To motivate consumers to make the changes outlined in this Topic Hub, assistance programs must be designed that effectively alter people's behavior. Research shows that traditional tactics that rely on sharing information to change behavior, such as broad-based educational campaigns, rarely succeed. Social marketing is an approach with a track record of bringing about behavior change. The approach involves: identifying barriers to a sustainable behavior, designing a strategy that utilizes behavior change tools, piloting the strategy with a small segment of a community, evaluating the impact of the program once it has been implemented across a community, and finally, implementing the strategy at full scale. Taken as a whole, the social marketing approach can be resource intensive, but it is also possible for assistance programs to apply individual aspects of social marketing to help increase their programs' effectiveness.

For more information on social marketing techniques, visit:

• Community Based Social Marketing (requires registration)
  http://www.cbsm.com/
• Weinreich Communications
  http://www.social-marketing.com/
• Environment Canada's Social Marketing Web site
  http://www.toolsofchange.com/