Why Public Sector marketing differs from traditional forms of marketing
by Rosemary Walton
As marketers we are used to marketing products or services to create sales (i.e. profit-making) Public Sector Marketing is about Social Marketing and public engagement (i.e.non-profit), bringing about specific behavioural goals relevant to the public good and, as such, needs a different and more longer term approach and way of measuring. The Department of Health’s Change for Life campaign is a good example of this.
Public Sector marketing started life during the Second World War and helped get important messages out to the masses. While that objective hasn’t changed essentially; we probably all remember the flyers that went out to every single household in the country after the July 7th bombings telling us all to be vigilant and how to spot a terrorist; or the recent national swine flu campaign; the type of messages and the ways they are delivered have changed substantially as channels have proliferated and audiences fragmented over the years, to a lot of campaigns now being delivered via digital and social media methods.
