Marketing in Practice Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3250 words

Marketing in Practice - Essay Example Research was done that indicated the student’s use of the online digital library and the data collected showed that many students are not actually using the services of the library and this impairs reaching the objectives of the plan. This report thus gives an in-depth account of social marketing theory and the related secondary materials that were used to understand the situation of the Birmingham library. With reference to this, appropriate objective and recommendation are given in this report to ensure that the students adopt the new provision as expected by the university; it is to be achieved using social marketing for behaviour change (Weinreich 2011, p.45). Action plan for the implementation of the recommendation is also given as well as the controls of the same program in Birmingham library. Introduction The tradition and role of social marketing is to ensure that marketing is applied together with other concepts and techniques that will culminate into the social good of the targeted group of people (Alder 2010, p.24). The difference between social marketing and commercial marketing should thus be palpable, in social marketing; the driving agenda is not finances as the case with commercial marketing, they tend skew their interest to pursue social good (Pintado, 2007: p. 32). Birmingham Library is a university library that houses all genres of academic materials from sciences to humanities, with the population of the student’s numbers increasing every academic intake (Krol 2010, p.38). There is urgent need then to ensure that some of the services that are currently offered physically in the library are decentralized so that students can have access to the information even without visiting the library premises (Lazer, William, and Eugene 2006, p.20). This proposed idea is supposed to use online library services to enable students to access online books using their tablets, lap top computers, and phone while they are outside that university l ibrary (Kotler and Nancy 2008, p.16). This development will not only help in decongesting the library that is currently receiving high level of traffic movement of students but will also be useful in serving the student’s convenience of using library services in various places including within the hostel without having to move into the library (Burcher 2012, p.19). The university thus wants to use social marketing as a way of advising the students on the available options of accessing the library services without having to borrow physical books (Penford, 2011: p. 37). This is deemed to be of social good to the student as they will have the books in soft copy and can use them anytime without having to visit the library every time. On the other hand, the university will also benefit in the sense that they will be able to accommodate the needs of all the students because only those students who want to engage in those issues that cannot be done outside the library will be in at any particular time. The university will also mitigate on the losses that are realized when textbooks are borrowed by the students from the library (Sarki, 2006: p. 12). This move will be highly beneficial to the student’s body and they should be advised to explore this option through social marketing