Sanitation Marketing for Managers: Guidance for Tools and Program Development

This marketing resource guides professionals in the fields of sanitation and marketing to assess the current market for sanitation products and services and to use the results of this assessment to design a multi-pronged marketing strategy. The resource was developed by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)’s Hygiene Improvement Project (HIP) program in Uganda.

The manual provides guidance for designing and developing a programme tailored to the local demand and supply situation of an initial focus population, but with an eye on scaling up the programme strategy to reach populations with similar sanitation conditions across larger areas. As stated here: "Sanitation marketing, as used in this manual, focuses specifically on improving formal and informal supply chains, products, and services to expand the delivery of affordable basic sanitation, coupled with the application of commercial marketing techniques to stimulate demand to increase the number of households investing their own resources to build and maintain an improved sanitation facility."

Marketing strategy objects include:

• Build the capacity of appropriate market actors to provide necessary sanitation market functions;
  
• Create and strengthen the incentives for these actors to participate in the market and to collaborate with one another;
  
• Permit actors to pro-actively take on functions from which they will benefit, e.g., financially, politically;
  
• Develop appropriate products and services that respond to consumer preferences; and
• Create appropriate marketing messages and plans for promotion and communication to market the products and services to consumers.

The activities for developing a sanitation marketing programme are presented in four phases. Each phase is broken down into a series of activities with supporting tools, step-by-step instructions, and tips. The phases include:

1. Getting Started
   
2. Researching the Sanitation Market: Understanding Supply and Demand
   
3. Bringing it All Together: From Research to Strategy Development
   
4. Preparing for Action: Developing Sanitation Marketing Materials