Social Marketing in Action: Addressing the global refugee crisis

What social marketing is:

Social marketing is a strategy used to create efforts meant to strengthen or change people's behavior for the good of both the individual and society as a whole. Negative environmental and social changes are known to worsen the quality of life. To prevent this, some companies turn to social marketing. It highlights concerns about the main issues threatening the world today, including global warming, air, water, and noise pollution, hunger, poverty, and access to education.? ?

A social cause that is important to me:

A social cause important to me is addressing the global refugee crisis. An agency that is at the forefront of combating the issue is the United Nation’s Higher Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). This agency was created after the Second World War due to many nations being torn apart and many of their citizens being forced to flee their homelands for safety. As time passed and more civil wars, ethnic conflicts, and natural disasters became common, the issue was no longer just a post-world war European matter, the crisis impacts almost every part of the globe.

What the UNHCR does / offers:

The agency provides basic necessities such as food, shelter, medicine, schooling, and most importantly, an opportunity for these people to rebuild their lives in the U.S, Canada, and other thriving nations. The process for resettlement as a refugee is rigorous and takes a long time, sometimes upwards of decades. There are long interviews processes, security and background screening, and immunization clearances that need to be met before they’re granted access to resettle.

UNHCR’s utilization of digital marketing strategies: ?

SEO: The UNHCR's website is search engine optimized, strengthening its credibility and relevance in global issue searches. This ensures that when people search for information related to refugee crises, displacements, and other humanitarian efforts, the UNHCR's site will appear at the top of search results.

Inbound / Content: The agency produces short articles, videos, and infographics that are relevant and raise awareness and highlight the impact of their work. This content is optimized for search engines to ensure its discoverability, which enhances the website's visibility and credibility. ?

How UNHCR’s digital marketing strategy can be improved:

As mentioned above, the UNHCR’s website is organized well. Everything is consistent and concise, the one thing that needs to be altered is the landing page of the main donation button. When website visitors land on this specific page, it gives them a couple of options of how much to donate, but visitors don’t know which campaign their donation is going to. Although no campaign is more important than the other, some visitors prefer to donate to a specific campaign because someone important to them might be impacted by it and that might've been their sole intent behind coming to the page in the first place.