Step one: Carrying out research

The first stage of any social marketing programme is to carry out research to identify the scale of the problem in your area. Local data provides a benchmark that you can use to measure behaviour change.

You can:

• Go to the ALC and look at:
  • Audience insights to help you understand more about higher risk drinkers
  • Segmentation, which gives you data that will be explored more fully in Step two
  • Best practice from across the regions
• Look at existing communications interventions that you have in place to tackle higher risk drinkers
• Conduct secondary research before carrying out your own primary research into the attitudes of your local audiences
• Agree Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for the evaluation stage (see Step four)

The difference between primary and secondary research

Secondary research looks into the target audience and issue. This may include desk research and stakeholder consultation.

Primary research is carried out directly with the target audience. For example:

• Face-to-face or telephone interviews
• Online or emailed questionnaires
• Vox pops or 'clip-board' research
• Focus groups