Outreach campaigns that focus entirely on education or create public awareness of issues can have little or no effect on behavior. Direct personal contact is far more effective. Community-based social marketing (CBSM) goes beyond traditional outreach efforts by leveraging community relationships and social interactions to build upon informational campaigns. CBSM requires those performing outreach to think carefully about their desired goals and how they can utilize local, community-based interests, values, and relationships to achieve such goals. It requires effective and knowledgeable leaders, a clear vision of targeted behaviors or actions, focused and personalized messages, and a clear process to adopt targeted behaviors. This strategy outlines how to design and implement community outreach for energy efforts using community-based social marketing. Read more.
Metropolitan Area Planning Council