Perceptions and Positioning of Marketing in the Social Care Sector

When I first stepped into the social care sector as a marketer, I was struck by a glaring disconnect. Here were organisations doing extraordinary work - transforming lives daily - but their marketing efforts often didn’t reflect that. Some had no marketing presence at all. Worse, marketing was sometimes seen as a luxury or afterthought rather than a strategic necessity.

In fact, my first role in the sector was for a company who’d never enlisted the help of any marketing professional. Ever.

What quickly became clear to me starting from scratch was that marketing could do more than just raise external awareness of the company. It could connect the dots within the organisation, too – improving internal cohesion and amplifying the incredible work being done. And with objectives spanning several audiences, each with their own unique nuances, the opportunity for marketing’s role within this sector filled me with excitement, enthusiasm and determination that I’d never felt working in any other industry.

The more I delved further into the market, the more I noted that competitors weren’t taking advantage of these opportunities, either. I assumed my role was the exception to the rule, but was this the norm? That social care organisations weren’t utilising the power of marketing and communications to drive their business forward?

It was from this realisation that my master’s dissertation was born: The Perceptions and Positioning of Marketing in the UK's Social Care Sector. My aim was to explore how marketing is viewed and utilised within social care organisations, whether it’s integrated into strategy and how perceptions of marketing within the sector influence the functions positioning of marketing leadership.

What I Set Out to Learn

My research combined in-depth interviews with five marketing professionals from social care organisations and survey responses from 78 non-marketing managers and leaders within the sector. By analysing these perspectives, I uncovered significant insights into how marketing is understood, where it sits within organisations, and what this means for the sector’s future.

Here are a few key takeaways from my research:

1. Marketing Is Seen as Tactical, Not Strategic

One of the clearest trends from my research was that marketing is predominantly viewed as a tactical function. Among survey respondents, 74% associated marketing with tasks like graphic design, while 62% linked it to managing a digital presence. These activities are essential, but they only scratch the surface of marketing’s potential.

When asked whether marketing played an important role in organisational strategy, only 36% agreed, which echoed what was discussed throughout the interviews. Marketing professionals expressed frustrations about being undervalued and excluded from strategic conversations. One interviewee described their role as “the colouring-in department,” brought in late to “make things look pretty” rather than contribute to long-term planning.

This limited view overlooks marketing’s ability to drive strategy. In theory, marketing should involve strategic analysis, planning, and goal-setting - not just execution.

2. The Lack of Senior Marketing Leadership

Another striking finding was the absence of senior marketing roles within social care organisations. Whilst interviewing the senior-most marketers within their respective organisations – none of which held director-level positions – a Marketing Coordinator, two Marketing Manager’s and two holding the title of Head of Marketing. The lack of senior level marketing representation meant these professionals reported into non-marketing leaders with other priorities, which limits their influence on organisational strategy.

Whilst the interview sample was small, this theme was reflected the wider sector survey, where only 12.8% of people surveyed had a senior marketing leader such as a Marketing Director or CMO within their organisation. What then became clear is the profound implications this absence has on how marketing is perceived and utilised.

In organisations with senior marketing leadership, 80% of respondents agreed that marketing was critical to success. By contrast, in organisations without such roles, only 19% felt the same. Furthermore, 100% of organisations with senior marketing leadership believed marketing contributed to strategic planning, compared to just 11.8% of those without. Over half of respondents (51.3%) stated that marketing was a ‘nice-to-have’, rather than something that should be present or is critical to the success of an organisation. All of those who provided this response had confirmed they do not have a colleague in a marketing leadership role.

The lack of senior representation creates a vicious cycle. Without a seat at the table, marketing struggles to demonstrate its strategic value. This, in turn, limits opportunities for marketers to grow into leadership roles. Three of the five marketers I interviewed expressed (unprompted) a desire to advance into more senior roles, but felt they would need to leave their organisations to achieve this – and would leave companies without marketers that knew the organisation and the industry inside out.

3. Perception Shapes Positioning

One of the most compelling insights in my quest to drive change was the direct link between what marketing teams do and how marketing is perceived within organisations. The analysis found a significant correlation between the specific tasks marketing teams engage in - design, digital activities, and strategy - and how their senior colleagues define marketing’s role.

In organisations where marketing was primarily involved in creative tasks like design, it was largely viewed as a creative function. Where marketing teams were responsible for digital outputs, such as social media and websites, marketing was seen as execution-focused - delivering visible, tangible work but not necessarily contributing to broader strategy. Most notably, a lack of marketing involvement in strategic planning directly correlated with marketing being perceived as non-strategic.

This reinforces the idea that, for many professionals in social care, their only understanding of marketing may likely comes from what they see within their own organisation. If marketing is positioned as a support function, handling branding and digital content but with little influence over decision-making, that becomes the default perception of marketing as a whole. Though let’s not forget that this survey was conducted with leaders. If decision-makers view marketing in this limited way, they’re unlikely to integrate it at the senior-most strategic level it needs for organisational success.

Rethinking Marketing’s Role in Social Care

Ajzen’s Theory of Planned Behaviour (1991) suggests that attitudes shape behaviour—particularly in leadership. The data supports this, showing that when decision-makers had a narrow view of marketing, it was not integrated into strategy. Fishbein & Ajzen (2010) further highlight that leadership attitudes either enable or restrict marketing’s role in organisational planning, a pattern evident in this study.

For marketing to fulfil its potential in social care, two things need to happen:

1. Senior leaders must shift their perspective. Marketing is more than a communications tool—it is a driver of strategy, culture, and organisational success. Without this understanding, marketing will remain an untapped resource.

2. Marketing professionals must prove their value beyond execution. If marketing is only visible through tactical outputs, its strategic impact will never be fully recognised. Marketers in social care must actively shape their role, demonstrating how their expertise contributes to growth, engagement, and long-term sustainability.

   
   

A Sector-Wide Opportunity

The perception and positioning of marketing in social care are intrinsically linked. Changing one requires a shift in the other. By recognising marketing as a strategic function, organisations can unlock its full potential—improving recruitment, stakeholder engagement, and service delivery in a sector where these things matter most.

There is so much untapped potential. By elevating marketing’s role and positioning it strategically, organisations can amplify their impact and achieve their goals more effectively. This is just the beginning of the conversation which I hope sparks further discussions about how we can give marketing the voice it deserves in the social care sector.

1. Ajzen, I. (1991). The Theory of Planned Behavior. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, [online] 50(2), pp.179–211. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/0749-5978(91)90020-T.

2. Fishbein, M. and Ajzen, I. (2010). Predicting and changing behavior : the reasoned action approach. New York, Ny ; London: Routledge.