Step 4: Gather Credible Evidence

What to Measure for Social Marketing Programs?

Before we move on to Step 5, we'll spend some time talking about the specific things you might measure in a social marketing program.

Monitoring the Program
First, monitoring is especially important in a social marketing program. Monitoring is a type of process evaluation that keeps track of how the intervention is being implemented and allows you to get audience/ participant feedback to make adjustments in the intervention as needed. If you plan to monitor your program, you must also be prepared to make changes mid-course depending on what you find. You may want to monitor

Program implementation: Is the program being implemented the way you designed it?
Effectiveness of strategy and activities: Are they having the effect you expected?
Other possible changes: Are there any unintended consequences from your program? Any unrelated activities?
Feedback from both participants and implementers: What are the responses to the program or intervention? Does anyone see any problems that need to be fixed?
The program's reach: Are you reaching the people you intended to reach?