Social Support Relations Quality Concerns In Social Marketing

Problem Statement

Discuss About The Social Support Relations Quality Concerns?

The research activity focuses on understanding and evaluating the different types of branding activities conducted in association to social marketing campaigns and thereby reflecting on its impacts on Organizational Development. It would also focus on understanding the communication practices undertaken by the institutions regards to social marketing.

The research activity focuses on commencing through underlying the problem statement with also identifying the different research objectives. Further, it would also focus on conducting an empirical research to conclude with the development of a conceptual diagram. It would also reflect on the research methodology aspect regarding the conducting of the research activity.

Social marketing activities are generally conducted with a focus on changing or altering the pattern of consumer responses to specific social, economic and consumerism issues. Business institutions mainly focus on conducting marketing and promotional campaigns with a profit motive. Social marketing activities are however conducted with a no-profit motive. The social marketing programs are required to be carried out by the organisations with a focus not only in developing effective relationships with target customers but also for generating needed profitability (Lefebvre, 2011).

The objectives of the research activity are underlined as under.

• The research activity contributes in understanding the different types of branding activities that are conducted in a social marketing environment.
• It would also focus on understanding the process through which information associated to the marketing activity is generated to the respondents and the impact of such on enhancing and sustaining the relationship between the firm and customers.
• The research activity would also contribute in evaluating the impacts of the branding activities conducted under the banner of social marketing on promoting organizational development.

The social marketing programs are generally carried out by the business and the non-business institutions with a non-profit motive aimed at meeting of the objectives of public interest. The project activity potentially focuses on understanding and in evaluating the different types of branding activities that are conducted under the banner of social marketing programs and the impacts of the information shared between institution and consumers on attracting and sustaining potential consumers. The project activity also focuses on understanding the impacts of the social marketing associated branding activities on promoting organizational development through attracting and sustaining customers and also in generating profitability.

The expected outcomes of the research activity are underlined as under. It would help in understanding of the different types of branding activities that are conducted in a social marketing setting. Similarly, it would also contribute in understanding the different mediums through which information associated to social marketing is generated to the customers and also the manner the same helps in enhancing and sustaining the relationships between the institution and the consumers. Finally, it would highlight on the impacts of the branding activity conducted in the social marketing setting on rendering organizational development like increase of goodwill, customer loyalty and trust and also in increasing the profitability position of the company in the long run.

Research Objectives

Brand is associated to the feelings or emotions that are evoked regarding a specific product or service rendered by a business institution. The concept of brand reflects the rationale as to why the consumers would agree to pay a higher or premium price for availing the product or service. It contributes in generating and developing a sense of trust of the consumer on the merchandise or service which in turn drives loyalty of the customers for repeatedly buying the product or service. Further, a brand is visualized as a theme, image, logo or any visual incorporated by the company for differentiating the product or service in the targeted market. The incorporation of the above elements ideally contributes in reflecting the product or service as different from other services or products available in the market and also in helping consumers get easily associated with the product or service marketed (Khedher, 2014).

Customers tend to easily select and identify the product or service in terms of remembering the brand icon and name. Repeated or frequent buying of the product or service tends to create an effective association and an emotional contact between the customer and the brand which in turn enhances the potential of the product or service brand (Braun, Kavaratzis, & Zenker, 2013).

Social marketing is identified as the process through which commercial marketing techniques and processes are applied for conducting effective planning, analysis, execution and also evaluation of different programs that are designed for effectively influencing the behavior of target customers such that the same helps in improving both individual and social welfare. Here, marketing as a corporate activity is not only concentrated or focused for generating profits not only for individuals and firms but rather is highlighted as an effective economic instrument for helping in the steady accomplishment of social needs and objectives. Social marketing is primarily focused on generating social good to the masses (Dibb, 2014).

An analysis of the 4Ps concerning social marketing reflects that on the product front it aims at incorporating such products that would help in bringing about necessary behavioral changes among the general public. In terms of price, it focuses on finding out the time, investment, level of inconvenience that is expended or borne for bringing about such behavioral changes. Focusing on the place aspect it aims to determine the place or situation where such behavioral changes are required to be brought about. Finally, in terms of promotion social marketing aims in determining and in identifying the different mediums that are needed to be engaged for transmitting potential messages to the target audience (Truong, 2014).

Justification of the Project

The aspect of branding activity in social marketing can be effectively understood in terms of a case study regarding promotion of contraceptives for birth control and other issues like unwanted sexual activity in an emerging economy like Bangladesh and Pakistan. Social franchisees were developed for generating needed awareness concerning the issue of family-planning and also the avid use of different contraceptive and birth control products. Herein, Greenstar as a contraceptive brand was identified to be promoted in the Islamic market with other local brands like Nova and Novaject. Different types of branding strategies both individual and umbrella marketing was developed for marketing the contraceptive brands in the region to effectively meet the objectives of social marketing (Wang & Hajli, 2014). 

Three different types of branding strategies were identified and executed for effectively marketing, promoting and thereby distributing the contraceptive products to the larger target market. In the first case, a new brand was conceptualized for helping in suiting the needs of the local market whether identified as a nationality, state or a community. The second approach as different from the individual branding activity indicated firstly focuses mainly on the development of umbrella branding. Herein, Greenstar is identified as the family brand that was employed for branding the different clinics identified in the social franchise model that contributed in the rendering of consultation regarding family planning activity (Kavaratzis & Hatch, 2013). The Greenstar brand was also used such that it employs the different clinics as a marketing and promotional tool for actively promoting the different contraceptive products to the general public. It helped in employing different types of media (print, broadcasting, digital and social media) for generating considerable awareness regarding the different contraceptive brands and thereby enhancing on its sales. Finally, the last branding strategy was concerned for marketing and promoting an existing contraceptive brand. The same is identified to be highly cost-effective and sustainable in nature in that the donors like the NGOs tend to subsidize the contraceptive products for enhancing its sales and use (Shen & Bissell, 2013).

Branding activities associated with social marketing programs are identified to be identical with green or responsible marketing and also cause-related marketing activities. Business institutions keen on incorporating and developing social marketing programs are observed to potentially contribute in developing the level of trust toward the firm. It thereby helps in attracting and in also augmenting the flow of customers for purchasing products and services rendered by the business or non-business institution. Moreover, the conducting of branding activity based on social marketing actively focuses on engaging and involving customers. It thus helps in developing the relationships between the customers with that of the organization and thereby helps in driving and also increasing consumer loyalty for the product or service marketed. The communication and promotional techniques undertaken by the business institution through the incorporation of diverse social networking mediums like Facebook, Twitter and also through the development of blogs ideally contribute in enhancing the level of transparency regarding the responsible marketing programs carried out by the institution (Hudson, Roth, Madden, & Hudson, 2015).

Expected Research Outcome

Such branding approaches also contribute in enhancing the consumer focused and customer responsive face of the institution in that it aims in continually engaging and involving customers to share their ideas and experiences with other people in communities based along the employment of social networking platforms. Development of effective customer relationships carried out through the generation of social marketing programs also contributes in enhancing the potential of the firm in acquiring and retaining potential customers thereby helping in meeting the objectives of profit accumulation. Further, the social networking and video conferencing facilities along with web meets are also needed to be employed by the institution as effective communication and collaboration tools that would help involving customers and in developing an understanding of their needs and expectations. Streamlining on the above approach helps the business institutions in gaining needed efficiency and productivity for augmenting the levels of customer satisfaction (Habibi, Laroche, & Richard, 2014).

The conducting of the above empirical analysis regarding the impact of branding activities conducted in the sphere of social marketing on promoting organizational development can be effectively reflected in terms of a conceptual framework generated as follows.

Based on the development of the above conceptual diagram a set of different hypotheses can be constructed for conducting the research activity.

H₁: Effective branding activities can be developed through the formulation of programs associated to social marketing.

H₂: The effectiveness of the social marketing programs are evaluated in terms of different types of information sharing activities undertaken through the use of social networking platforms, webinars and video conferencing for engaging customers.

H₃: The development of communication and content sharing activity between the business institutions and the customers generated through the use of the above mediums contribute in enhancing the relationships between the customers and the business or non-business institutions.

H₄: The development of effective relationships between organizations and customers potentially contribute in meeting the objectives of customer acquisition and also in profit generation in the long run.

The research activity can be effectively undertaken through the involvement of two different research philosophies like Interpretivism and Positivism.

Employment of interpretivism research philosophy or paradigm reflects the generation of inferences, narrative in nature that would help in understanding the mindset and perception of individuals, groups and communities regarding the research issue. Herein, the researcher focuses on the development of unstructured questionnaires that would help in effectively probing into the understandings and experiences of the respondents. The inferences generated in interpretivism research are mainly qualitative in nature. The Interpretivism nature of research ideally focuses on addressing the research objectives or questions (Hussein, 2009).

Conceptual Framework and Research Hypothesis

On the contrary, in the case of Positivism Research activity the researcher develops structured questionnaire sets that would help in the generation of both focused and quantitative nature of inferences. The Positivism Research activity re         quires the researcher for employing different types of statistical and quantitative tools like graphs and diagrams for elucidating the inferences. It is considered to be analytical and scientific in nature and aims in addressing the research hypotheses (Hammer, 2015).

Like the research philosophy two different types of research techniques like Deductive and Inductive are required to be employed here by the researcher for generation of needful inferences.

The incorporation of inductive research technique re quires the researcher for conducting of empirical analysis through the study of different types of literature associated to the research. Herein, the researcher focuses on gaining an understanding of the different theoretical inputs and models generated by previous research activity associated with the research issue. The study and evaluation of previous theories and models pertaining to the research issue potentially contribute in the development of new models and theories. Inductive research approach is conducted in a qualitative fashion by the researcher for involving of theoretical insights (Gioia, Corley, & Hamilton, 2013).

Deductive research activity on the contrary requires the researcher for the development of research hypotheses such that quantitative models and techniques are to be incorporated in a subsequent fashion for helping in proving the same. By nature, deductive research technique is identified to be quantitative and contributes in narrowing down the research activity (Cortina, Aguinis, & DeShon, 2017).

The conducting of empirical research activity involving different types of literary sources like books and journals associated with the research issue rightly reflects the incorporation of secondary research design. The use of secondary research is recommended in that the same contributes in gaining access to potential data sets on a large scale in both a time and cost effective manner. Moreover, secondary research activity also contributes in generating access of the researcher to authentic and reliable data sources (Parker, Morgeson, & Johns, 2017).

Along with the incorporation of secondary research, the researcher requiring constructing structured and unstructured questionnaire sets ideally reflects the need for conducting of primary research activity. Herein, unstructured questionnaire sets are required to be developed by the researcher for undertaking of interviews of respondent groups while close-ended questions are required for carrying out potential surveys of large groups of respondents. Primary research activity though requires greater time and cost yet is observed to be potentially effective in identifying current and updated inferences associated with the research issue (Venable, Pries-Heje, & Baskerville, 2016).

Concept of Social Marketing

The undertaking of primary research activity also contributes in involving triangulated research. Triangulated research strategy reflects on the existence of both qualitative and quantitative research activity. Interviews are carried out based on the development of unstructured questionnaires rightly help in generation of qualitative inferences while that of surveys indicated based on the development of structured questionnaire sets contributes in generating quantitative inferences. The triangulation of both qualitative and quantitative inferences enhances the potential of the research activity (Wolf & Floyd, 2013).

 Carrying out of interviews requires the development of focused group consisting of managerial respondents especially belonging to both middle and higher managerial posts. The development of the focused groups would help in gaining specific and in-depth inferences and also perceptions of the managerial groups regarding the research issue. The researcher is required to focus on the incorporation of a good quality microphone and also pen and paper for recording and generation of interview transcripts. Face-to-face interviews are required to be organized in terms of inviting the respondents to meet at a specific venue such that the same would help in conducting effective observation of respondents for gaining access to further inferences (Wright, Wahoush, Gabel, & Jack, 2016).

For the survey research activity, the data collection process involves the development of unstructured questionnaire sets and thereby circulating the same to large number of respondents either through the use of online or physical mailing activity. Similarly, the use of Survey Monkey as a potential tool is required to be incorporated by the researcher for gaining needful inferences in a focused and timely fashion (McCarthy, Wagner, & Sanders, 2017).  

The development of focused groups for conducting of interviews requires the researcher for undertaking or employing non-probability sampling technique like that of convenience sampling. The same would help in conveniently identifying and thereby selecting sample respondents through the use of random selection style. A total of 20 managerial respondents are required to be chosen from both the higher and middle managerial levels for constituting the focused group (Etikan, Musa, & Sunus, 2016).

Regarding the conducting of surveys, the sampling population is required to be chosen through the use of a probability sampling technique like that of stratified random sampling. The incorporation of stratified random sampling style reduces the incidence of sampling errors found generally on employment of random sampling style. It would also help in identification of sample respondents in a simple random fashion from two different strata sets like staffs and customer groups of business and non-business institutions. A total of 100 respondents are taken to be selected in the stated approach for the conducting of the survey (Cekim & Kadilar, 2017).

Branding through Social Marketing

The inferences gained from the focused interview being qualitative in nature calls for the conducting of data analysis, qualitative in nature. The Qualitative data analysis is conducted through the generation of codes. The codes are either in the form of phrases and words which are thereby constructed and made ready for being analyzed in the form of identification of correlation between them. Inferences are gained as to finding an association between the different codes and thereby generating in the form of narrative interpretations (Gioia, Corley, & Hamilton, 2013).

The quantitative data gained from the conducting of survey activity is subjected to quantitative data analysis such that different types of quantitative data tools like statistical and diagrammatic in the form of bar and pie graphs and line charts are incorporated for elucidating the inferences. Quantitative data sets in the form of percentage of responses are tabulated in the excel sheet for carrying out needful analysis (Wright, Wahoush, Gabel, & Jack, 2016).

The research activity carried out based on interview and survey analysis requires the fulfillment of the following ethical guidelines.  The researcher firstly is required to highlight the rationale for conducting of the research activity and is thereby required to involve the respondents for understanding and approving diverse research objectives. Further, the researcher also focuses on generating a statement of confidentiality to the respondents such that the personal data gained of the respondents would be kept in a secured fashion and the publication of the inferences whether in printed or in digital form would be carried out in terms of gaining due approval from the respondents (Graf, 2017).

The study is required to be conducted through identifying the problem statement, aims and objectives behind conducting the research study. It also reflects the rationale or justification for carrying out the research on the identified issue. Further, it conducts empirical research for generation of a conceptual diagram associated with the research issue and formulates a methodology for carrying out the research study.

Serial No	Tasks	September	October	November
		1	2	3	4	5	1	2	3	4	5	1	2	3	4
1	Identification and Selection of Research topic
2	Submission of Research Proposal
3	Introducing the Research Topic
4	Carrying out Literature review
5	Formulation of Research Methodology
6	Collecting necessary data
7	Analysing Data both Qualitatively and Quantitatively
8	Discussion of Inferences
9	Summarization of Research
10	Drafting of Research Report

The project budget is rendered as follows.

Task	Contents	Budget
Identification of the Research Problem with also highlighting aims and objectives	The section highlights on the research problem and also identifies the aims and objectives for conducting the project	$50
Carrying out empirical research with also outlining conceptual diagram and the research hypotheses	Empirical research is carried out through study of diverse literary sources. Conceptual diagram is drawn based on the empirical research to frame research hypotheses	$200
Reflecting on the Research Methodology	The Research Method is required to be outlined with also the process for collecting and analyzing data	$100
Carrying out the Data Analysis	Data Analysis is conducted through use of statistical and diagrammatic tools and findings are reported thereof	$300
Summarization of findings and writing of report	The inferences gained are summarized and thereby the report is written for submission and approval	$100
Total		$750

References

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Cekim, H. O., & Kadilar, C. (2017). Hartley Ross type unbiased estimators using the stratified random sampling. Hacettepe Journal of Mathematics and Statistics , 46 (2), 165-176.

Cortina, J. M., Aguinis, H., & DeShon, R. P. (2017). Twilight of Dawn or of Evening? A Century of Research Methods in the Journal of Applied Psychology. Journal of Applied Psychology , 102 (3), 274-290.

Dibb, S. (2014). Up, up and away: social marketing breaks free. Journal of Marketing Management , 1-27.

Etikan, I., Musa, S. A., & Sunus, R. (2016). Comparison of Convenience Sampling and Purposive Sampling. American Journal of Theoretical and Applied Statistics , 5 (1), 1-4.

Gioia, D. A., Corley, K. G., & Hamilton, A. L. (2013). Seeking Qualitative Rigor in Inductive Research: Notes on the Gioia Methodology. Organizational Research Methods , 16 (1), 15-31.

Graf, C. (2017). The Pillars of Publication Ethics and Research Integrity: Spread the Word. Chinese Medical Journal , 130 (12), 1502-1504.

Habibi, M. R., Laroche, M., & Richard, M.-O. (2014). The roles of brand community and community engagement in building brand trust on social media. Computers in Human Behavior , 37, 152-161.

Hammer, M. R. (2015). The Developmental paradigm for intercultural competence research. International Journal of Intercultural Relations , 48, 12-13.

Hudson, S., Roth, M. S., Madden, T. J., & Hudson, R. (2015). The effects of social media on emotions, brand relationship quality, and word of mouth: An empirical study of music festival attendees. Tourism Management , 47, 68-76.

Hussein, A. (2009). The use of Triangulation in Social Sciences Research: Can qualitative and quantitative methods be combined? Journal of Comparative Social Work , 1-12.

Kavaratzis, M., & Hatch, M. J. (2013). The dynamics of place brands : An identity-based approach to place branding. Marketing Theory , 13 (1), 69-86.

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Lefebvre, R. C. (2011). An integrative model for social marketing. Journal of Social Marketing , 1 (1), 54-72.

McCarthy, J., Wagner, J., & Sanders, H. L. (2017). The Impact of Targeted Data Collection on Nonresponse Bias in an Establishment Survey: A Simulation Study of Adaptive Survey Design. Journal of Official Statistics , 33 (3), 857-871.

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