disciplines, but rarely in emergency preparedness. It is not marketing in the conventional sense; rather, it is a method of involving people in planning and carrying out changes that will improve their lives, not the bottom line of a corporation. It should also not be confused with social media, although that is one tool that may be used to help people to remember the positive changes they want to make.
Social marketing involves several phases. The following summary is based on Lee and Kotlers (2011) planning primer (4041). The first step is a rich description of the background of the problem or innovation, the purpose of the social marketing effort, and people who will be the focus of the training. Next a situation analysis is done, typically by identifying strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (i.e., a SWOT analysis). Based on this information, the population is then segmented into priority or target groups based on, for example, who is at greatest risk, who is in greatest need, or who is most crucial for resolving the problem or achieving the social change. Behavioral objectives and goals are developed for these groups along with the barriers, benefits, competition, and outside influences they might experience. Then a positioning statement is developed to convey the benefits and value of the training for the priority group.
At this point, four marketing strategies (i.e., the 4Ps) are used but in an atypical way. The product is the benefit of the new behavior. The price is the cost of adopting the behavior. Place is a convenient site and promotion includes persuasive messages to encourage people. The design of follow-up and evaluation is determined as part of the overall plan and included in the budget. The roles and duties of everyone who is involved in the process are spelled out. Then the training is conducted to meet the aspirations and needs of the priority groups.
