Social marketing campaigns employ general marketing strategies to deal with social issues and affect behavioral change. These issues include environmental dilemmas, community health problems, and social development. Noting that educational issues are not often addressed, a meeting was convened by the Harvard Family Research Project (HFRP) to present social marketing as a strategy to boost family involvement in education. Drawing from this meeting and from other research by HFRP, this article describes social marketing principles and shows how they apply to family-school partnerships. The article proposes that a formal introduction to the principles of social marketing can benefit those involved in such efforts. Seven principles are used as a framework for social marketing: (1) all strategies begin with the customer; (2) markets are carefully segmented; (3) consumer behavior is the bottom line; (4) intervention involves the four Ps: product, price, place, and promotion; (5) competition is always recognized; (6) market research is essential to designing, pretesting, and evaluating programs; and (7) programs must be cost effective. The article concludes by asserting that the principles of social marketing can help managers and educators develop strong and persuasive programs that can play an important role in the lives of many children. (KB)