Marketing the Social Entrepreneurship
August 12, 2022

Marketing the Social Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurs used to be enterprising, savvy founders who started businesses for one reason: to make money. But times have changed — and with the emergence of something known as social entrepreneurship, several founders’ motivations have shifted from profit margins to social responsibility.

The decision to switch to remote work might have been quick but wasn’t necessarily poor. If managed well, remote work can be mutually beneficial to organizations and employees. Remote workers show 37% more discretionary effort and 70% higher performance than their office-going counterparts. Remote work is also the No. 1 employment benefit for millennials and GenZers — employee segments that are fast becoming a majority in the workplace. However, remote work is not without its challenges. While remote workers exhibit more discretionary effort, two in three aren’t truly engaged, according to Gartner’s 2020 Global Labor Market Survey. Remote workers are also more likely to quit compared to their office-going counterparts. This flight risk should be of particular concern in today’s environment, given the relative novelty of remote work and how difficult it is for Communications leaders to get information about the experience their newly remote workforce desires. The fact that remote work is only going to increase exacerbates this problem.
Social Entrepreneurship Is Here To Stay: According to a survey — conducted by HubSpot — of over 1,000 consumers –
  • 66% say they are more likely to purchase from a company that donates a portion of its profits to charity.

  • 45% say brands should do more when it comes to advocating for social issues

  • 46% say they are more likely to purchase from a company that actively tries to reduce its environmental impact

  • Racial justice (52%), climate change (50%), and income inequality (43%) are the most important issues respondents want to see companies take a stance on.

  • Ages 18-35 are more likely to purchase based on social issues and identity than older groups.

  • All age groups are similarly more likely to purchase from companies reducing their environmental impact, making corporate donations, treating employees well, and to support small businesses.

  • 56% say companies should donate a portion of their profits to charity

  • 66% say companies should actively try to reduce their environmental impact

     
Let’s focus on Marketing

Let’s focus on Marketing

While marketing social entrepreneurship, the focus on marketing strategies must be revised. For social entrepreneurs sometimes main benefit is not profit but growth of positive reputation. This can be achieved through dissemination of marketing strategies. In social entrepreneurship an additional element should be stated among the main elements of marketing mix – and this is a social impact.

Consumers get an intangiable outcome when purchasing goods or services from social entrepreneurs. This outcome should be positioned as an additional element of customer’s response to the marketing mix.

Social impact from marketing mix meets intangible outcome, the sense that customers get while buying socially related products. It is stated that making strategic marketing decisions, however, is more difficult for a social entrepreneur than it is for either a traditional nonprofit or a commercial business, both of which are primarily concerned with a single bottom line. 

A traditional nonprofit will continue offering products and services that have a significant social impact even if they lose money; commercial enterprises will not. Social entrepreneurs, on the other hand, are equally concerned both with social impact and income, and that means they must simultaneously analyze the social impact and financial viability of each product and service – and only then they are ready make decisions about which ones to expand, nurture, harvest or kill. 

The same as in standard marketing strategies, the strategy for social entrepreneurs should include segmentation of the customers and consumers by taking into consideration standard criteria (such as geographical, demographical, psychographic and behavior segmentation) but also implementing own criteria most adequate for the products they are currently interested to produce providing also a social impact.

 

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