This paper attempts to understand disaster preparedness and management through social marketing framework. Disaster management as a field in India has gone through a paradigm shift from response to preparedness. However, there is a lack of basic understanding among the people about the value of their individual contributions that can increase the likelihood of positive outcomes post-disaster in the community. Social marketing tries to solve this problem by influencing target audience behaviour through effective messages to each target group that encourages a culture of disaster preparedness among them. The research shows that social marketing is a pragmatic tool for effective communication of disaster awareness and preparedness. Disaster management programmes can be more effective if they are customised as per the target audience and marketed using social marketing tools.