Marketing of social services gains prominence in practice

The author reviews the growth and development of social marketing practice as a social work strategy and describes how the different categories of marketing correspond to administrative, planning, and community organization practice. She illustrates the similarity between the social planning process and the market planning process in an effort to demonstrate that social marketing is a useful addition to decision making and planning in social service agencies. Social marketing theory, diffusion theory, and exchange theory provide the theoretical frameworks for the argument developed. Drawing upon these theories, the paper draws attention to the fact that marketing is rapidly gaining acceptance as a viable strategy in macro practice designed to attract and retain consumers of services, develop resources, and inform service providers and practitioners of practice issues and innovations.