[Introducing marketing strategies and techniques into the field of voluntary blood donation, to meet the rise in blood demand].

Social marketing uses marketing principles and techniques to induce a target audience to voluntary accept, reject, change or abandon a behaviour for the benefit of individuals, groups, or society as a whole. Thus, individual or societal gain is the primary goal of social marketing. This kind of marketing is frequently used in the United States or in Canada in several fields such as healthcare, social work, or the environment. In 2008, we introduced these strategies and techniques in the field of blood donation in France. This article describes what has been achieved in the last three years and outlines the main steps in the social marketing planning process: analyzing the social marketing environment, defining target audiences and objectives, building and implementing strategies and action plans, evaluating and monitoring. On the way to self-sufficiency, while respecting donors, social marketing is additional to the work done by the blood collection staffs, communication teams, and volunteers. Social marketing is a complementary tool to the work done by the blood collection staff, communication teams and blood donation organizations and can help to meet the challenge of self-sufficiency while still allowing for the privacy and rights of donors.