DH Social marketing evaluation tool

We know that social marketing can influence consumer health behaviours, but when we spend public money we have a responsibility to quantify the impact of our activity. This means evaluating the outcomes of our activity and identifying how relevant, effective and efficient it is in meeting our objectives. Evaluation helps us to continually learn and improve so that we can refine and invest in the activity that works - and stop the activity that doesn't work.

Evaluation isn't something that can be done every now and then - every piece of social marketing activity needs to be evaluated at some level. This tool gives you both the principles behind evaluation and the steps you need to put this into practice. A fuller version of this tool is available on the ALC website. The extended version is designed to be of particular use with larger and more complex campaigns.

Benefits of evaluation

When budgets are being cut, evaluation is often the first thing to go. Here are some of the benefits to help you justify why it is so important. Evaluation helps us to:

• Develop marketing interventions that are more effective in influencing consumer behaviours
• Try new methods and be bold about experimentation
• Improve efficiency by investing in the things that work best
• Reduce overspends and underspends by having better informed budgeting processes
• Forecast outcomes more accurately
• Manage expectations regarding outcomes more effectively
• Increase our consumer knowledge and insight through the evaluation process
• Enhance the credibility of social marketing